After starring in Sean Penn's outdoor epic Into the Wild, Emile Hirsch makes a hard left turn to take the lead in the Wachowski's highly anticipated, visually stunning, high-octane big screen adaptation of Speed Racer. In what looks to be yet another film where the Wachowski's raise the bar for movie visuals, Hirsch plays the title character Speed, a racing natural who sets out to win the cross-country rally The Crucible with the help of his girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci) and one-time rival Racer X (Matthew Fox).

At the film's recent press junket in L.A., The Deadbolt was on-hand to listen to Emile Hirsch dish the dirt on everything from his driving skills and working with green screen to his fight training, working with the Wachowskis, and what fans can expect in the way of special effects surprises.

Emile Hirsch on his driving scenes in Speed Racer:

"When I was in Europe, I didn’t get behind the wheel of a car the entire time. It was all green screen. It was crazy. I mean, it was like being in a warehouse with green walls everywhere and imagining this whole fantasy world around you. It was a mental challenge."

Hirsch on the advantage of having real actors around when working in green screen:

"We also had the advantage, too, that we’re not making the movie with like Jar Jar Binks up in it. So we didn’t have to look at an "X" and talk to it and pretend it was there. We had, for the most part, a realm of real people, which is very helpful. Let’s say the background is fake, you could just talk to your acting partner and you guys are there for each other and that’s very helpful. If I had to talk to a person that wasn’t there, I’d have some serious issues."

On the importance of back stories when doing cartoon characters:

"It’s absolutely not important at all. [laughs] I think that it was more about getting his vibe down. You know, the back story is fairly well described in the script, so that was kind of there. But it was more about getting down, 'What kind of vibe does Speed have? What kind of guy is he?' And it was really kind of finding out that he’s a very sweet natured, cooler-than-cool, bad-ass kind of guy who’s very by-the-book in a lot of ways. Not into cheaters, he likes things done the right way, and he’s got certain morals that he’s not willing to compromise, no matter what. He does not side with the evil corporate conglomerate of Royalton. He sticks to the old fashioned, independent racing ways."

Hirsch on the stunts and fight training:

"It was fun to go through the fight training with stunt coordinators, Chad and Dave. Those guys are tough, they really put me through the ringer with the training and such. I mean, you get tired - you finish an hour of punching and kicking and stuff. And I didn’t want to hit them. That was their problem because I was like, ‘God, I don’t want to hurt these guys. These guys are just doing their job and they want me to punch them in the stomach. They don’t have pads on or anything.’ And maybe I was giving myself too much credit for how much force I had in a blow, but eventually they would start doing little things. Like we would be sparring and they’d slap me a little bit like, ‘Come on, hit me!’ I’d be like, ‘No, no,’ and they’d hit me again. I’d be like, ‘Deh,’ and I’d actually punch them and they’d be like, ‘Gooood!’. It was the emperor, ‘I can feel your anger.’ You know, they were trying to get to me."

Emile Hirsch on screening the movie with an audience:

"I had seen it once before, it was 10% done and it was totally different just in terms of visually. And then you really realize how much the special effects matter when you see it in its finished form. It looks so amazing. It’s like jaw-dropping. You know, I try to enjoy the audience. I didn’t know it was critics and [others] at our screening, but usually you just try to get the vibe and use the positive energy. I love watching movies with a big audience. I think everybody does, it’s just more fun. You go to a big summer movie on opening Friday and there’s no one in there, you’re the only one sitting in the theater, how boring would that be? It doesn’t matter how good the movie is, it’s all about having the huge crowd, whooping and going crazy."

Hirsch on working with the Wachowski brothers:

"They’re so wonderful. I mean they’re just guys that are super creative, super smart, always dazzling you with their intelligence, and they have a very specific vision for the movie. I think that they knew in their heads the kind of movie they wanted to make from the beginning. And I have a lot of respect for them. I was a huge admirer of The Matrix trilogy. The first Matrix I saw when I was thirteen and I was so loving it and it was one of those mind-blowing theater experiences for me. So as soon as I heard they were making Speed Racer, which was also a show that I loved growing up on Cartoon Network - they were replaying it - it was just that right combination, a Molotov cocktail."

On the special effects surprises:

"So much of it is such a surprise. I mean the level of what the visuals do. The shots when they’re flying through Cosmopolis, it’s all 2-D buildings in the background. You see them and it’s almost like the Simpsons titles when they’re passing through Springfield. All of the buildings are 2-D when they’re all going up and down. And when you see the sand dunes in the Cosacristo, the dunes are actually moving like they’re alive - they’re flowing like they’re water. There’s just these really interesting takes on things that are done in a lot movies and you really haven’t seen them before."

Emile Hirsch on working with Sean Penn again as a director in the future:

"I hope so. Sean is just a one of a kind guy. I love Sean and he’s just been so educational for me in terms of being a person, an actor, an artist - everything. And he’s a really talented guy and I thought he was talented as a director. Then I got to work with him as an actor and I was like, ‘Wow!' It was like a whole new side of Sean that I never knew and it’s funny because most people know him as an actor. But I had absolutely no idea in any way what it would be like to work with him as an actor, I only knew him as the director. We got along great. We had a really good rapport on set and we just had a great time, and I think it’s going to be a really good film [Milk]."