Matthew Fox says Racer X role was demanding

BY BRANDY McDONNELL

Published: October 8, 2008

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Between starring in the stranded-on-an-island TV drama "Lost” and the divergent assassination films "Smokin’ Aces” and "Vantage Point,” Matthew Fox relished the idea of making a family movie.

But bringing Larry and Andy Wachowski’s take on the 1960s anime series "Speed Racer” to the big screen turned out to be an intense ride.

Fox’s character, the mysterious Racer X, must pilot a heavily armed race car along loopy, roller coaster-style tracks and take on ninjas in fierce martial arts fights with equal aplomb. All while wearing a black leather suit, complete with hood and goggles.

"There’s so many ways that you wrapped in a leather suit can be very bad,” Fox said with a grin in summer interviews at Long Beach Convention Center. "But I did have complete faith in them (the Wachowskis) and I also had a really very strong idea immediately ... what this world would look like, and what I wanted to try to do within that leather suit that would be really cool.”

Released during the blockbuster-packed summer, the film was a critical and box-office flop. But it has gained some ground on DVD; it was No. 2 last week on Billboard’s DVD sales chart.

"The Matrix” masterminds set out to make a "live action anime” movie with inventive computer-generated effects and slam-bam races set in a candy-colored retro-futuristic world, said producer Joel Silver. But the Wachowskis also wanted to make a movie their nieces and nephews could see.

Although Fox, 42, didn’t watch the animated TV series growing up, making a family film was appealing.

"I have kids and haven’t done anything that I would feel comfortable with them really watching,” said the father of two. "I did some research on the original source material; I had definitely seen those images.”

Converting those iconic images to the movie screen was physically challenging. Fox, who studied tae kwon do in the past, underwent six weeks of training so he could do his own stunts.

"The stuff in the suit was particularly difficult,” he said. "The heat is really intense, and having your head covered. And the lenses would fog up really quickly, which led to a few misjudgments on my part, which led to a couple of stunt guys knocked on their a----.”

For the combative racing scenes, in which he had to live up to his character’s reputation as the "Harbinger of Boom,” he was tossed around in a gimbal, or hydraulic-powered cockpit. He got plenty of bruises, but ultimately it made the acting easier.

And the aches and pains paid off the day his son and daughter visited him on the set.

"I had the full gear on, and they both turned and did like this double-take. ... And when I walked onset to the do the thing, my little boy ... turned to my wife and said, ‘I want to be Racer X for Halloween this year.’”

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