Page 117 - The Book For Men Fall/Winter 2023

so much,” he jokes.
But getting it right is important to Mann, a perfectionist who makes
movies about other perfectionists. There’s a lot of the Ferrari founder in Mann and a lot of Mann in his characterization of Ferrari, Dempsey observes, marvelling at the director’s level of preparation and attention to detail. “He records every conversation. And then what he does is have it typed out, so he has a record of it and he can go back to it. He works with these copious notes. He’s relentless when he wants something.” Demanding as the filmmaker is, Dempsey says that Mann is also the first to celebrate his collaborators when they get something right.
It’s not lost on Dempsey that Mann makes films about men who define themselves by what they do and that as an actual racing driver he lends a unique authenticity to the film. He balks at the suggestion that this authenticity is exclusive to his dual experience as both driver and actor, though. “Whether you’re a person who makes shoes or you’re a person who builds furniture or you’re a carpenter,” he says, “you are a craftsperson: you take pride in your work. It gives you your identity. I think that applies to filmmaking.”
Ferrari is coming out amidst a renaissance for motorsports, which Dempsey credits in part to the success of Netflix’s documentary series Formula 1: Drive to Survive. He is both heartened and bemused by the public’s rekindled romance with racing. “I always have a twinkle in my eye,” he says with a hint of mischief, when fans of the show tell him it’s inspired them to start racing. “I say, okay, good luck to you.” For Dempsey, moving from a childhood love of cars — instilled by watching the Indy 500 with his father — and a competi- tive background in skiing to a career in racing was largely an education in an unforgiving business. “I bought a race team that was going bankrupt and that
should have warned me going into the whole thing that it was a money pit,” he says when I ask what he knows about racing that he didn’t when his wife first gifted him a three-day competition certificate to Skip Barber Racing School. “I had to work very hard and I had to do a lot of self-funding. And thank God I was on a very successful show that allowed me to do that.” Like any tough sport, racing has become more viable and more rewarding, Dempsey notes, as he’s put in the seat time while building for rewarding sponsorships. He credits his professional affiliations with Porsche and TAG Heuer for not only helping him navigate the treacherous financial curves of motorsports but teaching him about “creating the right culture and the right atmosphere” within a team.
As for whether racing is a purer experience than acting, despite the over- lapping business machinations of the two industries, Dempsey is circumspect. It’s true, he says, that the potential to be hurt in racing creates an urgency that’s less present in filmmaking, but he maintains that there’s a similarity between the transcendent quality of racing and being in front of the camera when one is in the moment. “There is a spirituality to it that transcends everyday life,” he says of both professions, noting that in acting it’s about listening and responding and blocking everything else out, while in driving, “you want to be so connected to your car that it’s an extension of your thought; that it becomes instinctual.” He sounds, I tell him, like a Michael Mann character — particu- larly Al Pacino’s lawman Vincent Hanna in Heat, who tells his long-suffering wife that he needs to hold onto his angst because it keeps him “sharp, on the edge, where I gotta be.” “It’s being present,” Dempsey says simply. “You go into a different consciousness, and then when you have those moments when everything is working — and they’re few and far between — it is magical. And that’s where you want to be able to live.”
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