David Harbour always knew that director Neill Blomkamp (Elysium, District 9) would bring a genuinely exhilarating feel to Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story. But he didn’t realize how authentic his own experience would be while filming the movie.
“ I knew Neill would bring a visceral, blood pumping feel to the movie, ” says David Harbour, who plays Jack, a washed– up motorist who becomes Jann Mardenborough’s principal mastermind and teaches him the sways and outs of a real racecar. “ What I did n’t really know was how important we were going to be working with factual buses , factual motorists, factual tracks. We ’re in the buses , we ’re doing hole tire changes and gassing up the buses in real– time with other motorists blazing around the track at 200mph. It’s really me in a copter flying 30 bases above racecars. It all plays into the intensity of the experience – which is critical to making a film about people having a veritably violent experience, risking everything for what they love. ”
The actor says that at first, he was skeptical about a movie adaption of a racing simulator, because for him a movie isn’t like a videogame. “ You want to play the game, to control the characters, ” Harbour says. “ One of the effects I really liked about this movie is that it’s not a movie about a videogame – it’s a movie that incorporates a videogame into its narrative, which is about a youthful man with tremendous gift who does commodity inconceivable, and about a trainer who has been through a lot and come toughened – but who comes to believe in this sprat. ”
Gran Turismo Grounded on a True Story tells the story of videogamer- turned– racecar motorist Jann Mardenborough( played by Archie Madekwe). It’s the ultimate want fulfillment tale of a teenage Gran Turismo player whose gaming chops won a series of Nissan competitions to come an factual professional racecar motorist.
One of the reasons Harbour was attracted to the movie was in seeing Mardenborough’s sacrifice story reflected throughout the characters. “ Jack’s story is an sacrifice story as well, ” he says of his character. “ He’s suffered, but he still easily loves this sport and does n’t have the occasion to share in it at the position that he’d like to. ” And though he starts out pessimistic, Harbour says, Jack starts to see GT Academy as his chance. “ He does n’t believe in these kiddies, originally, but he starts to realize he has a real occasion to educate Jann. ”
Harbour’s respect for the thrilling style of the movie glasses his character’s understanding of the buses ’ power. “ On the face, the dynamic is fraught and tense, ” he says. “ These kiddies are coming out of the game world, and he does n’t believe in them. He’s a man of a different time, a man of mechanics, of machines, of effects that work a certain way, and the world is moving on. And he desperately wants them to understand the power of his world – the visceral, the real – that coming out of the defenses into this physical world has value. ”
Watch the inspiring true story of videogamer-turned-racecar driver Jann Mardenborough in Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story, opening in Philippine cinemas August 30.
