Adam Driver’s predilection for playing Italians has become a meme, but he would very much like to be excluded from the internet’s narrative.
Driver, 40, revealed on the Monday, January 1, episode of the “SmartLess” podcast that he would be asked about playing Italians ahead of the press tour for Ferrari, which hit theaters last month. In the film, Driver plays Enzo Ferrari, the Italian entrepreneur who founded the Ferrari car company. Directed by Michael Mann, the movie debuted just two years after Driver played Italian businessman Maurizio Gucci in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci.
“So many people have been like, ‘How many Italians?’ I’m like, it’s just kind of worked out that way,” Driver said on Monday. “But I’m like, you know, it’s Ridley and it’s Michael, and they’re in my mind some of the best filmmakers. Who gives a s–t that it was two Italians back-to-back?”
Driver admitted that the link between the two movies is “a good example of not being strategic” about his career in a way that he “probably should” — and it may have convinced him not to play any more Italians.
“I’m surprised how much it comes up,” said the actor, whose family is from Arkansas and Indiana. “It’s like, ‘You have a thing,’ and I’m like, ‘It’s two! It’s two Italians!’ It’s just two.”
Driver went on to reiterate that he was most excited to work with iconic directors Mann, 80, and Scott, 86, and cared somewhat less about who exactly he’d be playing in their films.
“Like, ‘What is it with Italy?’ I mean, it’s less to do with Italy, although I like it,” he explained. “It’s more about Ridley Scott and Michael Mann and the projects themselves. Italy is not the first thing on my mind.”
The podcast interview wasn’t the first time Driver found himself on the defensive for Ferrari, which also stars Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley and Patrick Dempsey. In November 2023, clapped back when an audience member at a screening in Poland told the actor that the crash scenes in the film looked “cheesy” and “pretty harsh.”
When asked what he thinks of such criticism, Driver replied, “F–k you, I don’t know. Next question.”
Last month, Driver praised Mann’s directing skills in an interview with Moviefone. “I think he is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, and his movies I’ve returned to again and again, and they’ve been a massive inspiration for me,” the Girls alum said. “He has incredible taste, and I’m not saying that because I got the part, but his tastes in subject matter and how he shoots things, I love. So, when you trust a director’s taste, you feel way more confident that they’re making the movie that they want to make.”
Ferrari is in theaters now.
