Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Michael Mann and more of the cast and crew of Ferrari made their way onto the red carpet on Friday for the closing night of the 61st annual New York Film Festival.

The film brings to the big screen a few difficult months of Enzo Ferrari (Driver) life, as he balances two families and his family’s company finds itself on the brink of going bankrupt.

Mann, the filmmaker behind films like The Insider and The Last of the Mohicans, felt the movie would be impossible to make because Formula 1 wasn’t always appreciated in the United States. But, in 2019, when Netflix released Formula 1: Drive to Survive, a docuseries about the high-octane sport, that changed. Now, the U.S. is one of the biggest Formula 1 venues in the world.

“This is not a racing movie,” Mann told The Hollywood Reporter. “This is really a movie behind racing, behind Ferrari. Three very torrid months in the life of Ferrari, his wife, Laura [played by Cruz], both in grief over the death of their son, Dino, a year earlier. Then also, a second family that he has that she doesn’t know about, with Lina Lardi [Woodley] and a 12-year-old boy Piero, who is now Piero Ferrari. And all of which comes to the surface at a moment in time in which the company is going bankrupt.”

The Oscar-nominated director also opened up about how he knew that Driver and Cruz were the ideal stars to lead Ferrari. Once he began talking to the actors about their respective roles, he knew almost immediately that he wanted them.

“Adam because I sensed, sitting across from him at a table at Chateau Marmont, the tone, the artistic integrity,” Mann explained. “You see it in somebody’s eyes if you’re a director, that dedication, the commitment. Adam’s absolutely the real deal.”

Penelope Cruz

He continued, “Penélope possesses this natural, primitive — in a great way — primitive kind of lifeforce where she just speaks her mind. I’ve known her for a long time, but when we were discussing Laura on a Zoom, within five minutes, I knew, ‘She’s Laura, and there was nobody else on the planet who could be Laura better than she could.’”

Mann and Driver’s involvement in the film were two of the main reasons Cruz wanted to be a part of Ferrari, she shared. Not to mention, the challenge of taking on the role of someone like Laura Ferrari was enticing for the Oscar winner.

Their scenes weren’t always easy. There were times during production when it was nearly 100 degrees in Italy, and the characters were dressed in winter clothes, with their wigs, full makeup and prosthetics, reciting lines for scenes that were eight pages long. But Cruz didn’t mind. She explained that when roles are more difficult for her, they make her feel even happier at the end of the day because she did it.

Ferrari premiered at Venice Fest , and that meant a lot to Gabriel Leone. The up-and-coming actor portrays real-life driver Alfonso De Portago, who tragically died after his Ferrari 335 S crashed near a small Italian village, killing him, his navigator and nine spectators.

“The standing ovation was amazing, especially in Venice, because you’re talking about an Italian icon,” he noted. “And we shot in Italy, we shot in Modena. So, to know that people that were at that festival in Italy had a great experience. It’s phenomenal.”

Sarah Gadon, who plays Linda Christian in the upcoming biopic, explained that actors need to be respected. “I think our demands are extremely reasonable, given the current climate that we’re all living in,” she said. “Our demands need to be met.”

Ferrari hits theaters December 25.