Ryan Phillippe, Michael Cimino: 'Motorheads' characters mature by repairing cars
1 of 5 | Ryan Phillippe stars in "Motorheads," on Prime Video Tuesday. Photo courtesy of Prime
LOS ANGELES, May 20 (UPI) -- Ryan Phillippe and Michael Cimino say their new show, Motorheads, premiering Tuesday on Prime Video, shows teenagers maturing through working on cars.
Phillippe, 50, plays Logan Maddox, a mechanic whose sister, Samantha (Nathalie Torres), moves back to their hometown with her two children, daughter Caitlyn (Melissa Collazo) and son Zac (Cimino). Logan lets Zac and his friends use his shop to fix up their cars, but can't stop them from racing against their classmates.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Phillippe and Cimino agreed that auto work and other crafts teach valuable skills and lessons.
"It requires commitment and patience," Phillippe said. "Any time kids have a project that means something, that they're passionate about, is a good point of focus."
For Phillippe, prior to acting, that focus was Tae Kwon Do and Aikido, which he still practices.
"When I was very young and I got into martial arts, that taught me a lot of discipline and focus," he said.
Cimino, 25, added that the process of maturing also requires making mistakes from which one can learn, something Zac does. Cimino previously played high schoolers in the series Love, Victor and Never Have I Ever, and in films like Senior Year.
"The way he's learning how to express himself is through racing and honestly, through making those mistakes and hanging out with the wrong people," Cimino said. "Zac is very much trying to find his own path and forge his way."
Cimino and his character share an interest in cars. The week of his interview, Cimino had completed an auto project of his own.
"I have two Miatas and there was one I was working on this week," he said. "I was changing the brakes and upgrading it and I just got it running again."
Cimino praised the Mazda Miata's weight distribution, which he said makes it more maneuverable than other models.
"I think there's something fun about driving a slow car fast," he said. "You don't need a really fast car to enjoy ripping through the canyons."
The actors also appreciate how Motorheads shows how the characters improve with practice. Cimino believes in the rule, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, that mastery takes thousands of hours of experience.
"I still take acting class," Cimino said. "I really find it interesting to work with people like Ryan or people that just have way more experience than me. I feel like I learned so much from that."
Phillippe agreed with that lesson. He was a teenager when he debuted on the soap opera One Life to Live in 1993, and appeared in movies from Crimson Tide and Crash to Gosford Park and Macgruber in his 20s and 30s.
"Natural talent will only take you so far," Phillippe said. "Everything has to be honed and it has to be cultivated from that point."
When it came to driving on Motorheads, Cimino let the stunt drivers handle the scenes. Though Cimino obtained a Level 2 stunt driving certification, he understood the production not allowing its lead actors behind the wheel.
"With insurance and everything like that, realistically it's more wise to let someone else drive," Cimino said. "I'm hoping for the day that I can really hop behind the wheel and show my stuff."
Cimino was allowed to drive Dottie, a training vehicle the characters practice on in a junkyard.
"When I was driving it, we had a bunch of cameras strapped to it so like you better drive carefully," Cimino said. "Like, don't crash this car now because there's a bunch of cameras on it. So I had to drive it very slowly."
Having been a part of teen ensembles like Cruel Intentions and I Know What You Did Last Summer, Phillippe enjoyed his new role as a mentor.
"I felt a little bit like Yoda on set sometimes," he joked. "It's a great group of kids. It's infectious to be around that kind of energy. I like to share whatever I can in regards to my experience to help them with where they're headed. So it's a really nice position to be in."
Those two Phillippe movies in particular have been revived with new casts: Prime Video produced a Cruel Intentions series last year and a new I Know What You Did Last Summer movie opens this summer.
Jennifer Love Hewitt reprises her role from the original I Know What You Did Last Summer, in which Phillippe's character did not survive.
"It certainly makes me feel a little bit like a dinosaur, the fact that they're remaking so many projects that I've been in," Phillippe said. "It's certainly a compliment for the originals that we made and I'm curious to see what the new I Know What You Did Last Summer movie is like. It's always fun to see who they cast and which direction they go to modernize."
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