The life of Enzo Ferrari was one filled with excitement, love and tragedy while he was at the helm of the Italian motor racing and luxury sports car company that bears his name.
The story of one crucial year of his life made its way to movie theaters on Christmas, Dec. 25, with Adam Driver in the lead role.
Director Michael Mann's sports drama "Ferrari" takes place in the summer of 1957. Based on "Enzo Ferrari: The Man, the Cars, the Races, the Machine" by Brock Yates, the film follows Enzo Ferrari as he faces bankruptcy that threatens the business he and his wife, Laura, built 10 years earlier.
Additionally, a year after the death of their only son, the couple's marriage is crumbling — especially after Laura discovers that Enzo has a son, Piero, with his longtime mistress, Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley).
The film depicts the couple's struggle to keep their business and marriage alive, as well as Enzo's push for Ferrari to win the Mille Miglia, a punishing, 1,000-mile motorsport race across Italy.
Patrick Dempsey, Sarah Gadon, Jack O’Connell and Gabriel Leone co-star in the film, which is now in theaters.
Below, see the cast and the real-life figures they portray in the film.
Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari
Adam Driver embodies Enzo Ferrari, Italian accent, salt and pepper hair and all. The Modena, Italy-born former race car driver founded the company in 1947, according to Ferrari.com. That same year, Ferrari's car won the Rome Grand Prix, elevating its status as a contender in Formula One racing.
Ferrari and his wife, Laura, were at the helm of the company. The pair were married from 1923 until her death in 1978. They had one son together, Dino, who died in 1956 from muscular dystrophy. The film depicts their marital woes as their company was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Driver told TODAY.com that Ferrari’s son, Piero, a Ferrari company executive whose mother was Enzo's longtime mistress, “literally opened the doors to Enzo Ferrari’s life and his apartment” to help him get into character.
“Shooting in the place was massively helpful. Piero was a big influence. Going to the factory, some of the workers were either related to or were there when (Enzo was alive)," Driver said.
Driver, who was in his late 30s when the movie was shot, said he spent two hours in the hair and makeup chair every day to become the 59-year-old Italian magnate.
He also said that seeing Ferrari’s letters to important clients showed the late car mogul's no-nonsense mindset.
“There’s a lot of letters to kings and diplomats asking what were the status on their Ferrari (cars), and him responding, ‘You’ll get it when I get it to you,’” Driver said.
“It was all in purple ink because he was very paranoid about people duplicating a signature, so it just speaks to his mindset, little details like that."
Penélope Cruz as Laura Ferrari
Penélope Cruz, 49, takes on the role of Laura Ferrari, wife of Enzo Ferrari and co-owner of the Ferrari company. She was a 50/50 partner in the Ferrari factory.
The Spanish actor told TODAY.com that part of her research into the role included speaking to a close friend of the couple's, a doctor who had treated them both.
Cruz shared that the friend had love letters written by Laura and, at first, was apprehensive to share them.
“But after a few meetings, he called me and said, ‘You know what, I have something that I want you to see,’” she said. “And he gave me pieces of these love letters between Laura and Enzo that gave me so much information about their relationship and their love and their connection and their pain.”
Cruz added that the Ferraris' relationship was clearly "very tortured" after the death of their child.
"But you can also see in the only love scene that ... there's still a very deep connection that is now mainly through that pain and that loss," she said.
Enzo and Laura Ferrari remained married until her death in 1978.
Shailene Woodley as Lina Lardi
Shailene Woodley portrays Lina Lardi, Enzo Ferrari's lover and the mother of his only surviving son, Piero.
Lardi met Enzo Ferrari around the time of World War II. Their son, Piero, was born in 1945, and Lardi raised him as a single mother in Castelvetro, Italy.
Enzo Ferrari supported Lardi and their son while he was still married to Laura — largely behind his wife's back. Following Laura Ferrari's death, Enzo and Lardi remained together until he died in 1988.
“She very much felt like someone who walked beside him,” Woodley told TODAY.com of her character.
“It is rare to see two people who understand something is not going to look a certain way, and it’s not going to be a certain way, but there’s acceptance in that and there’s love in it,” she added.
Today, Piero Ferrari, 78, is vice chairman and 10% owner of Ferrari, according to Forbes.
Sarah Gadon as Linda Christian
Canadian actor Sarah Gadon takes on the role of 1940s Hollywood starlet Linda Christian.
Born in Mexico, Christian signed a contract with MGM, making her film debut in the musical "Up In Arms," according to The Associated Press. She became the first Bond girl after appearing in the 1952 TV adaptation of "Casino Royale."
She was married to actors Edmund Purdom and Tyrone Power. However, "Ferrari" showcases her relationship with Spanish racing driver Alfonso de Portago and the "kiss of death," a photograph that shows her kissing the racer during a brief stop just before he died in a fatal crash. Read more on that below.
Gabriel Leone as Alfonso de Portago
Alfonso de Portago was the son of a Spanish aristocrat father and a wealthy American mother who drove for Ferrari during the Mille Miglia, according to History.com.
De Portago was competing in the thousand-mile race near Mantua when his Ferrari 335 S's tire was punctured, sending him flying off the road.
The crash killed him and navigator Edmund Nelson, as well as nine spectators in the crowd, four of them children, according to Ferrari.com.
Jack O’Connell as Peter Collins
Actor Jack O'Connell ("Skins," "Unbroken") plays English driver Peter Collins, who was on team Ferrari competing in the 1957 Mille Miglia race. Having just joined the Ferrari team a year prior, Collins finished the race in second place.
A year later, Collins died at the age of 26 during the 1958 German Grand Prix when was thrown from his car in a crash and struck a tree.
According to Ferrari.com, Collins was a favorite of Enzo Ferrari and "showed great kindness" to his and Laura's late son.
"Enzo and his wife Laura turned to Collins for solace, treating him almost as a surrogate son" after Dino's death, the site reports.
Patrick Dempsey as Piero Taruffi
Patrick Dempsey (and his bleached blond locks) portray Italian driver Piero Taruffi.
Known as "the Silver Fox," Taruffi was the winner of the 1957 Mille Miglia at the age of 51.
Taruffi had already raced the Mille Miglia 13 times without winning and had promised his wife, Isabella, before the final race that he would retire from competing if he won.
It was a role Dempsey likely stepped into with ease. The 57-year-old actor and recent "Sexiest Man Alive" has been racing cars for decades and owns a motorsports company, Dempsey Racing.