Damon and Bale in "Ford v. Ferrari"

It's Sunday morning on CBS here again it's Jane Pauley looks at a classic Shelby gt350 designed by the late Carroll Shelby her skills are front and center in a new movie Ford vs. Ferrari starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale as fast friends very fast friends here's Tracy Smith 1960s Galaxies In the early 1960s, Ford offered almost everything you could want in a car, except maybe the thrill of a car new size with a new size price. The Ford Falcon back then there was nothing very sexy about owning a Ford, so in an attempt to attract younger people.

Ford customers tried to buy a company that was then nothing if not sexy, as Ferrari now made some of the fastest and most beautiful cars on the planet and in 1963 the Ford Motor Company was willing to write a check to all the Italian automakers. , but in the end Enzo Ferrari said something in Italian that took many syllables but ultimately translated as no henry

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ii It was said that the CEO of Ford was humiliated so humiliated that he decided to build a supercar that could beat Ferrari in a race that They dominated the 24 Hours of LeMans for years this is the fantastic Ford GT Ford spent countless millions on efforts and failed in 1964 and 65 so they decided to give it one last chance in 1966 they were four against Ferrari and now it's a movie Christian Bale is behind the wheel as legendary driver Ken Miles and Matt Damon plays the automotive artist who was hired to defeat Ferrari Carroll Shelby are you ready I was born ready mr.

Shelby, I know you're not a car guy. Has this made you appreciate these things a little more? These ones we're about to see are so beautiful that we met the two stars at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles surrounded by cars that could cost more. than your house, how much do you look like Carroll Shelby? I don't think I look like him at all. He was this larger than life guy who, even if he beat you up in a business, somehow you still loved him. and I'm not like that, I'm very different from that, my name is Carol Shelby and performance is my business.

Shelby is best known for cars named after him, such as the Shelby Cobra. Carol Shelby died in 2012, but her name still looms large in the automotive world and on the side of Shelby International near Los Angeles how much was at stake in this race for your grandfather was big you know this was really important Erin Shelby He says that for his grandfather the 1966 LeMond race meant all he had a lot of pressure on him was 66 that or they're done and when you say they're done, what do you mean what would have happened? Do you think if he had lost?

I think Ford would have stopped funding the program. I was still there at that time too. help finance Shelby here in Los Angeles and build the remaining Mustangs and Cobras as well, and I think a lot of that could have stopped if they hadn't been successful in '66, so Shelby could have done the right thing. Wow at Carroll Shelby. Keep in mind the right car was nothing without the right driver is Ken Miles and the most right driver I knew was Britt Ken Miles who not only drove the cars but also helped turn them into what they became speed weapons finely tuned for the drivers in these drivers.

It all comes down not only to the car, but also how you drive to it. Kent was very nice to the car, very nice to the car. Charlie gave you Ken Miles, the crew chief, what was Ken Miles like? Domingo is a very, very nice guy if you do. If you had any kind of problem with what you were doing, he would show you how to handle it and take care of it. He was a great guy. I mean, he loved him. What did you like about him? He was so friendly and so passionate. about everything he did, it was great to be close to what the dynamic was like between Carole and Ken, unlike in the movie, it seemed to me that they were great friends.

I never saw them arguing, nothing like that, there were no fist fights and the actors who had never worked together before seemed to have captured that chemistry. I know their paths have crossed over the years, but what they think of each other, I tell you, I think Matt and I have been very kind, you know, crossing very close paths. had the same agent for decades. I know you think I'm making this up. I'm very grateful to Matt because he wouldn't have a career if it weren't for the roles he left behind. There were a lot of roles where I was told, oh.

Well, Matt doesn't want to do it, so it all worked out. What about the bail? Joking apart. Damon actually turned down the role of Dicky Eklund in The Wrestler, a role for which Christian Bale took home an Academy Award, something both guys have had in abundance. Oscar attention over the years, with a bail that earned him a nomination last January for his incredibly and eerily close embodiment of Vice President Dick Cheney's foreign policy and when he finished playing the heavyweight American vice president , there was nothing there about my Christian Bale trunk, which is actually British and skinny. to become British and thin again, did you learn from each other in this process?

I had a great time watching it. He has incredible monk-like discipline. He went from Dick Cheney to this guy, so he had to lose 70 pounds. He had to get into the car, does it become more difficult to make that physical transformation? Yes, I keep saying I'm done. Do you really think he's done? Yeah, now I think psycho, you know when you're on set and he's like oh wait? It's my cardiologist talking about cardiac arrest in the movie, you actually get the feeling that you're in the car with him thanks to some pretty creative camera work, so you get an idea of ​​how dangerous car racing can be when the drivers push themselves and their cars to that place where there could only be victory or disaster, we won't spoil the ending for you, but to paraphrase Ernest Hemingway, all true stories end in death and Ford versus Ferrari is based on a true story, If a movie works, you end up feeling a lot. of gratitude to all the people who worked on this because it's hard work a lot like putting together a race car, yeah come on, except we're not risking a life, yeah, we're lighter, we work faster and that doesn't work, we are more unpleasant.

Is it about this movie that you want people to see well? It's a beautiful story and hopefully it's an opportunity for everyone to get together in a dark movie theater and watch a story about friendship that's a nice thing to put out into the world. At this point you could say that Ford versus Ferrari isn't really about a car race, but about ingenuity, teamwork and perseverance, things that everyone can get behind.