How “Ferrari” star Penelope Cruz and director Michael Mann rescued the history of Laura Ferrari

The two unpack her powerful performance in the new film.

Every advertisement for Michael Mann’s new movie (his first in eight years) contains that big Italian name, emblazoned in red: Ferrari. Since it’s usually accompanied by a shot of Adam Driver wearing sunglasses and old-age makeup, you’d be forgiven for assuming that the movie was entirely focused on Italian carmaker Enzo Ferrari.

Far from it. Just as important to the film is Enzo’s wife Laura Ferrari, played by Oscar-winner Penelope Cruz in a powerful performance. (The exclusive featurette above features some of Cruz’s key scenes in the film.)

When Ferrari opens, Laura is still reeling from the death of their son Dino — and doesn’t even know that Enzo has since fathered another child with his mistress, Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley). Cruz and Mann both wanted to make sure Laura was a key character in Ferrari, but it was easier said than done, even though they were filming in the Italian city of Modena where their subjects had actually lived.

“Nobody knew about Laura,” Cruz tells EW. “So we started to do research together. We ended up looking for people who knew her, and even talking to strangers in the street, because there was very little written about her. There was no video or audio of her, nothing.”

To Cruz’s dismay, she says “all I heard about her was, ‘she was crazy. She was difficult. She was a witch. People were scared of her.’ So I said, 'We have to dig deeper and see who this woman really was.' It became a personal need for Michael and for myself to give her a voice.”

Cruz understands that the people of Modena take pride in the Ferrari company and don’t want to discredit Enzo. But her and Mann’s research confirmed that Laura was integral to the history of Ferrari, having pawned a wedding gift for much-needed capital early on — a gesture that Enzo never forgot, even if his neighbors did.

“This woman was involved from day one,” Cruz says. “If she had such a difficult personality, it was because of her loss and her deep pain, her struggle to make it through the end of the day each day. It represents so many women around the world still living in very similar situations today.”

Their hard work has paid off. When Mann spoke with EW about Ferrari earlier this year, he noted he was pleasantly surprised by how female viewers were responding to Cruz’s performance and the character of Laura.

“Penelope's performance is so powerful,” Mann says. “It is a power that I think comes from her life experience, as well as her sensibility and talent. There’s a kind of communion that happens among women who have lived life, who've had children and who've lost children, who've held together a home through bad marriages, who have suffered loss. They really connect to Laura, and it’s really powerful. And as much as I thought that people would connect to her in general, I was pleasantly surprised at the response of women over 30 to that character. It's like she's speaking to them in a very special way.”

Luckily, some Modena residents did finally help Cruz in her quest to understand Laura — even providing firsthand historical documents.

“I found the people who didn't want her story told, but I also found people that loved her,” Cruz says. “For example, their doctor. In our first meeting, he didn't want to share with me that he had private letters, love letters, between Enzo and Laura. At our third meeting, he said, ‘You know what? I think I want to show something to you.’ He gave me copies of these letters and they were so useful for me to understand this love, this relationship that they had.”

Ferrari hits theaters on Dec. 25.

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Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.