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When you hear that Susan Sarandon is appearing in Speed Racer, the latest Wachowski brothers film, you might assume her teenage sons talked her into it. After all, most adolescent males revere Larry and Andy Wachowski to the point of idolatry. As it turns out, the actress was already a “huge fan of The Matrix” when the directors approached her to play the mother of Speed Racer’s main character. “My sons definitely encouraged me in that direction,” she says, “but I didn’t take much persuasion.”
Based on the 1960s cult Japanese cartoon series, the film centers on a crack professional race-car driver named Speed, played by Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild ), who is given the chance to sign with a monstrous corporation called Royalton Industries. He turns down the offer, remaining loyal to his family’s independent racing crew, led by his dad, Pops Racer (John Goodman). The politically active Sarandon appreciates the movie’s message. “It’s very much about the negative effect of corporate interest in sports,” she explains. “In my lifetime, it’s amazing how much the sports industry has changed—the megabucks, all the advertising in stadiums, the scandals in the sports world.”
