Making Senna (2024)

[bunniefuu]

[man 1 in Portuguese]

I kept looking at myself,

searching for Senna inside me.

Thus, the importance of this deep dive.

This search for the essence of Ayrton.

I'm lending my body, my emotions,

to tell his story.

It's very important

that we make a pact that,

during those six episodes,

I will be Ayrton.

[engine roaring]

[orchestral music plays]

[engine revving]

[commentator in English]

Da Silva, a world champion

[in Portuguese] Why is it that,

amongst so many extraordinary drivers,

F1 has only had one hero to date,

and that hero is Ayrton Senna?

[commentator] Go, Ayrton, go.

This series gives the audience

the opportunity to get to know

the man behind the myth.

Many race drivers refer to Ayrton

as an unrivalled race driver.

[in English] I knew more about Senna

than I did about Prost.

[in Portuguese] When we talk about

Ayrton Senna, we're talking about a force.

The guy filled this country with joy.

[all] Champion!

Suddenly, we saw ourselves

as a powerhouse,

as someone who could succeed.

There was a feeling of being Brazilian

when watching those victories.

It was impossible not to get goosebumps,

we still do even now.

This heroic force, his determination,

all that creates a character

that goes beyond

those who are simply Formula 1 fans,

motorsport fans, or Senna fans.

[in English] I refuse to walk away

from the fight.

[in Portuguese] One of

the biggest challenges we had

was telling an international story

without going to all those places.

We wanted to create a production strategy

to cover this variety of sets,

the variety of places around the world.

We are in Derry pretending it's England.

It's the first scene,

when they arrive in the United Kingdom.

[in English] Action!

[in Portuguese] The cars are

very important to portray an era.

So we dial back to 1981 and 1983,

and later today we'll redo this scene,

switching a few vehicles,

making some more modern,

to show the passage of time.

We had to come here

to portray this atmosphere,

the distance from family, friends,

the loneliness that he experienced here.

Wow, it's freezing!

Whose idea was this?

It's not that cold, I'm going for a swim.

She's lying down, and then sits up.

[Llian Souza] What if we lived closer

to my parents?

[Mella in English] There's always two sets

running at the same time, at least.

Last week someone said we were filming

three different countries at once.

[in Portuguese]

The project as a whole is impressive.

It's a big challenge.

It's w*r logistics.

I remember looking at the filming schedule

and I'd never seen anything like it.

I knew it'd be confusing to speak

three, four languages at the same time.

And it really was.

When I arrived at the set,

my impression was,

"Wow! It's a huge production!" You know?

We have a huge set here.

Huge. I've never been to a set

with so many people.

I think it was a good idea to sh**t

most of the exterior scenes

in Argentina and Uruguay,

where we were able to replicate

places where he lived,

in and outside of the race tracks.

[Rezende] In terms of architecture,

we were able to sh**t

many European scenes there.

We found these race tracks frozen in time.

And we turned those race tracks,

in a way, into our studio.

With a lot of visual effects work

in post-production,

we turned those places

into race tracks all over the world.

[Amorim in English] Action!

[Rezende in Portuguese]

So we made Suzuka, mola, Estoril.

English race tracks.

Six different countries

in the same race track.

It was crazy.

It takes a lot of engineering

to build the race tracks and the races

in a way that the viewers don't see

any of what I'm talking about.

That these are secrets

they will only find out later.

We had go-kart training

two, three times a week.

More than learning how to drive a go-kart,

it was to get used to the experience,

get familiar with this feeling

of being in the race, the tracks,

the car and everything involved.

The adrenaline,

the danger, fear,

accidents, spinning around.

[in English] We have amazing cars

that have been reproduced,

that people are gonna look

and wonder where we got these cars from

and how we were able to do

these amazing races with them.

[in Portuguese]

We built 22 replicas of the cars

that Senna used to drive.

His main rivals' cars,

from Formula Ford to Formula 1.

[in English] The exact McLaren

of Senna and Prost, it was insane

Like, the exact car, there.

I know they'd said,

"Oh, we're building these cars."

And I was like, "Yeah, cool."

And there's an actual Formula 1 car there.

[in Portuguese] It was very exciting,

because we were there

looking at the car Senna raced in.

[in English] Tulio Crespi and his family

did this phenomenal job

recreating these things,

and they performed so well.

[in Spanish] We had the possibility

of making a Formula Ford car,

then we concluded

we could make a Formula 2 car,

then a Formula 3 car,

then we could make a Formula 1 car.

The cars became the stars of the series.

The design was born

out of a great challenge,

which was being able to place the engines,

the bodies, the chassis

in a car that would transform

throughout the filming.

Several cars that transformed

into others over the years.

[man 2 in Portuguese] Besides

the replicas, we created digital cars,

so we adopted a method we called "naked."

We removed what we called the "bubble"

of the car and left just the chassis,

full of stickers so the post-production

would have references to track.

That way, it was possible

to use any car in any race.

The race scenes were shot with stuntmen,

because of the big risks, obviously.

It was very dangerous for us,

actors, with no experience

driving race cars, let alone F1 cars

with all that structure, wings.

[in Spanish] We shot a lot of scenes

in the rain,

with the Toleman, on a really wet track.

We were able to go

full throttle on the curves

and really experience something unique.

[in Portuguese] For those who know

the cars, the sounds,

they'll be pleasantly surprised

to see that we were careful

to make things really faithful

to how they were at the time.

We had to find those period cars

and record their sounds.

[engine revving]

[Gullane] Record the car rolling,

speeding, slowing down.

[in English] Right here in Patience,

he'll have to downshift another gear

and then start his longest straightaway.

[in Portuguese] And it's a very specific

technique, I had to microphone it,

so I took out the car frame, placed mics

in the c*ck, near the engine.

It's a very specific and complex process.

[loud clicking]

[engine revving]

[engine roaring]

- [in English] Oh, yeah.

- It's nice.

- It's clear. Super clear.

- Yeah.

Wow, that's amazing.

[engine roaring]

[in Portuguese]

What kind of lens are you using?

We decided to split it

into four different stages,

and in each one we decided to implement

a different cinematography style.

The Brazilian phase, the family,

the affection, the loving care,

conceptually speaking,

this requires warmer tones.

[Serra] When we go

to the lower categories,

this second phase is the English phase.

Unlike the Brazilian close camera,

we wanted shots that showed a bit

of his loneliness

in a world where he didn't belong.

Then we go to the F1 phase.

We wanted to use a light

that conveyed a certain hostility.

Everything shines, the cars shine,

all the teams had bright uniforms.

It's a very stimulating world,

everything is a bit artificial.

And the last phase, which is mola,

is when he went to Williams.

Everything turns blue and white.

And we decided to adopt that look,

a little bit more whitish, more icy.

As if the image was already

a little more ethereal.

The research really impressed me.

The historical, artistic,

and building research.

And the details.

This level of care to portrait

that era is impressive.

We had to reconstruct, through photos,

objects that no longer existed,

but that we knew had to be

in the pit wall,

inside the tents, in the boxes.

And everything is made from scratch.

The reconstruction was an immense job.

How do you define which period you're in?

Costume design, makeup and hair

are extremely important.

We had the 1970s, '80s and '90s

in several countries,

with a severe winter,

and from there we jump to Brazil,

which has tropical summer climate.

We made around 120 or 130 overalls.

We had to look for fireproof materials

to make, not only the overalls,

but also the shoes, the gloves,

helmets, everything was fireproof.

We were committed

to making everything identical,

everything exact.

[woman] They thought of every detail,

every accessory.

You see clothing references,

and everything is perfect

to the last detail.

There's the right birth mark.

Micro details, Martn was amazing.

Here she comes, look.

Our actress, our star. It's her, the wig.

There were 12 wigs handmade by Cris and I.

[Mella in English] I watched him prep.

I'd walk past the room and would see Cris

with this enormous magnifying glass,

doing, like, hair by hair.

[Tom in Portuguese]

The characterization team is impeccable.

I heard a lot,

"You're her spitting image!"

People would tell me,

"I'm getting goosebumps." [laughs]

[Trujillo] I studied Gabriel's face

along with Senna's face.

We put a prosthetic inside his nose

to make it longer without compromising

the quality of his breathing.

Senna's nose was larger, like this.

Mine is slimmer.

In the ear as well.

He had more detached ears.

We were picking up small things

we found we could use,

the little differences

from one year to the next,

because he works with the minor details.

[reporter] Winning in Monte Carlo

is a challenge.

Up until today, no Brazilian

has ever won here in Monaco.

Ayrton Senna starts far behind

Monaco was, without a doubt,

the biggest cinematography,

production and artistic challenge.

We built the main Monaco straightaway

from scratch in Uruguay.

It was a monstrous task.

[engine roaring]

Even to the naked eye,

with no visual effects,

without picking the camera angle,

we used to arrive at the set

and we were in Monaco in 1984, 1988

It was an extraordinary recreation task

in an enormous scale.

We had 1,100 square meters

of black fabric,

the largest cover ever made

in Latin America.

[in English] I've done

rain machines before,

but this was on a different scale,

because it was, like,

30 meters of blistering rain.

[engines roaring]

[in Portuguese]

It's almost science fiction,

because the cars don't exist anymore,

the race tracks don't exist anymore.

[in English] They're making

Formula 1 tracks from over 30 years ago.

And they're doing it

off what they've seen on the TV.

It's a monster job.

[in Portuguese] We made images

from every race track.

And that generated a 3D map.

With all these elements,

we sat down with all departments,

and began to say like,

"This curve will work for Tamburello."

This one here is Senna's S."

[Zilli] The use of chroma key

is recurrent in the series.

For instance, in all race circuits,

the art department would put

chroma key in strategic places

to later switch or extend.

For example, the famous building in mola.

They made a big backdrop

to place there

when filming in that corner.

We used an LED panel,

with a game technology called "Unreal".

[Amorim] Action.

[Siqueira] We had to go

through the Monaco tunnel

to understand the reflections,

all was important.

Because that's what Vicente wanted,

this light moving, the set reacting.

Is this the virtual image?

Or is it this one?

I don't know anymore? Great.

[engine revving]

And we'll be able to show, in our story,

close-up shots of the hands and feet,

the change of gear,

the steering wheel, the look on his face.

So we have the drivers' eyes,

that we are filming now

in this LED studio.

And it's a very restrained interpretation.

When you have

the intention of an overtaking,

the moment you're living,

the beat you need to convey,

the actor needs to know

what moment of the race he's in

so he can convey that emotion in his eyes.

Embracing the fiction allows you to build

an intimate connection with the character.

A narrative can't convey all views

we have about someone,

but it can build

a true and consistent vision.

Gabriel incorporated the character

very early on.

After we already had the final text,

we would sometimes have to redo scenes

because of the actor's feedback.

Gabriel, for example,

would raise some questions.

- Catching his intention.

- I understand.

With a cast of more than 250 characters,

Gabriel would pull everyone up.

His energy never went down.

All credit goes to him,

for his balance, concentration,

dedication, you know?

Actors from many places around the world

looked at him and said,

"Wow, he's really passionate,"

he surrenders himself,

and that's inspiring."

Characters that have this degree

of identification with the public,

we need to get close to that Senna energy,

to that Prost energy, to that Xuxa energy.

We don't have to try to be identical.

Isn't he cute?

[Tom] I wanted to get to Xuxa

since her very beginning.

Physical preparation,

vocal, I studied her a lot.

Merry Christmas. Happy 89.

Happy 90.

[Tom] I surrendered myself,

body and soul.

It's the first time that I play

someone who's still living.

So every time I see

the references and photos,

I get excited as well,

seeing each detail changing.

- Bye. See you tomorrow.

- [Senna] See you, Dri.

[in English] I play Laura Harrison,

she's a journalist,

and she follows Senna's career

from the very beginning.

She's a fictional character.

And she's sort of our eyes

into his emotions

throughout the different stages

of his life.

[in Portuguese] Through her eyes,

we see Senna's evolution.

And their relationship mirrors

Senna's relationship with the press.

I don't feel like giving an interview now.

Not all reporters

are assholes like that guy.

[triumphant music plays]

Our heart is on the line, my friend!

In order to create this character,

I saw everything from Galvo.

I fell asleep and dreamed about him.

I only thought about him.

This is not an imitation.

I'm not an imitator.

I'm an actor that interprets a character.

Look at the fake belly.

In my interpretation of Galvo,

I decided to go for a natural belly.

He talks using a lot of gestures.

He has this melodic way of talking,

besides all the energy and emotion, right?

Ayrton! Ayrton! Ayrton Senna from Brazil!

To be remembered by every Brazilian!

It's cool to walk around the set

and see Alain Prost,

Ron Dennis, Nigel Mansell,

Gerhard Berger,

it's like travelling in time.

[commentator] The impossible is

nothing new for the Brazilian driver,

here he comes looking for a gap

Prost and Senna had this rivalry,

and their scenes, arguments and fights,

we went into the rehearsal room and

and things got heated.

Staring at each other here,

they kept saying to each other

[in English] "Get out of my way."

Don't touch me!

[in Portuguese] There was this rivalry,

heated moments, fights.

But, at the same time,

there were other layers too.

So Matt, Vicente, Julia and I understood

that was Senna and Prost's relationship.

[in English] I know he's the antagonist

and I know what we need to do,

story arc-wise.

But if we can get the audience to just go,

"Uh, I think I kind of like him." Or,

"I hate him, I like him, I don't know."

The "I don't know" is the sweet spot

I'd love to reach if we can.

[in Portuguese] Those are anthological

and moving moments

that people already know.

And then there's the way

we're telling the stories

to bring things from Ayrton's life,

situations, things that he experienced

that people don't know about.

It's a unique opportunity.

I play Lilian, his first wife.

They were very young

and had this hunger for the world.

They were a fun couple,

they had fun together.

We have the opportunity

to show a human side,

his personal life,

a little bit of his inner life.

These are things

that we can only access through fiction.

Beco, that was his nickname,

was very close to his mom

from a very young age.

I think they had a similar personality.

They had this camaraderie, you know?

A very strong connection.

It's a father's trajectory

looking at a hero's destiny.

- [commentator] In the curve, unbelievable!

- Yeah, Beco!

Yeah! Yeah!

Bianca confided in me these audios,

recordings of phone calls

between Ayrton and his family,

his dad, his mom, his brother,

shortly after he went to England.

[Milton da Silva] Beco! Hey, Beco!

- [Senna] Take care of yourself.

- [da Silva] Bye!

[Senna] Bye!

To have access to something so intimate

like a phone call,

listening to his voice

in such an everyday situation,

so

normal, it was very moving to me.

- [da Silva] Take care, son.

- Take care, Dad.

[Scodelario in English] I was emotional

when I heard about joining this project.

It's filled with love and passion

and dedication

that I think is very special in Brazil

and from Brazilians.

[in Portuguese]

It's a project led by Brazil,

but with international DNA.

[in English] Brazilians will go crazy.

Um, but I think, globally,

a lot of people will really enjoy it.

[in Portuguese] I've always liked Senna.

I've met him, I've worked in F1.

I'm getting emotional. sh*t.

This project has this tone.

That we are capable, we can do it.

For me, it was my Formula 1.

It'll be incredible to have

a new generation getting to know Senna.

I'm absolutely sure

that this series will Oof!

I can hardly speak. It's so moving.

This series will move the whole world.

I saw it a lot, in the set,

the crew felt very privileged

to be able to tell this story.

[man 3] I felt I had to be

part of this, that it was my chance.

I wanted this very much.

I dreamed about it

I sent a million e-mails

and they called me.

Everybody involved, the extras,

everybody is very passionate, you know?

[in Spanish] I met Ayrton in 1979,

at the South American Championship

in San Juan.

Working in a project like Senna

is inexplicable,

especially because I own

the go-karts that belonged to Ayrton.

Oh, I'm happy! I'm happy!

[laughs]

[Perez in Portuguese] I had to pay tribute

to him, for love of Ayrton.

His image, "saint" Ayrton Senna.

I'm very moved.

Now it's in the can,

going out to the world.

Our idol deserved

this well-earned tribute to him,

and I'm very happy.

Our script has this scene,

a boy in the funeral procession

watches the truck driving by

and he's crying.

I lived that.

I was one of those boys at the barrier

watching the truck going by,

and I cried so much.

And it's even more special knowing

that the firetruck was the same one,

the very truck that carried his body.

Who could have said that, 30 years later,

I would be doing this scene?

FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS

SENNA

I had never talked about

a personal hero of mine.

[applause]

I have the feeling

I've been preparing my whole life

to direct a series about Senna.

[Leone] I knew, from the beginning,

this would be

the greatest honor in my career,

and it is the greatest honor

I've ever had as an actor,

to bring Ayrton Senna to life.

SPECIAL THANKS TO THE SENNA FAMILY