After fifteen years, Driving It is widely regarded as one of the defining films of the 21st century, transforming Ryan Gosling into a screen icon and cementing Nicolas Winding Refn as one of contemporary cinema’s boldest auteurs.
According to Raven, almost no one believed in it while it was being made. “Almost everyone hated it,” Raven says. It happened in Hollywood. “Even the premiere at Cannes, there were people who wanted their names removed from the film.”
Before reconsidering DrivingRaven discussed Her own hellhis first film in nearly a decade. The film follows a young woman navigating a futuristic, neon-filled urban landscape, and marks the director’s return after a near-fatal medical emergency, in which he says he was dead for more than 20 minutes.
“It made me very time conscious,” Raven says. “If you’re going to use your time, choose it well, because once it’s over, it’s over.”
Description Refn Her own hell As a reaction against algorithm-based entertainment, arguing that cinema should challenge audiences rather than just please them. He added: “Cinema is not just a place for entertainment.” “It’s a place to share dreams.”
The film sparked sharply divided reactions at Cannes, something Refn seems to welcome. As he notes on the podcast, even Drivingnow considered a modern classic, was rejected by many of the people who made it.
The premiere at Cannes changed everything. Refn won Best Director, and Driving It was on its way to becoming one of the defining films of its time. But getting there required the collapse of a Harrison Ford project, an emotional breakthrough in a Ryan Gosling vehicle, and a community-like living situation for the cast and crew in a Hollywood house that, Refn insists, was haunted.
Refn says Gosling first reached out to him because he admired his previous work. However, at the time, the Danish director was developing a script for Paul Schrader that would have starred Ford in the film.
“I was working on a movie with Harrison Ford where he was supposed to die,” Refn says. “It was a beautiful script by Paul Schrader. But as he was developing it, he decided he didn’t want to die. That was the whole premise of the movie.”
Refn’s first meeting with Gosling couldn’t have been more encouraging. Refn says he was fighting the flu and was “high as a kite” on American cold medicine.
“We had a very weird conversation where we didn’t really talk,” he recalls. “We didn’t look at each other because I couldn’t move my body… It was like a blind date that went terribly.”
After dinner, Gosling took him back to Santa Monica. Then REO Speedwagon’s song “I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” came over the radio.
“I love a good rock song,” Raven says. “I start singing the words… and then I start crying. Tears are streaming down my cheeks.”
At that moment, everything clicked.
“I turned to Ryan and screamed really loud, because the music was so loud,” he recalls. “I get it! I know what we’re going to make! We’re going to make a movie about a guy who drives his car at night and listens to music because that’s his emotional comfort.” Ryan looked at me and said, “I’m here.”
Although James Sallis’s 2005 novel Driving It was actually adapted by screenwriter Hossein Amini, and Refn says the version they ultimately created took shape through an unusual live action process.
Amini moved into the Hollywood house Refn was renting while they continued rewriting the script.
Carey Mulligan stopped by for what was supposed to be a meeting.
“The minute she walked in the door, I said, ‘It’s you,'” Raven says. “You’re her.” “For some reason she ended up living in the house too.”
Editor Matt Newman also moved in, cutting the film downstairs while Refn and Amini continued rewriting upstairs.
“It was like reality, what I imagined the 1970s would have been like — without the cocaine,” Raven says.
Raven eventually became convinced that the house where everyone lived and worked was haunted.
“I was very afraid of the house,” he adds. “Sure. It was haunted.”
He was so nervous that producer Adam Siegel would sometimes come over simply so he wouldn’t have to spend the night alone.
The script continued to develop after production had already begun.
“I turned in the revised version of the script on the first day of shooting,” he says.
By then, it had been stripped of dialogue, backstory, and much of the structure of traditional crime films. When asked why the audience never knows who the driver is, Refn offers a simple answer: “You’re not supposed to.”
When the executives finally saw what he had created, they were mystified.
“Some people at the highest levels asked, ‘What is this?’” he recalls. “I said, ‘Well, it’s a Nicolas Winding Refn movie.’
Many DrivingThe film’s most memorable moments also came during production. Refn says Driver gradually became less a traditional action hero and more a mythical figure. “The driver is kind of an alter ego,” he says. “The driver is a superhero. He has a mysterious past and protects innocence.” This realization inspired the now-famous satin jacket with the gold scorpion on the back, an idea that Refn traced back to Kenneth Anger Scorpio rising.
“I wanted him to have an animal,” he says. “Like a superhero.”
The film’s most memorable elevator sequence was also not in the script. Refn says he wanted Gosling and Mulligan to share “the kiss they never had” before Driver turned into the violent character he was always destined to become.
In preparation for the infamous head-crushing scene, he even called director Gaspar Noe for advice.
“He gave me a long, complicated description of how he did it,” Refn says, referring to Noe’s smashed head in 2005. Irreversible. “I realized I didn’t have the time nor the money to do it again.”
today, Driving (and its heavy soundtrack) are considered a modern classic, and Refn says his creative connection with Gosling hasn’t faded. “It felt very much like we were one person,” he says. “I still believe, in a way, that we are one.”
And if he had his way, there was still one chapter left.
“We have someone else in us together,” Raven says. “We’ve done two. Now we have to do a third.”
Listen to the full conversation on It happened in Hollywood And subscribe to the podcast for more conversations about historical films with the people who made them.
