10 Fast Facts About ‘Drive’

Boasting an old-fashioned movie-star performance from Ryan Gosling as a taciturn, toothpick-chewing Hollywood stunt driver with a sideline in heist getaways, Drive is both an arthouse movie and an action movie, a hyper-stylized, ultra-violent, tragically romantic neo-noir. It also features one of the greatest jackets ever filmed. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and featuring Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks and Oscar Isaac, Drive topped endless critics’ year-end lists, and sold a lot of toothpicks. Here’s what you should know about it.

1. Drive has its roots in a short story.
2. Another actor was initially attached to Drive.
3. We have REO Speedwagon to thank for the film. 
4. A lot changed from the original screenplay.
5. Thirteen (authentic) versions of Gosling’s iconic satin jacket exist.
6. Gosling barely speaks during the movie.
7. Albert Brooks shaved his eyebrows for the role.
8. Refn and Gosling had very different views of the movie.
9. The movie involved tons of driving—but Refn doesn’t have his driver’s license.
10. One displeased audience member took drastic action.

Drive has its roots in a short story.

Drive’s origins lie in a short story written by James Sallis in 2002. He later expanded it into a novel that was published in 2005. Producer Adam Siegel read the Publishers’ Weekly review of the novel and optioned it, bringing on screenwriter Hossein Amini. After the film’s success, Sallis brought out a sequel, Driven, in which the nameless Driver has relocated to Phoenix and finds himself on a mission of vengeance.

Another actor was initially attached to Drive.

Drive was initially set to star Hugh Jackman and be directed by Dog Soldiers’ Neil Marshall; both had left the project by 2010. Ryan Gosling was brought on board by producer Marc Platt. Gosling told The New York Times that he was attracted to the movie because “everyone’s playing superheroes and I just felt like I wanted to make a superhero movie too, you know?”

We have REO Speedwagon to thank for the film. 

If one particular playlist had been a smidge different in 2009 or so, Drive might never have happened. When Platt brought Gosling onto the project, the actor was told he could pick his own director; Gosling wanted Nicolas Winding Refn, who had directed Tom Hardy in the 2008 powerhouse prison drama Bronson. Refn was interested, as a tarot-card reader in Paris had told him he would have a good experience in Hollywood. They went out for dinner, and by all accounts had a terrible time: Refn recalled that he had taken medication for a fever “and I was so high and out of it that I couldn’t even remember the script I had read. ... I was too ill and told him to take me home.”

As Gosling drove Refn home, he put the radio on to fill the awkward silence. An REO Speedwagon song, “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” came on the radio, and they both joined in with it. “I started singing along and all that isolation and loneliness was overcome,” Refn told The Guardian. “We understood each other. The film is that scene, really.”

A lot changed from the original screenplay.

Several of the most iconic moments from the film changed dramatically from the original screenplay [PDF]. The elevator scene—which in the movie goes from a romantic kiss to a head being stomped in—involves Driver killing the henchman with razor wire. The fork in Cook’s eye was originally a fork in the neck, and in the script, Shannon’s (Bryan Cranston) death was less distressing. Cranston came up with the way his character was dispatched, which he told GQ came to him in a dream.

Thirteen (authentic) versions of Gosling’s iconic satin jacket exist.

The Driver’s satin jacket, emblazoned with a large embroidered scorpion, is a nod to the fable, told in the movie, of the scorpion and the frog—the scorpion dooming both the frog and itself due to its inescapably violent nature. (Well, it probably is—the jacket’s designer, Erin Benach, refuses to say whether the jacket or the fable’s inclusion in the movie came first, and it’s nowhere to be found in the original screenplay.) The jacket was also inspired by KISS and the 1963 movie Scorpio Rising. Gosling originally wanted a look along the lines of 1950s Korean souvenir jackets, but Benach thought they were too billowy. Thirteen identical jackets were used in filming, with thousands of knockoffs available online shortly after the film’s release. 

Gosling barely speaks during the movie.

The Driver’s near-silence—he speaks just 116 lines in the whole film—was a reaction to Gosling having just made and promoted the dialogue-heavy Blue Valentine and being “tired of talking.”

Albert Brooks shaved his eyebrows for the role.

Cast against type, Albert Brooks (whom Gosling said “was confused as to why we would want him for that part”) shaved his eyebrows off to make himself look less expressive. Despite all the critical acclaim, Drive ended up with only one Oscar nomination (for Best Sound Editing). Brooks, whom many had felt was in line for a Best Supporting Actor nod, took to Twitter after the nominations were released, announcing, “I got ROBBED,” before clarifying, “I don't mean the Oscars, I mean literally. My pants and shoes have been stolen.”

Refn and Gosling had very different views of the movie.

While star Ryan Gosling has described Drive as “a violent John Hughes movie,” Refn saw it as more of a fairytale. He told The Guardian: “I read Grimm fairytales to my daughter a few years ago, and the idea with Drive was similar. You have the driver who’s like a knight, the innocent maiden , the evil king and the dragon . They’re all archetypes. It takes place in a city of millions but you never really see anyone. That isolates them, makes it very specific.” Of Gosling’s nameless knight, The Driver, he said, “He’s the man we all aspire to be ... but he wasn’t meant to live in the real world. He’s too noble, too innocent.”

The movie involved tons of driving—but Refn doesn’t have his driver’s license.

The director reportedly failed his test eight times. He told the LA Times: “I’ll never get a license. Like Ballard in Crash, I find driving so sexual and exciting, and I’m very much aroused by speed. So I will never control a machine.”

One displeased audience member took drastic action.

One viewer expecting a very different film attempted to sue both the distributor FIlmDistrict and the cinema she visited (the Emagine in Novi, Michigan), claiming that the trailer presented something much more akin to a Fast & Furious-type experience. She also claimed the film was antisemitic, later attempting to get a judge who tried to dismiss the case removed from it on the grounds that he must also be antisemitic. A continuation of the case was active until 2018, but near as we’ve been able to tell, it has exhausted appeal options.

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