From the second Michael Cimino heard about “Motorheads,” a brand new coming-of-age drama set in a small city towards the backdrop of road racing, he knew he needed to be part of it. The younger actor, finest often called the lead in Hulu’s “Love, Victor,” had lengthy been searching for one thing identical to it.
“Literally, since I first signed with CAA [Creative Artists Agency],” Cimino shares excitedly over Zoom. “I was like, ‘You guys, I would love to do a project that combines my passion for cars and film and TV.’ Then I came across this script and I was like, ‘This is the one.’ I just knew it. Not in a cocky way. I just knew this is my role. Like, this is for me.”
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The sequence, which premieres on Prime Video on Could 20, is ready amid junkyards and restore outlets, gangs and highschool cliques. Set within the fictional city of Ironwood, “Motorheads” is equal elements “Grease” and “Fast & the Furious” (however with a touch of YA reveals like “Riverdale”). At its coronary heart are twins Zac and Caitlyn (Cimino and Melissa Collazo), whose return to Ironwood with their mother dredges up their connection to their estranged father, a street-racing legend Zac quickly turns into obsessive about emulating.
Along with his signature bashful seems, tousled black curly hair and simply an added sprint of playful risk-taking, Cimino’s Zac sits proper alongside the actor’s rising repertoire of swoon-worthy guys. That features not simply his breakout position as Victor but additionally Ethan in “Never Have I Ever” and, most lately, Cole within the romantic fantasy “Girl Haunts Boy.” As the brand new child on the town, Zac is quickly pulled into navigating long-standing highschool rivalries — particularly as soon as he realizes the woman he’s most occupied with is relationship the college’s best-known bully, a child who settles scores with exhilarating road races in his dad’s Corvette and typically in his personal Porsche.
In dialog, Cimino is giddy with pleasure, talking a mile a minute as if he had been on a racetrack hitting the gasoline — particularly when he will get to speaking about his long-running curiosity in automobile tradition.
“I had Hot Wheels growing up,” he recollects. “My dad and I, when I was a kid, used to build little racetracks with them. I always remembered loving it. And as I got older, my dad and I used to play [the video game] ‘Forza’ together. And my uncles used to drag race. So I heard a lot about drag racing and street racing when I was a kid. And my grandfather, who taught me how to work on cars, he used to rebuild engines. I’ve just always been into it.”
Extra lately, he’s been hoping to indicate off the auto work he’s been doing to his followers.
“I built a ’02 Miata that’s supercharged,” he shared. “I have a whole little TikTok series that I’ve been editing together, of me building it with my friend, Justin, and my cousin that I’m gonna start posting pretty soon.”
All of that enthusiasm got here significantly in helpful when he started jockeying for a component on the present. Throughout one Zoom session with government producers John A. Norris and Jason Seagraves, Cimino remembers making an attempt to clarify simply how a lot Zac and this story felt in keeping with his personal pursuits.
(Sarahi Apaez / For De Los)
“We got a lot of auditions of people doing car stuff,” Norris says. “A lot of people pretend that they know stuff to get the part. And so when he did it, Jason and I were kind of rolling our eyes at first. Because I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s just pretending.’ Because he said he was hooking up a car and he was going to build it. And I said, ‘Can we see the car?’ And he had his phone, and he went around and he had this car on a trailer behind him that he was bringing back to L.A.”
That’s when Norris and Seagraves realized Cimino was very a lot enmeshed on the earth “Motorheads” depicts.
“Michael is just a joy,” Norris provides. “And that energy is real. Every bit about him is. There’s nothing phony there. He’s just like an 8-year-old, always with a smile on his face.”
Even in spite of everything these years, Cimino retains discovering new the reason why this beloved passion resonates with himself and others all around the world.
“I went to this really big car show called Tokyo Auto Salon, which happens every year,” Cimino shares. “It’s amazing. I wound up connecting with a lot of people out there, kind of seeing the underground scene of how people connect to it. And I just understood for the first time how much bigger it is than just cars and racing and having a good time. It’s such a signifier of self-expression. It can be such a thing of rebellion too.”
That’s exactly what occurs with Zac. After befriending Marcel (Nicolas Cantu), a clumsy, uncool child at college who desires of designing vehicles, Zac finds a function he hadn’t had earlier than.
“I think Zac always felt like an outsider,” Cimino explains. “When he comes to Ironwood and kind of discovers his passion for racing, it’s like a light in his life. Finally, he’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can be good at something. I can amount to something.’”
However he can’t actually do it alone. A driver is simply pretty much as good as his automobile, and vehicles in Ironwood are well-crafted machines assembled by a loving crew. For Zac, that group finally ends up together with his sister Caitlyn, in fact, but additionally Marcel and Curtis (Uriah Shelton), one other outsider who’s making an attempt to keep away from the gang life his older brother lives and breathes.
(Sarahi Apaez / For De Los)
Fortunately for Cimino, the automobile household on the coronary heart of “Motorheads” was as tight-knit offscreen because it seems onscreen.
“Mel and I are both Puerto Rican and Sicilian, weirdly enough,” Cimino provides. “We have the same mix, which is obviously great because she’s playing my twin sister. We just kind of instantly clicked. We understood each other. We understood each other’s culture. And Uriah is super into motorcycles and cars. He understands that world, so we had that bond. And Nicholas is just so talented and just so thoughtful and sweet and kind, man. We’d play ‘Smash Bros.’ together and stuff. We all bonded over different things.”
The irony, in fact, is that in comparison with these newfound mates, and even his uncle Logan (performed by Ryan Phillippe), Zac is the least skilled one relating to repairing, not to mention driving vehicles. However as soon as he tastes the joys of a race, Zac turns into intent on being a fair higher driver than his father ever was.
However don’t suppose for a second that it’s Cimino within the driver’s seat in these head-spinning racing sequences that punctuate each episode.
“That was 100% my stunt driver,” Cimino admits, including that “Amazon was very much focused on making sure everyone was safe.”
The actor, nevertheless, has set his sights on a brand new objective — he lately obtained his stunt-driving certificates.
“I’m hoping that one day I can pull a Tom Cruise and do some of my own stunts,” he stated. “Until that moment arises, I’m preparing for it.”
However to be on set these days and to observe these scenes come to life was the type of expertise he’s not about to take as a right.
“This show is just such a spectacle,” Cimino says. “Even if I wasn’t involved in this project, I would still be a huge fan of it. It’s so well done. The stunts are amazing. It was honestly really freaking cool just witnessing something that I would have loved to watch when I was a kid. Being a part of it is so insane. It really feels like one of the most surreal moments of my life. To be honest, it feels like, ‘Wow, my dreams really did come true.’”
