Patrick Dempsey gets to play an old racing driver in Michael Mann’s Ferrari movie

It’s always cute when a young actor gets to be in a superhero movie or a Star Wars movie and they seem really excited about being there, but that doesn’t have to apply to only young actors. Adult actors also like stuff, and now one of them is getting to use his acting career as an excuse to feed his favorite hobby, with Patrick Dempsey joining the cast of Michael Mann’s Ferrari as Piero Taruffi, an old Italian racing driver who drove for the scuderia in the ‘50s.

That means he not only gets to pretend to race a car for his actual job (acting), but he gets to be one of those old-timey racing drivers with goggles and stuff. That’s the dream for an old car dork like Patrick Dempsey (on par with a car dork who writes pop culture news stories finally having an excuse to say “scuderia”).

This comes from Deadline, which says other new cast members joining Dempsey in Ferrari are Jack O’Connell (from Unbroken) playing Peter Collins (another old racing driver) and Sarah Gadon (from Castle Rock and True Detective) as Linda Christian (Deadline doesn’t say but we’re guessing it’s the actor of the same name, whose association with ‘50s-era car racing is… possibly a spoiler).

The movie will star Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari, struggling to keep his iconic car company afloat, with Shailene Woodley playing his wife Laura. Together, they decide to risk the future of Ferrari on Italy’s Mille Miglia race… where nothing of particular note happened in the late-‘50s. (So don’t Google Linda Christian or the Mille Miglia if you want to go into this movie totally fresh.) Mann has been trying to make a movie about Ferrari for years, with this one being partially based on Brock Yates’ Enzo Ferrari—The Man And The Machine.