LOS ANGELES—You would think that a 23-year-old actor might be somewhat concerned about getting typecast after playing a cartoonlike character in a huge special-effects movie. However, Emile Hirsch doesn’t see it that way. Hirsch, who came to the film Speed Racer from an acclaimed performance as a doomed adventurer in last year’s Into the Wild, says that he thinks things have changed in the past few years and that today’s actors have some advantages over counterparts from other eras.

“I guess that there will always be the feeling that you can typecast yourself with something like Speed Racer,” he says while publicizing the film at the Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix. “But the truth is, it’s not like it was in the old days, where it was thought that you could only play one role. Now you have Johnny Depp playing a pirate and then he does Sweeney Todd and Ed Norton doing The Incredible Hulk and Robert Downey Jr. starring in Iron Man. I think the genres are widening and that there is not as much limitation on the kinds of projects that actors can do as there once was. I think part of it is due to the huge amount of media that has opened up; with the Internet and DVDs and so much TV, there is less sense of being boxed-in than there used to be.”

Hirsch plays Speed, the title character in Speed Racer, which has its roots in two cartoon series, one from 1967 and the other from1994. Speed started racing cars early, suffering his first crash as a preteen while driving with his late brother, a famous but disgraced racer. His father, who is involved in designing cars, doesn’t want to lose another son to the sport but can’t stop Speed from pursuing his dreams. Those dreams appear to get a boost when the world’s most successful racing company asks Speed to join them and tells him that if he does, the family business will benefit. The film, which opens on Friday (May 9), was directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski and also stars Christina Ricci, Matthew Fox, John Goodman, and Susan Sarandon.

The film is the first directing effort from the Wachowskis since their Matrix trilogy ended in 2003. Like the actors in those films, Hirsch spent most of his time in front of a special-effects green screen. He says that although it might seem easier to spend time in a studio than in the wilds of Alaska, looks can be deceiving.

“It was almost more emotionally difficult to make Speed Racer because it is so taxing to work with green screen. You are doing a lot more takes, and it is very technical, so although you would think it would be easier because you are in a studio and you have the nice catering, it is harder on you mentally. In Into the Wild, I am climbing mountains and in a kayak and everything is so raw and you think, ‘This is so great.’ At the end of the day, you are rejuvenated, whereas a lot of the times when you shoot on green screen it is taking [energy] from you rather than giving to you.”

Hirsch spent 20 days in the cockpit of a specially constructed car, one that was attached to a hydraulic crane called a gimble. He says that the best thing about it was that it was so hard on him that when he did the racing scenes he didn’t have to act. “It is just thrashing you around, so all of the scenes in the movie where I am behind the wheel and look really determined I am generally angry and upset about being in it and ready to rip the thing apart. The other thing I realized was that although it’s an expensive film that is produced to play to a big audience, when you’re making it it’s like doing an independent play, because you don’t have any backgrounds or props. It is like making the lowest-budget movie possible except that everything you don’t see costs a total of $100 million.”

As is usually true with big-screen action films, Hirsch and his fellow actors had to take special training in order to do some of the stunts. He says that he came to the conclusion during his training that there is more deception in the movies than just the elements provided by the green screen. “We worked with trainers named Chuck and Dave, so we got pretty tough for actors, but at one point a couple of us were standing around with them and said, ‘How many Hollywood actors do you guys think you could take on at once?’ Chuck was dead serious and said ‘20?’ And Dave said, ‘No, dude, like 30.’ I believed it, because they were such beasts.”