Stallone: Driven is not Rocky on Wheels.

Sylvester Stallone, 54, is one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors (he reportedly received $20 million for Driven) and has appeared in more than 50 movies. He's best known for playing monosyllabic underdo hereos, like Rocky Babboa in the critically acclaimed Rocky, the 1976 film that he also wrote and directed. Though he has tried throughout his career to break out from this type-casting, movie fans love him as an action hero. As a writer, he has more than 15 screen credits to his name. Driven is a project Stallone has spent nearly five years trying to bring to the screen. He took a few minutes to talk with AutoWeek about the film that he wrote, produced and stars in.

AutoWeek: The film started out to be about Formula One. Any regrets with basing the film in CART?

Sylvester Stallone: At first I thought it was going to be a disappointment because I thought F1 was the pinnacle of driving. And having that mind-set for a couple of years, it was a tremendous disappointment not to be able to do it on F1. But CART turned out to be a revelation. I was able to see another facet of racing in Champ cars. I think CART is much more competitive than F1, and the CART drivers, in comparison, would have more of a competitive edge over F1 drivers because they must race on a multitude of circuits. That gives everyone a chance. In F1, the races are either incredibly exciting, or tremendously monotonous. Last year in CART, the first 10 races had 10 different winners. Plus, in looking back, we probably would never have gotten the movie made in F1 because of the stringent rules the organizers place on the tracks.

AW: How was the cooperation from CART?

SS: It was 100 percent. No problem whatsoever. We dealt directly with Bobby Rahal. It turned out to be absolutely fantastic.

AW: Leading up to this project, were you a racing fan?

SS: No, not really. I'm pretty new to it. But the more I discovered about racing... it was a lot like boxing. You start asking yourself, ``Who are the people in the helmets? Who's the guy in the ring? What is he thinking? What are his goals? Fears? Loves?'' That's what triggered it. These people, race car drivers, are basically astronauts on terra firma. The only thing is that it's much more dangerous than being an astronaut. What a race car driver does is above and beyond the call of logic. Let's face it, an astronaut might do it one time. A race car driver does it every other week. Plus, this has to be really trying for the family of a driver. They have to have a whole different sort of nucleus. Sort of like belonging to a circus.