Need For Speed: Meet The Cast

Meet the cast of DreamWorks' picture Need for Speed, the upcoming films based on the Electronic Arts series of racing video games: Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper, Imogen Poots, Scott Mescudi and Dakota Johnson. For director Scott Waugh, casting these actors was one of the most important aspects of making his film. "To me, casting was everything," he says. "If we were really going to represent the greatest culture of America, which to me is cars, we needed to find great actors to represent that era and hopefully bring back when that era was so cool. For the role of Tobey Marshall, our hero, we couldn't have done better than finding Aaron Paul. He's a man's man, and that's what Steve McQueen was." The Emmy Award-winning Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) will play Tobey Marshall, a blue-collar worker with a passion for racing. Tobey runs his family's auto shop and races on the underground street circuit, but his world is turned upside down when he is imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. He spends two years in prison thinking about getting revenge, clearing his name, and setting things right. "What's so great about this film is it's not just a car movie, it's a throwback to the '70s classic car culture," Paul says. "When I met with Scott Waugh, our director, he gave me this amazing pitch and said this movie is characteristic of Steve McQueen's era, and that got me really excited. That's what first intrigued me about this story. And then Scott dove deeper into how he was going to tell the story in a different way. I think car movie buffs deserve something like this. But it's not just a flashy car movie. It does have that element to it, but it has an incredibly interesting story behind it." Dominic Cooper will play Tobey's nemesis, Dino Brewster. Dino is a privileged former Formula One driver who is obsessed with wealth and success. He does something terrible to Tobey to benefit himself. Of Aaron Paul and Dominic Cooper, director Waugh says, "I personally believe we have the next Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. And we're going to finally get a chance to watch these two new stars together in a movie. We surrounded them with incredibly talented actors and actresses. Imogen Poots was cast to play Julia Maddon, who goes along on the cross-country journey with Tobey. She is a star from England. And she is extremely photogenic and dynamic." Scott Mescudi will play Benny, a car detailer at Tobey's shop and an Army reserves helicopter pilot who lends his skills to Tobey and Julia when they need them. Dakota Johnson plays Anita, the "one that got away" for Tobey. She's the sister of Tobey's best friend, Pete, but he lost her to Dino Brewster. Director Waugh says, "Dakota is the other siren we have in this movie. You can't take your eyes off of her when she's on screen. You just get totally sucked into her world and she's incredible." Need For Speed comes to theaters March 14, 2014.