Paul Walker Talks Fast Five
Posted 01.29.11 by Ryan
2009's Fast and Furious sequel revitalized the Fast and Furious franchise by reuniting Vin Diesel and Paul Walker for the first time since 2001's The Fast And The Furious. Only Walker returned for the 2003 sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious, while Diesel returned for a brief cameo in The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift. Walker admitted to ScreenRant that he had reservations about returning initially.
There was a period back aways when I thought I’d never come back and revisit. But I’m a little older and a little wiser and it’s been fun to be a part of something that spans ten years. We’re having a good time. It feels more balanced now than ever before.
The latest installment, Fast Five, again reunites Walker and Diesel and introduces Dwayne Johnson as a federal agent intent on hunting down the pair. Walker says that the addition of Johnson has helped propel the franchise forward.
The new energy has helped a lot by bringing in Dwayne. In terms of pressure and all that, everything is distributed across the board. Everyone has a bigger stake in it this time around. I think the majority of the story still falls on the Dominic Toretto’s character and his saga, we are kind of arm and arm with him. But as far as the weight of the whole thing, I think bringing in Dwayne and bringing in the surrounding characters it made it better. It freshened it up just enough — otherwise it would have been stale.
Those "surrounding characters" in Fast Five include several characters from the previous four movies. Tyrese Gibson, Jordana Brewster, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Sung Kang, and Gal Gadot all reprise their Fast and Furious roles, and Walker is happy to have them back. "I feel like this is kind of like the World Series," Walker told ComingSoon, "...we went through four games and made it through the finals and it's because of all these people that we made it this far."
Fast Five begins eight months after the end of Fast and Furious and finds Walker on the run from the law, a storyline the actor prefers for his character of Brian O'Conner.
In the last one, when the screenplay came around, to be honest with you, I was like "what the hell?" There is no way Brian would be a Fed. He's learned his lesson. He knows better. He's not supposed to be involved in law enforcement. I got in an argument with director Justin [Lin] and [producer] Neal [Moritz]... Justin said, 'That's the beauty of it, because he now knows he is living a lie!' And I was like, 'Aw, you f---er, you knew I was gonna come at you with this!' But it made sense.
Walker could be around for even more sequels. Diesel admitted over a year ago that Fast and Furious was only "chapter one" and that screenwriter Chris Morgan had written "chapter 2 and chapter 3." The idea of more sequels doesn't sound terrible to Walker.
The last go around, really, I thought that was going to be the last one, and now with this one, I don't even know if I can say this will be the last one. The way things are looking and coming together, we are having a good time.
Next Showing: Fast Five opens April 29