Actor Paul Walker felt a certain responsibility to stay in The Fast and the Furious franchise. One of his reasons for wanting to do the film was because of the backlash Vin Diesel received for leaving the series behind.
Paul Walker didn’t want others to think his ego was too big for the ‘Fast and Furious’ franchise
Not even Walker could’ve predicted that Fast and Furious would’ve become the mega-hit it is today. But the actor was a part of the franchise from its beginning, even before the film series had its famous title.
“I was working on The Skulls with basically the same team, Rob Cohen, Neal Moritz. Same studio, Universal,” Walker once told Access. “And Neal Moritz, the producer, approached me and he asked me, he said, ‘Paul, what would you like to do next?’ And I told him, I said, ‘Well you know I’ve always liked the idea of playing a cop.’”
Eventually, Walker was offered the cop movie he wanted, which would take the form of Fast and Furious.
“Three months after that he came to me with this idea. He’s all, ‘Look, the backdrop is modern-day drag racing, you can play an undercover cop, you get to drive around in fast cars, and you get to make out with a hot chick,” Walker said. “And so I was like, ‘Alright, cool. I’ll do it.’”
Walker would later become a fixture in the series, starring in the first film and its sequels. Even after the film’s star, Vin Diesel, left the project, Walker remained on board. This was partially because he felt a sense of responsibility towards his fans to stick with the series.
“[They ask me] will you do a third one? And I say: I don’t know,” Walker once told Moviehole. “’Well, if you do a third one, who’s going to be in it – Tyrese or Vin?’ Well, I don’t know. And they say: ‘Well, it should be Tyrese because Vin’s ego precluded him from being in the second one.’ So my whole thing is: I don’t want them saying that about me. Because the studio will go and make a third one, and in a way I’d feel that I was letting these kids down.”
Still, it seemed that Walker opted out of starring in Tokyo Drift, which ended up starring Lucas Black and Bow Wow.
Why Vin Diesel didn’t return for the earlier ‘Fast and Furious’ sequels
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Diesel might be at the center of the Fast series now. But back in the early to mid 2000s, it seemed likely that the actor left the franchise completely behind. However, in a resurfaced interview with BackstageOl, Diesel revealed that ego wasn’t the reason he initially didn’t return. Rather, the Riddick star didn’t think the first Fast and the Furious film needed any sequels.
“After the first one, I was in London, and I was with all the owners at Universal. They talked about doing a sequel. I said, ‘No, don’t ever do a sequel. You’ll ruin it. Don’t do a sequel,’” Diesel said. “And that’s because, as you remember in the last millennium, in the 90s and the 80s, if you did a sequel, you were compromising the quality somehow of the story. And I thought, you’re crazy.”
However, Diesel revealed that his producing partner decided to develop a sequel anyway despite the actor’s reservations. Diesel was still courted for the franchise, but he stuck to his guns. After the third Fast movie Tokyo Drift, Diesel noticed that fan demand for Dominic Toretto was overwhelming.
“After they screened the third one, they came to me and said, ‘hey, we just did a test audience screening, and they’re not having no Dom Toretto,’” Diesel added. “And I realized, as Paul Walker used to say all the time, that the fans would really get angry if you weren’t in Fast. Paul used to say, ‘Hey, what’s wrong? Are you too good for us?’”
Diesel realized Walker had a point, and returned to the Fast family for good afterwards.
Paul Walker once shared what he thought the biggest misconception of ‘Fast and Furious’ was
In a resurfaced interview with PasMag, the late actor reflected on his time in the franchise. He revealed what might’ve been a big misconception of the Fast movies over the years.
“At one point I think the misconception was that this was just going to be a flash in the pan, that it was just a glorified ‘B’ movie,” Walker said. “And were we? Maybe we were. Are we now? I don’t know, maybe we are. For me to be objective, I don’t even know. What I do know is that people love it. And so the naysayers, the people that want to hate — I get it man, we can’t make a movie for everybody. But we have, apparently, made a movie for the masses.”
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