Why Vin Diesel misses Paul Walker, and how The Fast and the Furious saga started 20 years ago with two bros bonding over street racing – interview
- ‘I was a quintessential New Yorker, he was a quintessential LA boy,’ Diesel said of his late co-star, but they soon became fast friends
- The first film involved race scenes at Dodger Stadium, and F9 director Justin Lin remembers watching the duo during his UCLA student days
Opposites attract, especially in the Fast and Furious franchise, which gave fans the unexpectedly perfect pairing of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in the original 2001 film.
“The 90s was characterised largely by an east coast/west coast beef: I was a quintessential New Yorker, he was a quintessential LA boy. It was already so unlikely that we would be not only brothers but bond the way that we did,” Diesel, 53, speaks about the friendship he and Walker formed making The Fast and the Furious, which celebrated its 20th anniversary on Tuesday, June 22.
“The themes we hit on early on, whether the audience even realised what it was that was drawing them in is irrelevant. The second you lose the family, how significant are we?”
Justin Lin, director of F9, remembers being a teacher’s assistant for a documentary class at the University of California, Los Angeles when he saw the first Fast and Furious.
“I don’t think anybody ever felt like it was going to be more than one movie,” Lin says. But that Diesel/Walker dynamic “was able to permeate and connect with the audience. It’s why you go to films. And when you see that, you never forget it. They all got together in that exact moment and made something that was so special.”
