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He has nothing but positive things to say about the reputationally disagreeable andoccasionally infuriatingDiesel.
And then you said no before you said yes.Louis Leterrier:Well, no, no.
I said yes and then well, I didnt say yes.
You never say yes.
I mean whatever its an amazing opportunity.
And I said, Maybe, maybe.
Read the script, thought it was amazing, had a couple of meetings with the producer.
I think I said all the right things.
And then it felt good.
Went to sleep exhausted with my head spinning.
Then it dawned on me, what the task was going to be.
If I mess up, Im the guy who destroyed theFast and Furiousfranchise.
I woke up, and I was like, Oh, I cant, I cant, I cant.
Youre pale as a sheet.
And I was like, I think they want me to do the nextFast and Furious.
I said, But I cant do it.
And then she went, like, fullExorcist.
She was like [in a deep, scary voice], Youre doing it!
And I said, Oh, okay, okay, okay.
But, I mean, Chris, you have to understand, its just massive.
And with no runway, its very hard.
It was a very difficult decision to make.
A couple of days earlier you had no idea that this was going to be your assignment.
That must have been intense.Yeah, four days earlier, Im on the beach walking my dog.
And then Im in London and Im saying, And action, Charlize Theron.
Im like, Ah!
You have to stop thinking about anything else butFast and Furious!
I went in fullFastmode.
I was living, breathing; I watched no movie butFast and Furious.
I was not allowed to take any break.
I thought it would be a high-stress situation.
And, sure, the pressure was on.
And your vision is going to be the vision of the movies.
So it was on instinct.
I was shooting the movie that I wanted to shoot.
No notes from the studio.
Its just on and on with the crew and cast that I was learning to love and respect.
I was so interested and loved the man so much.
I was in the same plane as Brie Larson, and we saw each other across the luggage thing.
I was like, Eh, hi.
There was no time to
No time to second-guess yourself.Or let that fear settle in.
I just was working, working, working, working, plus figuring out what I wanted to do.
Basically, normal directors work that you do in 30 weeks I did in 30 hours.
I have no problem going from comedy to thriller to horror to romantic things.
I love to juggle ten tones and just switch and go back and forth.
The intercutting between all the story lines was really helping me.
We can do the same thing youre doing there but, like, on a two-hour thing.
Did you ever consult with Justin?
The bastard never told me anything!
No, were really good friends.
We have a production company together with the Russos, this production company that we all started together.
And he was like, Theres no one better than you.
The cast is amazing.
Youre going to have a great time.
And then I jumped in; I had no time to think about anything other than the essential.
The man is a hero.
And everybody misses him.
Theres always a lot of What would Justin do?
His family has also become sort of like his Achilles heel.
Thats where he cannot cover everything.
He can outdrive anyone, outfight anyone.
But, when you have a 7-year-old kid who goes to school, youre worried for them.
Especially since this man has suffered so much.
Aimes does that in the beginning, and Dante does it throughout.
He is going to use Doms family as the insult.
Its used as a curse word.
Its used as a weapon.
With this bad-guy character Dante, Jason Momoa looks like hes having so much fun.
Hes sort of messianic, and hes flamboyant.
Hes evil and hes funny.
Hes doing another mans toenail polish in one scene.
Im like, Who cares?
Frankly, you go, like, Is he Christian?
Blah, blah, blah.
Honestly, who cares what they doin the bedroom?
I really do not care about labels.
Frankly, were having fun with it, and Jason was having so much fun with it.
Theres no one manlier than Jason.
I will cast Black actors in the role of white actors.
Thats our modern world.
Its a performance built on more than a sexual orientation.
Its built on so many things.
Paul Walker died during the production ofFurious 7,which created an enormous amount of turmoil.
How did you cope with all the stress?You know what?
I never felt the stress.
And people were like, Really?
I had the greatest time on this one.
First of all, I was given this amazing opportunity.
Every day was amazing.
I mean, sure, theres some stressful moments.
I mean, every days a stressful moment.
At the end of every day, Vin and I met in his trailer.
So I was not going from the shoot to my hotel and stressing about what were going to do.
There are some moments of decompression and really human moments, weekends spent together with the cast.
Whats stressful for me is when theres a real separation between work and life.
And with some of the crew.
But you just enjoy your time on set, because its life and you get to do it together.
Youre like, I want to do this.
Because there is that.
This was very different.
So there was no why?
You build it together; thats really great.
But that can only happen if you really know each other.
You are also going to directFast X: Part 2.
Have you shot any ofPart 2yet?We have not shot it.
We havent startedPart 2.
So thats what we did.
We went back and planted seeds from lines, props, points of view on pictures.
All these moments are going to truly pay off at the end.
Then moving the architecture and the timeline of all this stuff, that works so well.
Knowing where we are ending, I was able to go back and then work my way in.
