Fast Five Set VisitAn Interview with Vin Diesel
by Wilson Morales
March 1, 2011
Last September, Universal Pictures invited Blackfilm.com and a handful of journalists to Atlanta to visit the cast of the upcoming film, ‘Fast Five,’ as they were shooting their final scenes.
While the finished product will no doubt look great, the filming process is a grueling experience if one hasn’t been on a set visit. It’s not glamourous as everybody is quiet and ready to things accomplished. While it’s great to talk to the actors as they come back for this fifth installment of the franchise, we also have to be patient and watch them film take after take in a warehouse. On this particular day, we watched one scene be shot over five times, but it’s a good feeling to see the actors work hard to make sure the scene is right.
In one of the few scenes that will hopefully make the film, a bulk of the cast (Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Tyrese Gibson, and Sung Kang) are together going over a plan that will make them prevail in whatever heist setup they have going.
During several breaks, some of the cast member would ride around the set with scooters that were given to them by Vin Diesel, who also serves as a producer on the film. One by one, the unit publicist would come over with an actor that could share some information on the film and their role in the film.
Opening on April 22, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker lead a reunion of returning all-stars from every chapter of the explosive franchise built on speed in ‘Fast Five.’ In this installment, former cop Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) partners with ex-con Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) on the opposite side of the law, with Dwayne Johnson joining the cast as the cop that chasing them.
Here are excerpts from the interview we did with Vin Diesel.
Has anybody ever done something to make you feel more comfortable on set?
Vin Diesel: Yes. People ask me that all the time. “Why do you go out of your way to do some big gesture for the rest of the cast?” I learned that from Tom Hanks on ‘Saving Private Ryan.’ I was given gifts, and I thought that was pretty cool and classy, learned a little bit, learned how far that goes. I was a young kid, 30-years-old, first time I’d been paid as an actor. I’m on the set of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and I get this nice watch, with a platinum dog chain. Meant the world to me. For me I sometimes go above and beyond the studio to show the cast how grateful I am for all the magic they’re bringing.
Why has the franchise been all over the place in terms of order? The presence of Han throws everything off.
VD: You’ll see the demise of Han in the next one. We see him die in ‘Tokyo Drift,’ but we don’t get to that point until the next film. We’ve always been thinking about it. To be fair, so many people thought during ‘Tokyo Drift’ there would be no more ‘Fast and Furious,’ it was the end of that series. They came to me after they had finished filming ‘Tokyo Drift’ and asked me to do a cameo and the way they enticed me, ’cause I’d always turned down ‘Fast and the Furious’ based on script. They said, “Okay, if you do the cameo we will let you produce and develop, scriptwise, the last ‘Fast and Furious.'” It was basically calling my bluff. If I’d said “no” before because the script wasn’t right, they were saying how would you do it if you had the producorial control to make it like you would like it to be? That’s how that happened, that’s how I came onboard for the last one, but when I came onboard I had thought how the story would develop into its own trilogy. We have the last movie, this movie, and the one that follows this.
What can we expect from this film that you are allowed to tell us?
VD: You’re going to expect a lot of fun on this one. The last one was dealing with pretty heavy issues. My character was in mourning, and my character was only brought out of revenge, out of something tragic, a loss of love. That was the sentiment of our movie; it was a love story with somebody that had already passed on… seemingly passed on. Eh-oh!
Is this a teaser alert? Will Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) be back?
VD: You know, there’s two other films, there’s this and the next one. If you’re planning the whole thing you can only imagine. So if you’re planning three movies at the same time you’re going to do something explosive in that third one. It’s like when you thought Gandalf was dead at the end of ‘Fellowship of the Ring.’
So was it easy bringing back everybody?
VD: I think it was very easy to bring back everybody. Everyone was excited to push this and see how far we could go, what the next level would look like. It’s kinda fun to put all the characters together and to see them interact with each other. We’ve got a pretty cool posse, if you will. The fans will really enjoy that. We were looking for a very formidable adversary in the cop role, and by incorporating Dwayne Johnson that adds a fresh flavor to the film. That character facing off against Dom is an interesting pairing. We’re shooting in all these locations, which is supercool.
Why shoot in Brazil?
VD: That’s a good question. As you know, we shot in Arizona, Puerto Rico, and a lot of our shooting was in Atlanta. This is our stimulus package. We were going to shoot it all in Brazil and we realized America needs a stimulus package. (laughs) You follow me? When you have budgets in the hundreds of millions like this, it affects a country if you shoot in it. And it’s kind of cool to be in this region. I mean, we’re not in Louisiana, we’re not in the gulf, but we’re in this region. We’re also going to shoot in Brazil. Why Brazil? I think it was a story point initially based around the idea that there’s no extradition in Brazil, and that was important as a destination for our characters. If you remember, in the last ‘Fast and Furious’ when Letty and Dom are on the beach, Letty mentions Brazil. She says, “I hear Rio is good this time of year.” When you’re thinking of a story that has a lot of flavors all those things add up in the end. You won’t see it now but then you get to this one or the third one. That’s what’s so fun about doing movies in this fashion, you set up something in one movie and pay it off in the next one.
Let’s talk about the cars. That’s always going to be the question. How cool are the cars compared to the last one?
VD: The cars are bananas. The cars are sick. We got a lot of cool new cars. There’s a heist at the opening of the movie where the guys are stealing some of the coolest cars off a train, which allows our characters to get into some of these really cool rides that might not be characteristic of them. We know Dom is classic muscle cars, so to see him in a flashy Corvette is going to be a different vibe. We got cool cars here, in fact I think it’s the first time we see Dom in a contemporary car. He’s in the new Dodge Charger.
Is there a lot of jacking from the car manufacturers to get you to use their cars?
VD: Yes, there is. It’s so strong that sometimes it actually plays a role in how the story is constructed. It’s a tricky, tricky thing. It’s like a casting, so it’s not unlike casting actors. You have to go and look at each car, feel each car, see which car is going to represent who you are, imagine your car with the character. You have to feel it. In the last movie I felt that car, but it was too flashy and you needed to take the paint off and we made it a primer, and now that’s the style. It’s usually a fun part of it. On this movie we were trying to support Dodge a bit, part of our stimulus package. (laughs)
The rest of the cast has a lot of newcomers and people you haven’t worked with, like Tyrese. How is it coming back?
VD: I like my cast. They make it easy and fun for me to come to work. They are all giants on a lot of different levels. To have Ludacris, who is so prominent and successful in his arena to be part of this. To have Tyrese come in, and Tyrese is just a great guy. To see Don and Tego, kings of the Latin world. We got a really rich cast. I like the chemistry. I think its been one of the more fun experiences. The last ‘Fast and Furious,’ I was walking around melancholy all the time because I was dealing with the loss of a loved one. This one has a lot more levity, and because of the crew it’s been a lot more fun.
You had the opportunity to produce on the last one, and now you’re doing two more. Is this something you see doing more in your career?
VD: Well I started directing, which is why I did ‘Multi-Facial,’ which was entered in Cannes in ’95. Then I went and did ‘Strays,’ which went to dramatic competition at Sundance. Still nothing. When I did ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ I wasn’t auditioning for anything, I wasn’t going to because I’d been auditioning since I was 7-years-old in New York City. If you saw ‘Multi-Facial,’ you knew the struggles I was going through. When I did get ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ I didn’t audition for it, Steven Spielberg saw a short film of mine and had someone write a part for me. I still was coming into that experience very proactive and believed the only way I was going to get to do the film was if I wrote it. I didn’t think anyone would ever write a role for me, I was too multi-cultural, there was no place for me, I didn’t fit the bill. I had to write my own experience. Then Steven Spielberg saw this film where I talked about how I’m not white enough and not black enough and not Latin enough to play anything. He hires me to come out and join the troupe. That’s when I started acting and buying into the idea that I could act in someone else’s pictures. The reason why I produce is ’cause I want to be accountable as much as possible for the ultimate product, which I’m going to ask you to come and bring your kids on the weekend. I want to stand behind it as much as possible. There are other benefits. My directing gets better ’cause I’m on the inside. I get to have a stronger ground when I’m fighting the studio for integrity. All these things are important when I’m in the producer’s chair.
Is that what led you to coming up with One Race Films?
VD: Yes. One Race Films. That’s how it all started. It was nothing before. ‘Multi-Facial’ was the first film I did. It was a twenty minute film. I was hustling in New York, still a bouncer, sleeping on couches. If I bought clothes I had to keep the tag on it in case I had to return it. Non-stop hustle. I don’t know if any of you are from up North, have you ever heard of a store called The Wiz?
“Nobody beats The Wiz!”
VD: Yeah, well I beat The Wiz. I didn’t have any money. When I wrote my first thing, you remember those first word processors that had the little tiny screen. That was the end of whiteout. I took $600 dollars and bought this word processor, but The Wiz said if you could find a better price you could just return it, so that gave me 30 days to write my first script before I had to return the typewriter. That’s how you hustle when you’re trying to make your dream come true!
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