Hey, everyone. This is Justin Lin.
This is the commentary track for F9.
And as you can see here,
I think for people that are aficionados of logos,
this is one of the older Universal logos.
It was a very conscious choice.
I went back and looked at all the motion logos...
And by the way, this is...
Growing up as a kid, the Universal one was my favorite.
And the choice of going with an older logo
was because I wanted it to sync up with this quote-unquote the flashback to start.
I wanted the point of view to start with the past timeline.
I felt like, you know, when we were prepping this,
we kept talking about these as the flashbacks,
and it definitely is.
But I was really hoping that for the viewing experience,
because you're being thrust into this time and place.
I wanted this to be the starting point for the film.
We shot this in Irwindale, California.
It's really interesting because even on films
with huge budgets like this one,
still you never have enough money.
You know, we shot most of the film in the UK,
and so to get back to LA. and shoot was definitely
something that we had to keep fighting for, budgetarily.
It was something that I felt was important
that we get to shoot
for me growing up, having shot in LA,
just the sunlight, and just a feel of it.
And this is where it all started
and it was very important to get back and shoot in Southern California.
Bell's driving safe.
Corbin's got a sponsor in the stands, so he's pushing it.
Talking about me?
You got a real problem with car 23.
- Linder. - About to whip your ass, Toretto!
The Jack,
the young Dom,
Vinnie Bennett and Finn Cole.
J.D. Pardo. They were amazing,
I think a lot of times shooting these sequences,
it's so hard and that was one of the big challenges of this film.
Obviously, Vin Diesel is Dominic Toretto.
And to be able to find someone,
that can, in many ways, embody Dom Toretto
but at the same time bring something that is original,
that is new to the character,
I just thought Vinnie did an amazing job.
It's one of those things where I got so excited
when, you know, one day I woke up, and I...
I realize there's more for us to explore, you know,
the mythology of Dom and his family.
But at the same time,
I remember I felt like there was something that was lacking.
And, you know, I felt like the exploration wasn't enough
and it took another,
I think, couple of weeks just really brainstorming
that the big idea came, which is to explore this theme of family,
but in more of a bloodline way.
And it was about 12 hour of just excitement.
And I was so, kind of, inspired that this would be the new chapter.
But then after those 12 hours, I wake up and I'm...
Then it was just total fear because...
It's like, well...
First of all, can we pull this off?
And then if we can,
part of pulling it off is that we need to find an amazing cast
to be able to really do these sequences justice.
And so, it became this global, kind of, search for the actors.
And I have to say, I felt like our casting team,
everybody was just amazing.
I mean, we looked everywhere, and Vinnie is from New Zealand,
and it's amazing to basically go all around the world
and to be able to find our young Dom in New Zealand.
The other thing that really was scary was, of course, Jakob.
It was an exciting idea,
but then, you know, I didn't know if we would be able to find anybody
to be able to pull that off.
You know, the missing Toretto.
The Toretto that has existed this whole time,
but in eight movies, no one's ever mentioned it.
It wasn't until I met John Cena,
and within the first 30 seconds, I was able to breathe, you know.
And so, this whole process actually felt very organic.
I think sometimes, you know, you're doing sequels,
you're bringing back a lot of the same cast
and it's great because you get to grow together,
you know, you're not alone.
But then when some big idea comes along and you're bringing new elements,
that is also the most challenging thing,
but also the most exciting aspect of that journey.
And for some reason, I think being away for a couple of movies
and then coming back,
it felt really organic.
It felt like we were building a film from ground up again on all levels.
You know, I think the idea of exploring the mythology
and introducing new brother, you know, when it came to me,
Vin was the first person I called.
And I drove to his house, we talked about it,
and I could tell we both were very excited for this new chapter,
and at the same time, this was going to be the first film of
you know, our final chapter in the saga.
The final chapter saga is something
we've been talking about for about 10 years.
So it was an amazing, kind of, earned moment
where we were able to sit and just talk like we've always done,
but really have a sense of tone and also our purpose.
Yo, yo!
We come in peace. We come in peace!
It's me!
I have to give Universal and Vin so much credit.
Because when I left after Fast 6, I really thought that was it.
And I was going to move on and do other things.
But, you know, everybody was always so open,
and they always kind of checked in
to see if there's anything brewing and talking Fast.
So even though it was gone,
I never felt like I was fully away, you know.
And even when I was shooting Star Trek Beyond,
I remember Vin calling me and I was in the cutting room,
and we started talking about Dom for a couple hours.
I remember thinking,
"Hey, Vin, I'm out. I'm not doing this anymore."
But I think Vin is always, kind of, a couple steps ahead of me
and I think he knew at some point we were going to reconnect and so...
Again, it was all the seeds that were planted.
It felt very organic,
and I didn't want to come back unless it was something new.
It was something that, for us, to be able to explore.
I think this idea of being able to go back
and explore the mythology and the past so these characters
and this franchise can keep moving forward was very exciting to me.
Why just us?
He caught Cipher.
But there was a midair attack, and she was extracted.
It seems his plane crashed somewhere here,
over the northwest region of Montequinto
If Mr. Nobody survived...
You know, when I came back, it was really interesting
when I first met with Nathalie
because Ramsey is a character that showed up in Fast 7.
But is a character that we've been talking about since Fast 5.
And so it was really surreal
to be talking to her about a character
that we were talking about years ago.
And then when I left, you know, the character came to life
and then I was meeting back up with her developed already.
So, it definitely...
There are moments like that that was really odd,
but interesting, you know.
Cipher and Queenie are two other characters that preceded me.
And it was a lot of fun
to be able to work with Charlize and Helen
to keep evolving it in this new chapter.
I'll always be in your heart.
Hey, little guy.
I have a gift for you.
Your father gave this to me.
And now I'm gonna give it to you.
It's very special.
Take care of it.
And here you see Little Brian and it is amazing, you know, that...
I think doing these big action movies,
people talk about the stunts and everything.
And to me, those are exciting to design, to shoot
but usually when we're shooting those sequences,
it's been, you know, eight to fourteen months of prep,
hundreds of meetings with every department to have it come to life.
This isn't who we are.
And I'll tell you, I think the scariest thing for me making this movie
was actually the scenes with Little Brian.
Because showing up with this three-year old
and trying to hopefully create an environment
where he can feel present,
feel Dominic Toretto as his father,
Letty as his mother...
You know, that to me was the most challenging thing.
And I think just even getting him to go to sleep there,
I remember saying... I think that was probably take 21.
And of course, it's not the kid's fault,
but it's just sitting there with the boom, and we have our dolly going in.
He was amazing.
It was actually twin brothers.
And they were so great and Vin was amazing with them.
You know, I think being a father, he knew that,
you know, he needed to make sure he spent some time with them.
So for the first week, while we're shooting this,
you know, Vin wasn't in his trailer, he was just hanging out with the boys.
So here we're dealing with the cross
that basically connects Jakob to Han to Dom.
It's kind of an intersection of so many of our different threads.
And one day I hope
we're going to have the real estate
to fully explore that chapter in the Fast Saga.
And here, we're about to enter our first huge action sequence,
which is this fictional place, Montequinto.
It's supposed to take place in Central America,
but when I went on our global scouting tour,
we stopped at Phuket in Thailand.
And when I saw the geography and all those, you know...
I don't know. Actually, I still... I asked people
what those things are called and nobody could give me an answer.
You know, the buttes, that are coming out of the water,
so it was just amazing.
And I think part of doing these Fast movies sometimes
is to explore the world and hopefully be able to integrate that
and bring it to share with the audience.
So I think, having...
You know, going on that scout
and loving the visuals of Phuket, Thailand,
I felt like it was kind of our perfect place to shoot our fictional Montequinto.
What was also amazing for me, was on the scout,
I didn't realize the kind of rich cinematic history of Thailand.
Until recently they were producing their own films
at a rate that I think was like hundreds a year.
to fully explore that chapter in the Fast Saga.
And here, we're about to enter our first huge action sequence,
which is this fictional place, Montequinto.
It's supposed to take place in Central America,
but when I went on our global scouting tour,
we stopped at Phuket in Thailand.
And when I saw the geography and all those, you know...
I don't know. Actually, I still... I asked people
what those things are called and nobody could give me an answer.
You know, the buttes, that are coming out of the water,
so it was just amazing.
And I think part of doing these Fast movies sometimes
is to explore the world and hopefully be able to integrate that
and bring it to share with the audience.
So I think, having...
You know, going on that scout
and loving the visuals of Phuket, Thailand,
I felt like it was kind of our perfect place to shoot our fictional Montequinto.
What was also amazing for me, was on the scout,
I didn't realize the kind of rich cinematic history of Thailand.
Until recently they were producing their own films
at a rate that I think was like hundreds a year.
It was amazing.
So to be able to kind of hook up with the crew in Thailand,
and be part of that rich cinematic history, it really meant a lot.
And I think you could feel it when we were shooting in Thailand
because they really were an amazing crew.
And that's one of the perks of shooting these films
is to be able to go into different cultures
and hopefully not be just tourists,
but to be able to truly kind of work with them and getting to know
how they work and having that shared experience.
The source of the SOS signal is coming from inside this thing.
Somebody wanted in.
Plane must have gone down before they could cut through.
Or it was sent down on purpose to stop 'em.
Yeah, well, their mistake was trying to cut into it.
And here we're about to introduce our McGuffin for the film,
and this is probably, I would say, for the Fast franchise, I think that...
In Fast 6 is when we started kind of introducing
these kind of world-ending devices.
I was torn, I was going back and forth on if we were going to do this or not.
And ultimately...
I think that was one of the challenges coming back to do Fast 9.
I don't think we make these films in a vacuum.
And I think there are a lot of things about coming back
that I had to respect.
And part of it is, since I've been gone,
it's kind of gone a lot more kind of sci-fi.
And I felt like, ultimately, if I just kind of ignored that,
it just wouldn't be respectful to the films that I wasn't part of.
So it was a long process in the writing phase.
When I first came back, I didn't want to have a world-ending device.
But when we were working on it,
it felt like it was almost such a rebuke to the other films.
I didn't want that.
I wanted the spirit of this film to always embrace the chapters prior
and whether it's to correct something that's wrong,
or to build on something, I never wanted to be reactionary,
because I think sometimes,
I think having made movies, TV shows and stuff,
I see a lot of instances where filmmakers
become very, kind of, reactive and they take it personally.
And I think the films and the shows sometimes suffer for it.
And I felt like it was important to try to be positive.
And, yes, I think one of the big reasons to come back
and to correct is, we'll talk about later, which is the justice for Han.
But at the same time,
I wanted to always stay positive to everything.
And that led to the whole Aries device.
So anyway, it was a long way to explain it.
But it was months and months of my life in our writing process
of deciding if we were going to do it or not.
Ultimately, I feel like we needed it.
It's a bit of a culmination of something that we kind of started on 6.
And it kind of had continued.
But I think this is probably it for our franchise,
and as we're going to the final chapter,
we're going to be exploring our characters through other elements.
Roman, where the hell are you?
Who's compensating now, Tej?
Here, we're about to go in to the landmine sequence
and I have to say, I think the one thing
that really surprised me,
when we first went into the scouting for Thailand
was how much of the jungle of Thailand has kind of disappeared.
This is only a small stretch of private land that we were able to find
that we could shoot in.
Most of the land has become palm plantations.
I think they're just trying to produce palm oil for the world.
You know, I think growing up
and even just kind of reading about Thailand,
I was really excited to kind of explore the jungle aspect.
And, at least in southern Thailand, a lot of that has been... is gone.
Like even here...
This is actually... You could see the small palms
being planted and grown and they're everywhere.
What was great about the sequence,
I really wanted to kind of start with the feel of just kind of this tactile action.
You know, something that's practical.
What better than to, like,
start blowing stuff up and the landmine sequence?
It is a very conscious effort
to kind of rebuild, I think the tone of this franchise.
And again, I feel like...
Just as a movie fan,
CG now is part of so much of these tent-poles,
and I'm not saying that we don't do that ourselves.
I mean, I like to think that
we can create a have our cake and eat it too scenario.
It was just that, I think as a filmmaker,
there's something really exhilarating and visceral about practical effects,
and, to me, that's always important.
And especially for the Fast franchise
and especially on this one,
I wanted to make sure that no matter what,
even the most outlandish action beats,
we always make sure that we shoot it practically first.
Roman, you good?
My ass is en fuego!
Like, even this shot right here,
actually, that truck going over and blowing up,
we shot practically.
And it became reference for us.
And here with Roman hanging upside down,
we had to build this contraption with the truck on vertical rails.
And it's a small beat, but it took us three days, which is a lot
to be able to even accomplish this.
But ultimately,
I think you could feel the difference,
because we shot it practically, you know...
The rocks and everything, we had to build
so that it could be safer Tyrese to be hanging from that truck.
This is kind of the beat, too, of this "invincible" thread
that we were exploring.
I think maybe being away from Fast, I was really kind of drawn
and excited for this existential thread for Roman,
and Tej and Ramsey.
It is something that I think
a lot of times with these big action tent-poles,
you know, that the characters, they obviously escape death.
And I felt like it was time for us to at least,
hopefully, acknowledge it and explore it in a fun way.
Wait, okay, I think I found us another way out.
Two miles to what looks like a bridge across the border.
Good. The sooner we get out of here, the better.
This shot here was a really complicated shot. We shot...
We actually had I think it was
almost like three continents worth of work just to get that shot in.
Shooting that practically,
and then being able to basically matte that
and then have Michelle do it and we shot that in London.
It's amazing how filmmaking has become so global.
And this jump too, it was something that basically was shot in Thailand.
We shot again in London, practically.
And then, putting Michelle on wires.
The device.
So here is the big, kind of,
first time where the brothers see each other.
Getting that Mustang to drift in was definitely a challenge.
And those doors...
I realized the doors didn't quite match,
so we actually had to bend it 90 degrees.
You don't notice it, but a lot of times,
the shots that I wanted to have,
the cars don't quite have the right angles.
But again, I feel I have the support of this amazing crew,
and we always figure it out.
And sometimes, it's just a 50 degree shift in something
that's been kind of built in.
So we're about to head into this, kind of, crazy sequence
that's evolved from something that was very practical
to something that's going to be a bit more outlandish.
And hopefully we've earned this.
This is something that we actually scouted
on so many of these aerial scouts,
trying to find the right two, I guess, buttes or islands,
so we can shoot this.
Peter Chiang, our VFX supervisor,
he was on it so much, and I really was very adamant
on making sure that we found the right practical ones.
I remember we circled around it so much that Peter actually had to get off
because he was nauseous and he was throwing up
on one of these buttes.
And here we have the helicopter,
the brother, Mustang, against Dodge Charger.
You know, it's something that, I think, people who love cars,
they notice that it's Mustang vs Charger.
And we had a lot of fun in the writing process, developing it.
I think in the flashbacks, later on,
you'll see that Jakob's also driving a Mustang.
And it's something that we actually wrote way more than we needed to.
And I hope, one day we're going to be able to explore that,
whether in feature or maybe in other mediums,
because it is really amazing,
sometimes doing these films, to have the environment to just explore.
And on this one, for some reason,
our script was really long compared to the other ones.
At one point, we were approaching almost 200 pages, which is insane.
But it was just fun to be writing and just to be free.
And ultimately we were able to kind of bring it down.
Where's the bridge?
No. No, no.
Dom.
I think a lot of people ask, you know, "This must be all CG."
It actually is a combination.
We actually... Every beat that you see here,
was accounted for, like the launch of the car.
Even the swing, you know, we had a crane.
It was in the UK, actually, to swing it.
It kind of acted as reference for us in making sure
that everything we did, it was kind of accounted for
so we can have the proper conversations.
Well, that was new.
you know, love the franchise that we never short change any of the thing.
So, it was a lot of fun.
It was like multiple meetings about his broken nose,
and how much we were going to do it.
Brother?
You got a brother?
Who also happens to be some kind of super spy
and I love how they always have visuals to sell all their products.
But this thing is a mess.
The headlines out there?
Secret spy plane crashes in a...
It was such a treat to be able to bring Shea back,
and we had a lot of fun with Stasiak's nose, and we went through...
We tracked it from Fast 4, when he gets slammed
by Brian O'Conner and again in Fast 6.
And so, Shea showed up on the day and we just kept fudging it.
And it was a really fun nod
to his relationship and the connection to Brian O'Conner.
And that's something that we were very conscious of.
You know, the spirit of Brian, the character is still, obviously alive
and thriving in this universe.
But, you know, I felt like trying to make sure that,
you know, we always kind of honor thing that's happened.
And so that we can kind of embrace it for the narrative, for people that really,
you know, love the franchise that we never short change any of the thing.
So, it was a lot of fun.
It was like multiple meetings about his broken nose,
and how much we were going to do it.
Brother?
You got a brother?
Who also happens to be some kind of super spy
with his own private army,
who drives literally...
This is a really interesting moment between Dom and Letty, you know,
and it is one of those things that I felt like, you know,
working with Michelle and Vin on it,
it was such a great process, you know, because, as you can see,
there's not a lot of real estate for anything.
So, to be able to get everybody in those moments to track it,
and to feel it without us really shining a crazy spotlight on it.
And that's always the biggest challenge for these films
because, you know, especially Fast 9,
I feel like there's three movies jammed into one, right?
You have the brother-thread, you have the main-thread.
And then he had the Han-thread. And the biggest challenge
of making this film really was real estate.
And, you know, I have to say, one of the reasons
why I ultimately felt like I was, you know, done with the franchise
was that we've never been able to have
a full draft of the script when we start shooting,
and that's part of the process
that we've had developed, and I'm not complaining.
It's just... It's okay.
It's just the way we always end up doing it.
And so, I felt like I wanted to make sure that for the first time,
we had a script, fully done, and we were able to on this one.
And the funny thing is that we ended up,
kind of, overshooting it and it was much longer.
But I think you can feel that,
you know, this film had a lot more,
but it was always about condensing and making sure
that we didn't take any beat for granted.
What is that?
Get out of here. Go.
So a man can't pay his last respects?
That's what that is?
No.
No, not you. You're the one that killed him.
No, racing killed him.
Look, he knew that I was gonna pit him into the wall. He knew that.
Now, I don't know if he dropped gear.
Here's Jim Parrack playing Linder.
It was great to work with him again.
His first job as an actor was actually on Annapolis, and we worked on together.
So it's always great to be able to meet back up with actors
or crew through the years.
And he's kind of a perfect Linder, he was great.
Leave.
This obviously, is one of the most pivotal moments in the Fast lore.
And I know that in the first Fast film,
in the garage with Dom and Brian,
Dom was talking about how he took that wrench,
and he just kept beating Linder until his arms went numb.
And it was a struggle, because it was great in that moment when he said it.
And here, when we were working on it,
we actually did all these tests and...
With that hit with that wrench, if you just did it more than,
you know, a couple of times, the skull is going to crack, you know?
And so, I wanted to make sure that we honor what Dom was sharing with Brian.
But at the same time, I think in that moment, it was important
that we were capturing it through Jakob's point of view.
But, that was also one of the things that we had so many discussions on.
And ultimately I felt like... You know, sometimes in life,
we're all a little bit... Get stuck into the moment,
and we're not the most reliable narrators, even though there's no intent to deceive.
We're the protagonist in our own stories.
And I think in Dom's mind that's what happened.
But I think one of the ways that we were able to, kind of,
hopefully, honor that moment, but at the same time make it feel
like it's not out of this world where he's beating Linder, you know,
countless times with the wrench was to go to Jakob's point of view,
which is what we needed in that moment for this film.
- She say anything? - Nope. Nada.
You know, I look at her and I feel creeped out.
And sort of turned on at the same time.
Is that weird?
Nice operation.
You snatched me off Mr. Nobody's plane midair
without a scratch, and you took him down.
And here we have our scene with Cipher.
Again, it was such an honor and treat to be able to work with Charlize.
And this is a character
that obviously was in 8, and she was so gracious and open.
I remember sitting down with her and talking about the character,
and I think she was excited to keep kind of evolving it.
So I remember asking her, you know, "Is there anything in 8
"that you built that I need to be aware of?"
And she was like, "No, " you know? It's the basic...
"Let's go back and rebuild this."
And I had such a great time with her just talking.
And she is so specific about every beat, you know,
and I love that, you know, in this scene,
even though she is this character that's stuck,
has been captured, stuck in the box, and I wanted to also really make sure that
it's not one of these diabolical scenes where she's already gotten a way out.
I wanted the experience for the audience
in real time with Cipher, is to see how she could figure her way out.
I need you to find out which one.
So, here she does
an amazing job of just, kind of, scoping out all the players, right?
There's Jakob. There's Otto and there's Sue.
And even though it's probably not clear, it's not scripted,
this idea of her constantly testing and trying to figure out
what is her... How is she going to get out,
starts here.
And I just had such a great time working with her on the day,
but also in the cutting room because I can see her,
and that's something that we planned, you know, basically calculating, like,
let's test Jakob out. Let's go through, let's push those buttons.
But the... Little bit of the curve ball
is actually she finds a weak point in Otto.
And I think if you watch this film multiple times,
you'll really get a sense.
And if you really watch her, she's been, you know,
you can see her wheels turning.
And that's... I think, that's the fun of this character
and I think this is also a new element for us in this franchise.
Finding the two halves of Project Aries is the easy part.
Add in your brother Dom to the mix?
You don't have a chance.
Plans are in motion.
There's a line in there, where she basically is pointing out
about Jakob's jawline, the Nordic strain,
and it was important that we put it in there.
I know that a lot of people are saying,
well, how could John Cena be Vin Diesel's brother?
You know? And that's something that we talked about
because John was by far...
I mean, again, I felt just so lucky to have him join us.
But at the same time, I think there's a complicated kind of history for Toretto's.
And that's something that that one line
is giving you a little bit of glimpse
How we somehow
- always survive? - Yeah.
- So far, so good, I guess. - It's just luck.
No, no, no, see, y'all not listening.
Think about this.
We've now been on insane missions around the world,
doing what most would say is damn near impossible.
And I ain't got one single scar to show for it?
I mean, look at my jacket.
Those are bullet holes from 14 dudes trying to take my head
clean off its shoulders.
We've taken out cars, trains, tanks.
I'm not gonna even mention the submarine.
And yet we're still here.
Exactly.
Ramsey, what happens when you test a theory
over and over again only to come to the same result?
A hypothesis becomes fact. But you're not actually suggesting that...
I don't know, but when the improbable happens again and again,
that's more than luck.
Maybe we're not so normal.
That's what I'm saying.
We are not normal.
Okay, just to clarify,
are you two maybe suggesting that we're, what,
invincible?
- Maybe. - Maybe.
Or maybe
you're just a dumbass.
Take your dumbass jacket with you, man.
Pretty impressive driving out there.
You miss the old life.
Do you?
Ultimately, it was an interesting scene because I like to edit as we go.
And I knew that the scene with Dom and Letty at the farm
was probably not going to be it.
And I remember going to Jordana and saying,
"This is going to be the scene."
And I think for her,
she did such a great job of, kind of, taking that note
No, no, no, see, y'all not listening.
Think about this.
We've now been on insane missions around the world,
doing what most would say is damn near impossible.
And I ain't got one single scar to show for it?
I mean, look at my jacket.
Those are bullet holes from 14 dudes trying to take my head
clean off its shoulders.
We've taken out cars, trains, tanks.
I'm not gonna even mention the submarine.
And yet we're still here.
Exactly.
Ramsey, what happens when you test a theory
over and over again only to come to the same result?
A hypothesis becomes fact. But you're not actually suggesting that...
I don't know, but when the improbable happens again and again,
that's more than luck.
Maybe we're not so normal.
That's what I'm saying.
We are not normal.
Okay, just to clarify,
are you two maybe suggesting that we're, what,
invincible?
- Maybe. - Maybe.
Or maybe
you're just a dumbass.
Take your dumbass jacket with you, man.
Pretty impressive driving out there.
You miss the old life.
Do you?
Ultimately, it was an interesting scene because I like to edit as we go.
And I knew that the scene with Dom and Letty at the farm
was probably not going to be it.
And I remember going to Jordana and saying,
"This is going to be the scene."
And I think for her,
she did such a great job of, kind of, taking that note
and in a way, take charge of the scene.
You know, I think people are so used to Dom being the patriarch
and being the decision maker. Here, you have Mia and Letty
saying, "No. We're part of this family, and we have a say."
And I think it was a very powerful scene.
And also it was done not in a confrontational way.
You know, it was done in a very empowered way,
and I had a lot of meetings with Jordana and Michelle about the tone of that.
And so it was amazing on the day when they showed up,
because the last thing I wanted was to make it feel
It became these kind of intersection, emotionally, for all our characters.
I got this the day Han died.
Mexico.
And here's the postcard again.
And I'll give you a little bit more intel on that.
You know, this goes all the way back when I first met Vin.
You know, this is for Tokyo Drift for his final scene and I didn't know him.
I had heard that there's no way he was coming back to the franchise,
and I was lucky enough to get a meeting with him.
And were at his house by his pool, and we were talking.
And I think we... At one point we just connected
on the mythology and the family of Dom.
And I was talking to him about how, in my mind, Dom had met Han
in either in Mexico or Central America, and I had kind of mapped out,
you know, the connection between them
that Han in a way was on the run and Dom was on the run.
You know, I had mentioned this town in Mexico, Guanajuato,
and that conversation in 2005 led all the way to the postcard.
And if you notice on the postcard the cross on that church is the same cross
that Dom and Jakob, they're wearing.
So it's the Toretto Cross, so there's a lot of meaning to that.
And there's a whole back story to that that we've been talking about for years,
and this is the first time that's being shared.
It's done as a connective tissue beat,
but I can tell you there's a potential down the road for us
to fully explain and explore that thread of the mythology.
Here, we're in the "Young Dom" sequence, and, to me, it was so much fun,
kind of, finding the right music of the era, you know?
And, you know, a lot of times when I run into fans and they talk,
it's amazing, you know?
You could see when certain fans' engagement was on Fast 1.
There's actually a section of the fan base that started, kind of,
loving Fast on Tokyo Drift.
And obviously now, you know, that's been 15 years,
and people would use words like, "That's a classic, " you know?
And I thought, "Wow, God, you know, it has been a while."
But in many ways, you know, of the time...
The music choices is a challenge because it's not like
we go and pick the "best of" from the music sound library.
We're actually creating music of the moment.
We have, you know, coverage, and it takes us like a day-and-a-half,
I think two days just to shoot the scene.
You know, I can tell that on the day when we're shooting,
when the Han image came up, everybody knew that the scene
was much more than just an exposition scene.
You could see it right here with the close-up dolly in on Vin.
That's exactly what I said.
So you're saying Han's death is connected to all of this?
He has to have something to do with it.
Again, I think these scenes that usually are, kind of,
there for functional plot reasons.
It became these kind of intersection, emotionally, for all our characters.
I got this the day Han died.
Mexico.
And here's the postcard again.
And I'll give you a little bit more intel on that.
You know, this goes all the way back when I first met Vin.
You know, this is for Tokyo Drift for his final scene and I didn't know him.
I had heard that there's no way he was coming back to the franchise,
and I was lucky enough to get a meeting with him.
And were at his house by his pool, and we were talking.
And I think we... At one point we just connected
on the mythology and the family of Dom.
And I was talking to him about how, in my mind, Dom had met Han
in either in Mexico or Central America, and I had kind of mapped out,
you know, the connection between them
that Han in a way was on the run and Dom was on the run.
You know, I had mentioned this town in Mexico, Guanajuato,
and that conversation in 2005 led all the way to the postcard.
And if you notice on the postcard the cross on that church is the same cross
that Dom and Jakob, they're wearing.
So it's the Toretto Cross, so there's a lot of meaning to that.
And there's a whole back story to that that we've been talking about for years,
and this is the first time that's being shared.
It's done as a connective tissue beat,
but I can tell you there's a potential down the road for us
to fully explain and explore that thread of the mythology.
You know, that's the basis and the essence of this race.
And on top of that, we built, kind of this layered...
This family secret.
And ultimately, it's this poor kid being crushed by the pressure of...
You know, the secret that he's promised his dad that he was going to keep.
But on top of that is having this brother
that is the spotlight of the family, and I just thought...
Finn was able to, like,
really hone into that and capture that and on the day,
to really deliver that in such an amazing way
in the most uncomfortable and awkward of, you know, set ups.
Too soon.
It was also great to be able to shoot.
This is on the Fourth Street Bridge.
I was bummed because having shot in LA,
the Sixth Street Bridge was, you know, is my favorite.
You know, we shot Tokyo Drift underneath that bridge.
It actually got taken down. And, so...
You know, it's sad to see
all these kind of iconic LA structures,
you know, I think just with time, they're going to get replaced.
So it was great to be able to at least capture the Fourth Street Bridge on film.
Here's Dom going back,
and it's funny because I think the fans will joke
about crossover franchises, you know?
And they're like "Can Fast cross with Back to the Future?"
I don't know why.
It's always fun when they have all these suggestions for us.
In many ways, I feel like, yeah, we've kind of done the time travel thing.
You know, like it's been part of our franchise.
It started in Fast 4, and it continues.
And here we, structurally, are actually time traveling.
We have two different timelines.
Can't help you, man.
This is one of those days, you know, as a filmmaker, where...
I love Michael Rooker. I was such a big fan.
We casted him,
and then I remember showing up on set,
and it was just like... I felt like a 12-year-old.
And the first time I saw him was in this film, Mississippi Burning,
and he played this KKK member, and it scared the shit out of me
as a kid, you know.
And I knew that it was Michael Rooker, and he's a great actor,
and when I showed up on set,
I was so scared.
It was like this crazy, just...
Like something in me was back
and I was in Mississippi, and he was that character.
But luckily, it only lasted like a minute
because he's also just the most gracious, nicest person.
He came in and just gave me this big hug,
and I was like, "Okay, great. This is great."
And we had a great day, kind of just shooting the scene.
And I think a lot of times with Vin,
we have this great process of, you know, making sure that scenes like this,
we have ample time.
And so, we had a day set aside for the scene,
and we just started, you know, with what was scripted,
and then we just started exploring moments.
And this was tough, I have to say, because Dom is there
really for plot purposes to try to get his next piece of information.
But, you know, I think there's a lot of kind of hurt and guilt,
and also frustration, I think, between these characters.
And Vin was bringing a lot more of this reverential sense of his past
that we kept calibrating.
And ultimately, I think we were able to kind of find it.
But it was definitely one of those discovery scenes
where we just had two amazing actors on set
and we just went at it. And it was exhausting.
I would say that scene, the Buddy scene,
to me, is probably the most exhausting scene,
for me, physically, just going through
the whole exploration of emotion between them.
Arigato.
This place is a dead end.
Do you think Jakob could be onto the Han connection?
This is one of my favorite scenes in the film.
If he has all the information we do...
It took a long time, in the kind of the writing of it,
and I had some really deep and amazing conversation
with Michelle and Jordana on it, you know.
It's interesting because I think there's a lot of articles about, you know, the...
Yeah, I think Michelle was very adamant and very vocal
about the treatment of the female characters in the franchise.
And this is again one of those things that was really weird for me,
because when I was kind of part of the Fast franchise,
I've always felt like, you know, Letty, Mia, Gisele, you know, Elena,
a lot of our female characters were so...
I had such a great time, kind of crafting it with the actors
and, kind of, building the characters.
But I think, for whatever reason, since I was gone,
I actually, to this day, I don't know what happened,
but when I came back, there was...
She was really upset.
And totally justified, you know.
And for me, you know, I've had conversations with people
that have seen the film going,
"It must have been a really tough conversation
"with, like Michelle and all the female cast."
It's always fun when they have all these suggestions for us.
In many ways, I feel like, yeah, we've kind of done the time travel thing.
You know, like it's been part of our franchise.
It started in Fast 4, and it continues.
And here we, structurally, are actually time traveling.
We have two different timelines.
Can't help you, man.
This is one of those days, you know, as a filmmaker, where...
I love Michael Rooker. I was such a big fan.
We casted him,
and then I remember showing up on set,
and it was just like... I felt like a 12-year-old.
And the first time I saw him was in this film, Mississippi Burning,
and he played this KKK member, and it scared the shit out of me
as a kid, you know.
And I knew that it was Michael Rooker, and he's a great actor,
and when I showed up on set,
I was so scared.
It was like this crazy, just...
Like something in me was back
and I was in Mississippi, and he was that character.
But luckily, it only lasted like a minute
because he's also just the most gracious, nicest person.
He came in and just gave me this big hug,
and I was like, "Okay, great. This is great."
And we had a great day, kind of just shooting the scene.
And I think a lot of times with Vin,
we have this great process of, you know, making sure that scenes like this,
we have ample time.
And so, we had a day set aside for the scene,
and we just started, you know, with what was scripted,
and then we just started exploring moments.
And this was tough, I have to say, because Dom is there
really for plot purposes to try to get his next piece of information.
But, you know, I think there's a lot of kind of hurt and guilt,
and also frustration, I think, between these characters.
And Vin was bringing a lot more of this reverential sense of his past
Here's this moment between
Roman, Tej, and the boys I love.
I have to say, as a kid, I always love it
when characters from the same, like, universe
that somehow maybe are in different shows, when they meet back up.
And it really...
It's not one of those things, even in writing,
that I was that conscious of.
But on the day,
seeing these characters meeting for the first time was great.
And then here's the reveal of the Fiero.
The Fiero is this kind of...
I guess it was a sports car. It was big when I was in junior high.
And I had this history teacher, Miss Grant.
She would pull up every morning in her red Fiero.
And, you know, I have to admit, I had a crush on Miss Grant.
I think a lot of boys did.
And that Fiero made her look so cool.
And so, when we were thinking about finding a vehicle for this,
I have to say, I give Miss Grant a lot of credit.
It wasn't actually her that inspired this moment.
It was just... I remember talking to my friends about Miss Grant.
This is probably like a couple of years before,
and the red Fiero was the thing that we all talked about.
And then when I was talking to the NASA rocket scientists
about how can we get to, you know, not necessarily space
but the outer atmosphere,
they talked about, obviously weight and fuel.
And the more we talked about it, the more it was evident
that we needed something light as our starting off point.
And it was that moment of "Oh, Miss Grant's red Fiero could be
"the car that takes us into space."
So, it's one of those fun moments
of just kind of reconnecting with my childhood friends,
and just happy accident in trying to kind of figure out
how to get, you know, to this kind of crazy idea in Fast
but hopefully do it in a way that is kind of
at least grounded in science as our starting off point.
Who's Dominic Toretto?
Here, this is a really fun sequence with Queenie that's coming up.
And I would kind of point to this scene
as kind of the growth and evolution of our franchise.
I think that a lot of times when we shoot these scenes,
you're showing up on the day and you're trying to find the scene
and what Helen did, that was amazing, was that, you know, we rehearsed it,
and she was so on point
that it really kind of allowed the camera work
to complement everything that's happening between the characters, you know.
And I think as we are growing as a franchise,
one of the things I love doing is to not edit, is to create these moments
where our characters are just living in that moment
and the camera is there with them.
When are they gonna learn
some birds can't be caged?
Are you looking for one of me sons?
Not tonight.
This was a great night in London
where, you know, when she showed up, she really set the tone,
and Vin was amazing, and at that moment, during the rehearsal,
I knew that I was able to, like,
really challenge everybody
so that we can capture everything in camera
and not have to sometimes find some of the beats in the editing.
This is the Queenie... We call this the Queenie Chase
that we're shooting throughout London.
And it still blows me away that they allowed us
to be so close to Buckingham Palace.
It just shows the kind of earned relationship
we have with the government, I think,
because I can guarantee you, when we were shooting there in Fast 6,
I wasn't being brought that close to Buckingham Palace.
But I think having this as being our second time shooting in the UK,
we definitely had much... And I wouldn't say better,
but I think we've kind of earned our way into locations
that I think weren't available to us the first time around.
...he was into something big up in Edinburgh.
Local seller, huh?
She wouldn't happen to be wearing a stolen necklace, would she?
He paid well. What was I supposed to do?
This is also another kind of great day for us on production,
just to be able to get in there and work with Helen and Vin.
Oh, bloody hell, he's not your cousin...
And obviously the scene is, you know, for it to happen in this chase,
but really, it is her connecting with Dom.
She's kind of the mastermind in many ways,
and she's always kind of also testing Dom and a lot of the characters.
And so to be able do that in the middle of a chase,
it was a lot of fun.
It was a lot of fun because Helen showed up
and she wanted to really understand driving the Noble.
It took a long time, in the kind of the writing of it,
and I had some really deep and amazing conversation
with Michelle and Jordana on it, you know.
It's interesting because I think there's a lot of articles about, you know, the...
Yeah, I think Michelle was very adamant and very vocal
about the treatment of the female characters in the franchise.
And this is again one of those things that was really weird for me,
because when I was kind of part of the Fast franchise,
I've always felt like, you know, Letty, Mia, Gisele, you know, Elena,
a lot of our female characters were so...
I had such a great time, kind of crafting it with the actors
and, kind of, building the characters.
But I think, for whatever reason, since I was gone,
I actually, to this day, I don't know what happened,
but when I came back, there was...
She was really upset.
And totally justified, you know.
And for me, you know, I've had conversations with people
that have seen the film going,
"It must have been a really tough conversation
"with, like Michelle and all the female cast."
And I was like, "No, we never really had those conversations." You know?
I always felt like I love these characters.
And to be totally honest, I felt like they were really underserved, you know?
And so, it really was just one of those things that
it was very organic, you know, to come back.
I love these characters, and I want to make sure that, you know,
all our characters are being really, kind of, loved and supported.
And so it became very natural.
So, you know, this scene though,
in a big action movie where you have two characters
We actually have this backstory for Sue.
He was "The boy named Sue, " the Johnny Cash song.
We had this whole thing, and we even shot it, and it was awesome.
But ultimately, it just got to be too long.
And it was one of the heartbreaks for me
because I love it when in movies,
when you have these characters that are kind of...
They're there as, quote-unquote, muscle or whatever purpose,
and you realize there's a whole history,
and there was a whole back story to these characters,
and we definitely had a lot of fun with both Otto and Sue.
And the Sue thread ultimately kind of got cut down,
and it was kind of... I had it for a long time,
but it was the right choice,
but I just had so much fun with Martyn on that.
He's long gone.
And this is, you know, obviously the first real face-to-face meeting
between Dom and Jakob.
That's your mistake.
I think, in this scene, we actually had a lot more to it.
And in the earlier drafts,
I actually was playing with the flashbacks
where it explained a lot more of where Jakob was
during even the events of the first Fast and the Furious.
And we had this amazing shot
where I took footage from the first Fast and the Furious
that handed off into a young Jakob who was in the crowd
when Dom was racing Brian.
And it was an expensive, extensive shot
that took us months and months to prepare.
And Peter Chiang, our VFX supervisor, did an amazing job,
and as we were working on that shot,
it was so good that it really took me out of the movie,
and Vin was amazing, and at that moment, during the rehearsal,
I knew that I was able to, like,
really challenge everybody
so that we can capture everything in camera
and not have to sometimes find some of the beats in the editing.
This is the Queenie... We call this the Queenie Chase
that we're shooting throughout London.
And it still blows me away that they allowed us
to be so close to Buckingham Palace.
It just shows the kind of earned relationship
we have with the government, I think,
because I can guarantee you, when we were shooting there in Fast 6,
I wasn't being brought that close to Buckingham Palace.
But I think having this as being our second time shooting in the UK,
we definitely had much... And I wouldn't say better,
but I think we've kind of earned our way into locations
that I think weren't available to us the first time around.
...he was into something big up in Edinburgh.
Local seller, huh?
She wouldn't happen to be wearing a stolen necklace, would she?
He paid well. What was I supposed to do?
This is also another kind of great day for us on production,
just to be able to get in there and work with Helen and Vin.
Oh, bloody hell, he's not your cousin...
And obviously the scene is, you know, for it to happen in this chase,
but really, it is her connecting with Dom.
She's kind of the mastermind in many ways,
and she's always kind of also testing Dom and a lot of the characters.
And so to be able do that in the middle of a chase,
it was a lot of fun.
It was a lot of fun because Helen showed up
and she wanted to really understand driving the Noble.
And she was able...
I mean, she learned it so fast,
and she never kind of lost continuity,
so she was able to, like, really mimic
the driving through London as she was delivering the scene.
It was unbelievable, you know?
And actually it was interesting
because, you know, growing up as a Laker fan,
I was always kind of fascinated by the colors.
And growing up, it was called Forum Blue,
which is this kind of dark blue, purple and gold.
And I remember learning that that was kind of the royal colors.
Those are the Queen's colors.
And, so I thought, "Oh, we get to finally get
to explain his absence and how he's alive.
This is something that we worked on a lot.
And I have to say, it kind of felt poetic.
This whole "Justice for Han"...
Because when I left,
I didn't engage on any of the other films,
it was during the screening of my indie movie Better Luck Tomorrow,
at the Egyptian, where, I think, the fans during the Q&A, brought up
this idea, or this movement of "Justice for Han."
And when I heard it, I was totally baffled.
To this day, I have no idea why
the whole Shaw showing up at the barbecue at the end of 8
was handled that way. I mean, you know, when I left,
Shaw had killed Han,
and he was the antagonist to Dom and the family.
And, you know, I don't mind
when characters can maybe show up and they can change sides.
I think it's part of Fast universe.
But I just never... You know, when I came back,
there was after the discovering this whole "Justice for Han" movement,
I even sat and talked to the studio,
and I said, "What happened?" And nobody could give me an answer.
You know? And, so...
I think it ultimately was great because to be able to come back,
I felt like it was something that needed to be addressed.
And, you know, I think part of the gift of it is that,
if they actually did handle it correctly,
then Han would probably stay dead, you know?
And, so I think, you know, for whatever reason,
the way it was handled, you know, really, for me, needed some answers.
And because of that, I was able to come back
and be part of the solution in answering that.
And by answering that, you know, I was able to bring Han back.
So it actually ends up being a win-win.
You okay?
This moment here... You know, in Tokyo with Han,
it was just a great moment.
It was again, one of those things where, in writing it, developing it,
I knew what we were doing.
But it wasn't until we were shooting and you see it through the lens,
and you see Han's face,
that, like, I got chills, you know.
And it was something that, you know, as we get into more of the film,
I'll try to share a little bit more of the reasons and the process
of bringing him back.
We're hitting this Edinburgh sequence,
and this actually is an amazing location.
And it was actually a pivotal, not just on a logistical level,
but creatively,
you know, we take this train from London to Edinburgh,
and it ended up being a defining moment in the development of the film.
And I think ultimately it was the right call, and it's better here
because it's kind of referenced to as opposed to kind of shown.
And again, I hope that there's going to be other opportunities for us
to really kind of explore that chapter.
And I think we'll be able to do it in a much better way
than to be able to cram it into, you know, this film.
And here I thought my dad was a pain in the ass.
But your family is a train wreck.
Well, now that your brother's finally out of the game,
it's time we go to Edinburgh.
Get the second piece, maybe do a little sightseeing, huh?
Otto, with his father issues,
I had so much fun with Thue, kind of working on his relationship.
And we had numerous conversations,
so that when we were doing this scene,
you really get his relationship with his father.
And he was so much fun to work with and build Otto.
Because I think very easily he could just be a stock character.
But I think if you watch the film, you can see that
he's a fully developed character and it's something that I enjoy.
So, here is Cardi's scene.
And this is really a big Easter egg for the fans.
You know, I think the fans that maybe had not followed the Fast Saga,
they'll know her as someone that's working with Queenie,
that was probably in a white dress, that was planted in there to help Dom out,
but she's actually the sister of Cara.
Cara is Han's significant other in Fast 4.
And they used to, in D.R., they would steal gas for the people.
So there was a whole connection there that I talked to Vin about.
And, so now Cardi has been introduced in our franchise
as a character that's basically been around
since, you know, Fast 4.
So, you know, I'm hoping that there will be an opportunity
for us to explore that character more.
So here, we're introducing this, kind of, new element to Han
to explain his absence and how he's alive.
This is something that we worked on a lot.
And I have to say, it kind of felt poetic.
This whole "Justice for Han"...
Because when I left,
I didn't engage on any of the other films,
it was during the screening of my indie movie Better Luck Tomorrow,
at the Egyptian, where, I think, the fans during the Q&A, brought up
this idea, or this movement of "Justice for Han."
And when I heard it, I was totally baffled.
To this day, I have no idea why
the whole Shaw showing up at the barbecue at the end of 8
was handled that way. I mean, you know, when I left,
Shaw had killed Han,
and he was the antagonist to Dom and the family.
And, you know, I don't mind
when characters can maybe show up and they can change sides.
I think it's part of Fast universe.
But I just never... You know, when I came back,
there was after the discovering this whole "Justice for Han" movement,
I even sat and talked to the studio,
and I said, "What happened?" And nobody could give me an answer.
You know? And, so...
I think it ultimately was great because to be able to come back,
I felt like it was something that needed to be addressed.
And, you know, I think part of the gift of it is that,
if they actually did handle it correctly,
then Han would probably stay dead, you know?
And, so I think, you know, for whatever reason,
the way it was handled, you know, really, for me, needed some answers.
And because of that, I was able to come back
and be part of the solution in answering that.
And by answering that, you know, I was able to bring Han back.
So it actually ends up being a win-win.
You okay?
This moment here... You know, in Tokyo with Han,
it was just a great moment.
It was again, one of those things where, in writing it, developing it,
I knew what we were doing.
But it wasn't until we were shooting and you see it through the lens,
and you see Han's face,
that, like, I got chills, you know.
And it was something that, you know, as we get into more of the film,
I'll try to share a little bit more of the reasons and the process
of bringing him back.
We're hitting this Edinburgh sequence,
and this actually is an amazing location.
And it was actually a pivotal, not just on a logistical level,
but creatively,
you know, we take this train from London to Edinburgh,
and it ended up being a defining moment in the development of the film.
When I first came back,
I actually wasn't planning on bringing Han back alive.
We were gonna address Justice for Han, but he was going to stay dead.
So a lot of this stuff was going to be handled in the flashbacks.
But it was actually in the train ride to Edinburgh that Jeff Kirschenbaum,
who is an executive that...
When I started Tokyo Drift, he was executive on it,
and we kind of grew up together making the Fast movies.
And then we both left the franchise.
And so when I came back, I felt it was important to have him be a part of this.
So he became a producer on this film, and he's a big part...
He's one of the architects.
I consider him a partner on the building of this franchise.
And it was on that train ride that we started talking about Han.
And, I think, one of the things that is great about Kirsch
is that his enthusiasm for this franchise has no boundaries.
And I would say 99 out of 100 times,
he would say the most outrageous things,
and he would get crapped on and laughed at by me, mostly by me.
And I love crapping on and laughing at Kirsch.
But one out of 100, this guy will say something
that maybe doesn't even make sense in the beginning,
but ultimately becomes a brilliant idea,
which is this idea of Justice for Han is not just justice for Han.
Let's bring him back for real.
And I have to admit, I get it.
I don't get up in the morning and say,
"Hey, let's just bring dead characters back."
I don't want to do that, as a rule.
And I think even when on this train ride when Kirsch brought up the idea,
I thought it was nuts.
But for some reason,
I think in the second or third hour of the train ride,
it started settling in.
And then we started discussing about what we were working on
with the back story of Han, and how he could actually be alive.
And it actually made more sense.
But it was a very organic way for me.
That morning, I did not wake up thinking that Han was going to be alive to...
This train ride, by the time we landed in Edinburgh,
that, "Oh, my God. Han is alive."
So it was a... It was an amazing ride,
and it was very inspired.
It just kind of shows...
It reminds me of the spirit of Fast & Furious,
is to never fully just reject things because...
Just because.
And it's never to condescend on anything.
And the fact that I have this amazing group of people,
where we can say the most ridiculous things,
but feel there's enough support where...
We can laugh at each other, we can crap on each other,
but to be able to take it seriously at some point,
it's really rare.
I could say that in Hollywood,
where you'd think that creativity is embraced,
it's actually very much something that you have to fight for.
A lot of times, there's so many agendas when it comes to budgets,
and there's all these things.
And a lot of times when you make these big tent-pole sequels,
the tendency sometimes with success is that, "Well, we know what works,
"so let's keep doing the same thing."
And so to be able to be a part of this process
where we're saying, "No, we were successful in the last film
"because of A,
"but I think it's potentially yielding something that we've earned.
"Let's try something brand new."
It sounds kind of logical, but is also...
I think in the business sense, it's the scariest thing
to always be exploring and trying new things.
And I think that's what I love about doing these films.
And that is what I love about being with Universal
and the group of people that I work with in that,
we're never trying to do the same thing.
If we were, I wouldn't be making the fifth movie in this franchise.
I feel like every one that I've done have been completely different,
thematically, and also in what we're trying to explore.
And I think that, for me, on this one, is to embrace what we've evolved to,
over-the-top action and just even taking ideas.
And it's almost become science fiction,
but at the same time being able to explore and go back to what started it all.
I feel like that balance was such a new thing for us,
that if we're able to earn the emotional connection,
the emotional exploration on a very real level,
then it allows us, gave us license
to then push the ridiculousness of the tone of the action.
But I felt like if we weren't able to do that,
then we wouldn't be able to really evolve our action.
Shit.
Hey!
And here you have... I'm just going to point out,
that's my son and all the kids.
I think Jordana's son, J. J. Perry, Samantha Vincent.
It's become a tradition for us
to have these kids in the middle of these big action set pieces.
My gut is that it's going to keep growing
just because when we started, there were no kids,
and I think Fast 5 was the first time
where my son was a year-and-a-half old,
and I was doing the vault scene,
and I wanted to inject a little bit of humanity in there,
and I thought, "Yeah. What about a young kid?"
And I thought, "Yeah, I have one of those, "
and then that's when we started, and then it just kept...
For me, it's always good
to connect with humanity in the middle of these set pieces,
so it's become a tradition for us.
Oh, no!
The Ramsey driving scene,
it was one of those great character threads that I loved.
I think, to me, I remember talking about this character.
She wasn't named Ramsey,
but we were talking about this computer hacker character
all the way back to Fast 5.
And then, when I showed up, she was...
Nathalie had taken over, and they birthed the character.
But it was interesting to me, meeting with her.
It was very clear that there's so much to her
that hasn't been explored.
So it was just a great opportunity to be able to introduce something new.
The fact that I always love meeting, not savants, but even geniuses,
and seeing that they are human beings.
She could hack everything in the world,
but the price of that is that she's never driven a car,
and that was very exciting for me, to be able to explore that.
And I think it's unlocked something
that now I feel like I have a better sense of Ramsey,
and there's going to be a lot more that we get to explore.
Otto, sending you new pickup location.
I've got it. I'm headed to you now.
And here you can see the brother fight.
This is something that I wanted to be in close quarters,
and it was something that I felt like tonally,
it needed to capture anybody that's ever had siblings,
where you can fight strangers,
but something about blood, where it always feels
one hundred times more intense.
And that evolved to them
going through walls and windows and everything.
And this is really more of just an exercise
of trying to articulate for anybody that doesn't have siblings.
If we were able to manifest that into an action sequence in a fight,
what that would be and the scale of that.
It really was not even the physical objects and things
that we were designing,
it was more of the feel for it.
So it was a great exercise of doing that,
and giving it its own tone
that's different than the rest of the sequences.
This is integrating the craziest thing that we're introducing,
which, you know...
I know people talk about going to space.
I actually think that after talking to NASA scientists and everything,
I actually felt like there's much more sound science in going to space.
This whole magnet tech, actually, didn't start off as me going,
"Hey, let's go and explore magnets." It actually...
We were doing this scout, and I was actually in Hamburg, Germany,
and I was interested in particle accelerators,
and I remember going underground and walking it with these scientists,
and they were talking to me about particle accelerators
and the magnet tech that it took.
And, actually, that's what inspired this whole thing.
And so I started asking questions about magnets.
And I think we ended up in some restaurant,
having our lunch with pints of beer.
It evolved into from particle acceleration into magnets.
And so that actually was the origin of this whole thing.
And I start asking about the magnet techs and everything.
And I think, with everything, it was always started off in reality,
and then I think the questions I had was more of just
aspiration of that technology, and it just set me off.
And I think that was the origin of what we were going to do in this film.
And it became, I wouldn't say like fiction.
It was still based on something.
I think a lot of it was in theory, and then creatively,
I just took license to it, and we just evolved it.
So, at the end of the day, I actually think that it's interesting
because it was based on something that was science.
And then we just, through questioning, it evolved into something
that maybe one day science will catch up to.
I don't know. But it was something we're playing with.
We're the good guys.
Me? I'm Luke freaking Skywalker.
Are you sure about that?
I mean, I get the daddy issues, but...
Look at what you've built.
Really? Luke?
You're right.
No, I'm more of a Han Solo.
No.
And here, this scene between Cipher and Otto,
it is one of those... Again, it is one those really scary
things to concede, because if you see the earlier scene,
she started clocking Otto as her ticket way out.
And here, we needed a scene
where she was going to be able to pull him in,
but not only destroy his being, his philosophy,
but knowing that he's going to come back and open up that door.
And we had to do that in that one quick scene.
But I... On the day, working with both actors,
I just felt like without them,
there's no way we're able to have a chance.
So, it's again one of those gymnastics
of trying to make sure that maybe you don't get it in the first bounce,
but when the twist and reveal happened, it will all make sense.
And I felt like Charlize and Thue just did an amazing job in that scene.
Man.
There is literally zero industrial or weapons-grade electromagnets
I can find that are this powerful.
Look at the pull strength level here.
- It's crazy. - Yeah.
Wait, watch this.
So, just going back to the magnet tech,
we have actually spent way more time in a lot of the tech,
that was based on science, and it just evolved into our world.
And I know I spent way too much time.
I think even in shooting it,
there was a lot more logic into the magnets.
Ultimately, they're still there if you freeze frame it,
but it's actually in the edit,
I decided not to really spend too much time on it.
But it's there and we... Actually, in the construction of it,
there's actually a logic to everything that was happening.
'Sup, man?
Nice to meet you.
And so this is another one of those scenes that in writing it, you're like,
"Yeah, at some point, if Han's alive, he's going to meet the family."
And it wasn't until this moment, where Dom embraces Han,
you have all these soldiers with guns,
and you're trying to earn this moment of intimacy
between two characters.
Jakob.
I'm sorry, Mia.
And this was really the second scene we shot with John,
and it was interesting.
I could tell, in the morning,
Vin really wanted to get into the meat of it.
And usually, when you shoot these scenes, you shoot the wides,
and you go in.
And I was going on set,
and Vin came up to me and he said, "What do you think?"
As soon as he said, "What do you think?"
I knew what he was saying, and I went to the crew, and I said,
"We're not going to cover it the way we usually cover this.
"I want to get to the intimate moment between these two brothers."
So we actually shot this not in a conventional way.
It was done actually on this fluid master between Jakob and Dom.
And then we just kept working on it until we felt we got it.
And once we had it, then I was able to go back
...I didn't know what to do.
I was aimless.
- Lost. - Absolutely.
But can you get to the part where
the car exploded and you're still alive?
- Like, I'm trying to... - Roman, can you...
Can you just be quiet for one minute?
We made plans.
We had dreams.
So what's our next adventure after this?
Here we're seeing the flashback to the connection between Gisele and Han.
This is on Fast 6.
And we were always very conscious
that Gisele and Han,
every time we had a chance with them on screen
was going to get closer to Tokyo.
And so it was really fulfilling
to be able to actually come back and revisit that moment.
Because when we shot Fast 6, we definitely planted it there,
and it was going to launch Han into Tokyo.
But to be able to bring that back
into the Justice for Han, it felt very appropriate.
You can lose an asset at any time.
Bullet, knife, wire.
But I never thought I'd lose her...
And Kurt here, the connection between Mr. Nobody and Han through Gisele,
it was also another thread that I hope one day
we'll be able to explore, because it was so much fun
working on this thread.
Because when Gisele was introduced to the fans,
it was actually Fast 4, with Braga, and they were doing the tunnel runs.
And I've always felt like her connection was actually through Mr. Nobody
when he was still with the CIA.
And so, I remember thinking that.
And again, Mr. Nobody was a character that we had talked about before I left.
And then, Kurt Russell showed up.
And I remember meeting Kurt when I wasn't doing the Fast.
We were actually looking at another project.
And he ended up talking about Mr. Nobody and his philosophy and his history.
And I was like, "This is so great."
And then, when I saw the films, it wasn't in there at all.
And so it was great to be able to come back and connect with Kurt again,
and then actually bring that to life and know that there's a lot more to it.
I was so excited to go
I forgot my raincoat, so I went back in.
At first, I didn't see it.
By the time I looked out the window...
Elle is another really exciting character.
Anna was... We did a global search,
and when I saw the audition from Anna, I knew that that was our Elle.
It's funny because doing these auditions, there are always NDAs,
and we'll always take the names out,
because we don't want to have any spoilers out in the world.
And Elle actually was the code name for the character.
But when I saw the audition with Anna, the way she said Elle was so...
Something about it felt so right
that I actually changed the character's name and made it Elle.
So it was actually supposed to be the letter "L",
but I just really loved the way she delivered the character's name.
And so we ended up changing her name to Elle.
He knew I'd always be a target, so he taught me how to survive.
We became a family.
Again, this is something in the whole Justice for Han.
There was a lot more worked out
that I hope, one day, we'll be able to bring it to life for the fans.
So I'm really excited for right now.
I don't want to say anything.
I feel like whatever is out there in Fast 9
is there for the fans to talk about and to explore.
And I think when it's appropriate, we'll be able to bring that story to life.
But I am excited for people to see what...
Which dots they connect, and what is the back story
that they can come up with and to share.
But you got killed in a car crash, Han.
Mr. Nobody had a way of making things look real.
This is also one of those moments where I was telling Kurt and Sung...
We ended up finding the perfect location, and it took a while to light,
but there was not going to be any coverage.
It was just going to be this moment that it was going to be
Mr. Nobody and Han sharing that screen,
and it had to say everything about the absence of Han in that world.
- What's happening? - It's some kind of hidden subroutine
the system follows.
So coming up here, this scene,
this is one of those scenes that I would say
making these movies or making anything,
it's the toughest thing to shoot,
because you have...
First of all, you have the whole cast, you have all these moving parts,
you have all these soldiers with guns,
and you're trying to earn this moment of intimacy
between two characters.
Jakob.
I'm sorry, Mia.
And this was really the second scene we shot with John,
and it was interesting.
I could tell, in the morning,
Vin really wanted to get into the meat of it.
And usually, when you shoot these scenes, you shoot the wides,
and you go in.
And I was going on set,
and Vin came up to me and he said, "What do you think?"
As soon as he said, "What do you think?"
I knew what he was saying, and I went to the crew, and I said,
"We're not going to cover it the way we usually cover this.
"I want to get to the intimate moment between these two brothers."
So we actually shot this not in a conventional way.
It was done actually on this fluid master between Jakob and Dom.
And then we just kept working on it until we felt we got it.
And once we had it, then I was able to go back
and do the coverage and shoot the wide shot.
And it was... It was the right way to approach this,
especially with John Cena, this being his second scene.
Good thing about Dad dying...
...was he didn't have to watch what you became.
You never deserved the Toretto name.
This is part of the fluid master here.
It was the first shot that I did for the whole scene,
and he was amazing.
He was fearless.
And part of it was he was going to reveal this big secret
that he's been holding all these years
that was going to fundamentally change everyone's point of view.
Dom, and Mia, and Letty, everybody that was there.
And so, John, I could see him on that day, he just used it.
He used even the awkwardness of going in
and shooting that close up first,
a shared close up with Vin and the whole cast
with all these ex...
Everybody.
And to be able to fully engage
and not let any of the artificial elements get to him.
That was an amazing... It's not even a performance,
but it's an amazing feat for John and also Vin,
and it really set the tone for the scene.
And it's just an example of there's no right or wrong way
to make films,
and sometimes you just have to go with your gut.
And, in this case, it really made a huge difference.
It's funny, I think, a lot of times, how you get characters out of binds,
and when you watch the movie, it's like, "It's two seconds right here."
It's like, "Tej doing this knob."
But to be able to do that, hopefully on multiple levels...
I mean, this thing took... It took eight months
of writing ourselves into a corner of saying,
"Okay. Well, now Jakob's got Elle, and he's leaving,
"and now he's leaving all the soldiers there
"to probably kill Dom and the family. How do they get out?"
And so it's like, in the writing process,
it's always great because you're like,
"Great. We basically...
"We give Jakob a true win.
"And now how are we going to be able get Dom and the family out?"
And so, to be able to figure out that magnet, I mean, it was...
It's funny, every time I watch it, I start heating up
because I get drawn into the struggle
and the challenge of how to get these characters out.
And it's just a great... Like, once you get it,
it feels like you're able to solve all the world's problems, you know.
But then, when people are watching the movie,
it's like, it's two seconds, boom, they're gone.
Here this is another sequence that, for us is kind of a first time,
which is actually seeing Dom be really defeated.
And obviously he's doing this to try to save Letty and the family.
But it's always kind of gratifying
to find new beats for us to explore, you know, and...
And I think we actually never had anything like this
where, yes, it's a big fight scene with Dom and all these guys,
but for him to really be doing it
to try to save his family,
even if it's ultimately about giving up his own life,
it was great.
No!
And I thought, again, if you watch it closely,
there's shades of Dom in this film that we had never experienced.
And this sequence coming up, to me, is another example of that, you know.
I think Vin really just brought it and he was able to go places
that I think that even if we tried in the other films,
it wouldn't have been right. It had to be earned.
See, cars like this are immortal.
Here, you see, Vincent, this is actually Vin's son.
And it was one of those amazing moments
where I knew we were going to have a young Dom Toretto,
and they actually started scouting for it.
And I'm looking through all the auditions
and at one point, you know, it dawned on me that,
"Well, why don't we just try Vin's son, " you know.
And it just became this perfect fit and Vincent did such an amazing job.
And here again, this is a Dominic Toretto that, you know, for me...
I have never gone to that place with Vin.
And I know for sure that Vin's been always keeping that.
And this was one of those earned moments for us,
and it was such a great time on set
to be able to earn that and earn that together.
No. You know I'm good for it.
It's crazy. You see that door with Jack.
You know, we shot this on a sound stage, but as soon as I walked on that little set
and I saw that door, I was in the Toretto house,
I feel like, even as a viewer, a fan of this franchise,
sometimes it's like these little cues
that really just brings out all these feelings.
Seeing that door brought me back to me being in film school
and watching the first Fast & Furious film
at the AMC Santa Monica, you know.
And then shooting that in that house
on Fast 4 with Brian and Mia.
I'm telling you, I got intermittent miss.
- Last two laps. - On it!
Get those plug wires!
Jakob! Now.
And here, this is the moment of connection.
And I just thought, you know J.D. and Finn
and Vin, even though we shot it in different environments,
it was such a great connection.
And a lot of it was this moment of, for Jakob, of deciding
and that pressure of not knowing what's right or wrong,
but ultimately doing it and keeping his word to his dad.
And for Vin and Dom to be able to process that...
Again, it's unchartered territory, and I'm so kind of proud
that we're able to earn that in this new chapter.
No!
It's interesting, you know, this sequence was actually really a challenge
to put together,
because a lot of times you watch films
and there's underwater sequences and it's great,
but it's really hard to capture that.
And so, we had to find this tank and Michelle was just fearless.
She jumped in and it was great and then Vin had to come,
and we had to shoot all the underwater sequences,
and it was mind-bending and...
I was trying to change the axis and everything.
But ultimately, it was great,
even though it was only, like, maybe less than 10 seconds,
I felt like we did it right.
And both Vin and Michelle's commitment to it
really just helped those moments.
Do you hear me?
Is this who we are?
Yeah.
And this is, in a way, an earned moment between Letty and Dom.
We really only had various moments
in throughout the movie for them
to kind of get to work out everything they've gone through.
But what I love is that it wasn't about them working it through together,
it needed Letty to go on this journey with Mia,
and then Dom to go through this journey with Jakob for them to reconnect,
and to have to not only share that moment,
but to have a sense of...
At least a sense of what their future is together.
Not remotely. We'd have to do it physically,
Fifty miles above ground while the satellite is in orbit.
Orbit?
We need help.
Otherwise, we have no chance.
We do it ourselves.
It's where we've been that got us this far.
No. No, no, no, no, no.
Do y'all not understand?
Clearly, y'all don't.
Because if you did, you'd be pissing your pants
like a normal person.
Orbit.
That's outer space.
That's another level.
What we gonna do? Hijack a space shuttle?
Put rockets on our backs?
This is where... We're about to head into our third act action sequence.
And I know a lot of people maybe, through the years,
joked about what's next. Space? You know, and...
And that's something, internally, we were always talking about.
And to be honest, I wasn't sure if we were ever going to be able to do it.
And it became a very organic way because when I finally committed
to this kind of existential threat with Roman, Tej and Ramsey,
as I was working on it, it felt like we needed
something that is not of this world.
And that's pun intended, to really kind of pay off that thread.
And I remember even working on it,
and when we got there, I called Vin up and I drove to his house
and I remember sitting down and he looked at me and goes,
"So this is the one, right?"
I said, "I think so." And we both kind of laughed,
because, you know, it was something that we we always would sit there
and throw the craziest ideas of what we can do and explore.
But I don't know if we ever thought like, "Oh, yeah. Let's go to space on 9."
It was just something that became very organic.
And even like, for me, personally,
it actually had a much more profound effect
because, to me, I always get the sense when I talked to Vin,
when we explore and we talk about stories
about the journeys of our characters of Fast and the Furious.
I think we always start from a point that we're never supposed to be here.
Like, I remember growing up being a filmmaker was, you know...
When I would tell people, it was like... It was not a possibility.
And I know that, you know, having gotten to know Vin very well,
he had went through the same thing, you know.
And Michelle, same thing, you know.
She was a Jersey girl and, you know, Sung, all of us.
And somehow we all found our way to each other.
Like with Vin it was about making this indie film and finishing it.
And even though nobody believed in him, he got into Sundance,
and that's where Spielberg saw him and he got into Saving Private Ryan.
He has his own story.
My story is, nobody believed in anything that I wanted to do.
I ultimately did a credit-card movie.
I met Sung and got into Sundance
and changed our lives and gave me a career, you know.
And for Michelle, it was just her exploration letter to Girlfight,
and she would share her stories with me where the fact that the filmmaker Karyn,
she took a chance on someone new as opposed to an established actor.
And somehow, we met each other and we...
We started making these films that wasn't a given.
Like, I think when I joined, the Fast and the Furious
was not Fast and the Furious today.
And for me to say, "For sure we're going to have a sequel, " that was insane.
We had to earn it. And then by earning it,
I got to work with Vin and Paul and Jordana and Michelle and...
And we just kept challenging each other, you know.
And that's the spirit of Fast and the Furious.
And at the same time, there was no IP,
there was no comic book, it's not based on anything.
It was whatever we wanted to do.
And I think it was very clear for us from the beginning
that we were never going to just do the same thing over and over.
This was not going to be James Bond, where it's the same character
or characters that's just going to go through different adventures.
We were going to honor these characters,
and as they grow, we were going to grow.
And now you're seeing us, you know...
These characters have gone together, had kids.
And now we're doing these big action movies
with our protagonists who actually have kids at home, you know.
And I think that's what's so unique about it.
And to be able to grow together and not be alone.
You know, I can go all the way back to meeting Tyrese on Annapolis
and getting to know each other.
But we were so different then.
And to be able to build that trust where now I can put him and Chris
in a deep sea diving suit and say,
"You're going to attempt to go to space."
That's meaningful to me, you know, and to us.
And so going to space,
it had all these profound meanings
that I wasn't even really conscious of until we did it.
I'm barely ready to go scuba diving in this old-ass thing.
Don't listen to him. We ready!
- "We"? - Yes, I said "we"!
I thought you was invincible.
Let's see how invincible your Black ass is after this.
- Punch it! - No! Tej!
Oh, my God! I don't want to die!
Ignition!
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
When we were shooting this, and the Roman and Tej sequence
that comes a little later when they're talking about,
"No one's going to believe us, right?"
it actually had a lot more meaning.
And again, these sequences are so complicated to put together.
It takes months and months to plan and then you location scout.
You have to scan the location, and they have to previz it and previz it,
and then we have to go through stunts
to make sure that they can execute everything that was planned.
And here, you know, it looks like two cars...
That actually was two stunts done at the same time, a cannon and a ramp.
such a big part of Universal's legacy, you know.
And so, yeah.
So, to be able to see this sequence actually, it meant a lot more.
And, you know, it is definitely a lot of fun.
I would say that, you know, talking to the NASA rocket scientist...
At first, he just thought we were crazy.
But soon, I think he realized we weren't trying to duplicate
our space to outer atmosphere.
We were actually really trying to figure out a real way to start.
And so those conversations were awesome.
It was...
It started off with fuel, the amount of fuel that we would need.
And it led us to the launching point
where I knew we couldn't launch our characters from the ground,
it'd just take too much fuel.
So then we looked at the Virgin Galactic
and some of the space shuttle tests they did.
And we realized if we launch the the craft from higher altitude,
it would be a lot less fuel and actually has been done.
So it was just about making sure that we had characters
that was trained in that discipline.
So Earl and Sean and Twinkie actually felt very natural
because these are characters that are kind of savants, you know.
And as they lived in the universe,
and us not checking in with them for the last, I don't know, 10 years,
that they would naturally be very much into this idea
of pushing vehicles into new realms.
And so... Anyway, it is crazy.
I know that people have seen the trailer,
and they thought, "Oh, my God, they're going to space."
But I could tell you that,
I think aside from the polymer and some other things,
it is actually very sound what we're doing.
And we've had many, many really great conversations
with literally rocket scientists to get all that going.
I think if anything, the magnet tech is actually
maybe a little more further out, you know?
And I just took the principle of a lot of stuff that they're working on
in that technology, and we just kind of build off of that.
And, yeah, I think a lot of times you see the knobs being turned right there,
which is to repel or to attract.
But there are actually, if you look at Ramsey's computer,
there are a lot more specific things that they're doing with the tech.
And I shot it.
And actually, ultimately...
I just felt like it was going to be more confusing in those cuts.
So the tech is there.
If you really look closely, it's actually there.
We actually had footage, but ultimately it just was not...
I just felt like it was confusing people more,
so I just simplified it.
And here, we're seeing Francis Ngannou.
It was one of these nice perks of doing these movies
because I just get incoming calls from people.
One day it could be Cardi B, it could be Bad Bunny,
or it could be Francis Ngannou.
You know, just people saying, "Hey, we love the franchise.
"Can we be a part of it?"
And I thought, "Okay, cool. Let me see."
And I remember it was actually...
I was on my way to the set and we were well into shooting.
And I was just inspired one morning.
I was listening to this Carpenters' song, Top of the World,
and for some reason, it was the structure of the music
that it was like a three-parter that really inspired me.
And I started writing, and this whole sequence was written in that car.
And so when we landed at the studio, I called second unit
and they were actually shooting in Tbilisi,
and I told them the shots and I started sketching it out
and I would email it to them and they ended up shooting it,
and that became the Ngannou sequence.
And it was all done when I was in the car, and it's...
It's a testament to the team that I have.
We now have this shorthand where certain sequences
we planned for months and months.
But then on the spur of the moment, when I get inspired,
I can actually call them and plan that over the phone,
and they could actually shoot it and we can shoot
all the interior stuff in London and get it all done.
So here what you just saw was actually the improv sequence with Roman and Tej.
It is one of those things that when I saw it,
I knew it had to be in the film because it was never scripted.
But it was a sentiment of "we're never supposed to be here."
And I know it's done in a fun way, but I just love the delivery that Tyrese
and, both, Chris, in that moment, gave.
And it really kind of says it all for all of us,
I think, you know, behind the camera, in front of the camera.
And it really captured the essence and the spirit of Fast and the Furious.
And so, it's one of those great things that in film that I love
is that sometimes you can plan and plan and plan.
If you do that enough, you get the spontaneous moments on the day
that outshines all the planning.
That's what happens, the magic of filmmaking.
- Something you want to tell me, Otto? - My bad.
Satellite uplink is actually going splendid.
And, by the way, I have a new business partner.
Maybe you know her.
Guess who's out of the box, Jakob.
But I did try to warn you.
You were never my competition.
- Otto, there's something you should know. - Yeah, go on.
So here, we have seen the intersection now
of this earned partnership between Otto and Cipher
that was all done off screen.
And, again, it goes all the way back
to that Yoda, Star Wars scene between them.
I was so excited after we shot that.
You know, soon as I knew we had that scene in the can,
I felt like, "Okay, this beat is going to work."
And again, these sequences are so complicated to put together.
It takes months and months to plan and then you location scout.
You have to scan the location, and they have to previz it and previz it,
and then we have to go through stunts
to make sure that they can execute everything that was planned.
And here, you know, it looks like two cars...
That actually was two stunts done at the same time, a cannon and a ramp.
And this is a combination of...
You're talking about, at the end of the day,
crew in Tbilisi, in UK, and in post, you have crew in India,
you know, UK, Montreal,
everywhere around the world to make it all happen.
It was a connection of this amazing crew of thousands across the world
for us to be able to bring this to life.
And this is one of the craziest moments of hitting that.
And we actually did that practically.
It was done in pieces, of course,
but I was very proud that we were able to capture
all that in camera, every beat of that.
And here there's a... I'm sure people watching it
have questions about the magnet...
How is it that the Supra is the only thing attached?
And it, actually...
If you see all those things, those directional kind of magnetic force,
we had months and months of meetings about it,
and I actually...
There is actually tech in there with... that Mia does.
But I remember seeing an earlier cut when I actually cut to her doing it,
it brought on like it was just an overload of intel.
And so when I removed it, it just felt like it all made sense.
But for people that are doing a deeper dive,
I could tell you that there is a logic to that
that we had spent months developing.
I mean, it's still there if you really look at it,
but in the cut, it just made more sense for it to be simple.
So here, you know, I have Anna shooting this crazy Gatling gun.
I think she had a lot of fun that day doing it.
But it was a combination of us shooting interior in London
and then sending her to Tbilisi to shoot that gun for real.
And a lot of people, they ask me about this sequence.
And as you can see,
there's no way we can duplicate that in the visual effects world.
So I was giving notes and I just kept asking them to throw more cars
at, we call it the Armadillo.
That's something that we built from ground up.
And so, my note for them was always to keep throwing more cars at it.
So I was very happy the way the sequence turned out.
You know, it was one of those things where, like this,
you cannot duplicate that in the visual effects world.
Letty, drop back and line up with the front tires.
- What? - If we can't slow it
and we can't punch through...
So, where we're coming up to, is this pole,
and then this is, actually this shot right here,
where the car hits the windshield,
that was one of the happy accidents.
We threw a camera on there, and it just had this amazing moment
where it captures a car hitting the windshield,
and I think it delayed us a little bit,
but it gave this really great coverage
that I ultimately was able to kind of work into the movie.
You read my mind. Han, get in front of me.
And the wire gag here, it seems pretty simple.
I think, for anybody, it's just five seconds of a moment.
But again, it took so much time.
We had cannons, poles and it was all the amazing stunt team.
And usually, you do one of these, it's a big deal.
But to do multiple vehicles like this,
it is a huge undertaking.
And again, I just give the crew so much credit, you know, they...
There's never any hesitation.
Everybody was always in to do something new,
even if it's just a small beat like that.
And so, for this beat of the flip,
we actually had to build so many different rigs to do that
and one just for the head of the Armadillo.
And actually, for a lot of this, we had to capture in camera,
just for reference.
And it's something that...
It was so complicated just because there was
three different lighting sequences to try to get all that done.
But we were able to capture a lot of the stuff practically,
even if it was used for reference.
Satellite is in range.
Let's power up these magnets and fry it.
All right, take our time.
I have to say, I think this coming up here with Chris and Tyrese,
to put 'em in the most ridiculous outfits
and to be in this ridiculous vehicle
in this ridiculous situation,
and for them to really kind of connect on an emotional level...
Oh, my goodness, it... I'm so proud of them.
I would say, with everything that I've done with them,
this is my most proud moment with them
because they're showing up, they look like Minions.
I have 'em hanging from the set for hours and hours.
And then they had to deliver this existential monologue
where both of their philosophies converge.
And that Tej was always driven by math and science,
is basically saying that it's an impossibility.
It's one in a million.
And then for Roman, who's basically, the dreamer saying,
"Well, if it's one in a million, let's go for it.
"Because we were never supposed to be here."
And it says a lot about us as a franchise,
and us as a family in front and behind the camera.
And you can hear it in Tyrese's performance.
It really captured that.
And I remember thinking about rewriting it just as an exercise.
And then I thought, "No, it doesn't matter whatever I write or rewrite."
Whatever was captured in that moment between Tyrese and Chris
really says it all for us.
And for us to be doing this crazy action sequence
and then getting into that emotional moment for all of us,
to me, that's like the secret weapon a lot of times
to be able to surprise people.
And I think people, lot of times, think the surprise is
in the craziness in the action,
but for me, it's always the emotional moments
that we're able to capture.
We did it!
Let's go.
Yes!
Shit.
Not bad, man.
Not bad at all.
And so, the Toretto house, under construction,
that was something that I also wanted to earn our way to,
even though they were living in that farmhouse when we first find 'em,
I always knew our goal was to earn our way back
to the Toretto house and to be able to have our barbecue.
I'm sure when people saw the trailer, they expected
Han to be with Sean and Twinkie and Earl and I...
I love the fact that, for the first time they see each other
is actually in this moment of the film,
that they actually weren't connected at all,
and that they were able to find their way to each other
and to kind of be introduced to Elle, their new member.
Just call me T.
And, you know, Leo, Santos...
We actually... Is also something that I really was excited to do
was to see how they met Dom in that flashback sequence.
You see that beat of Dom running through,
that is actually one of the hardest sets.
It took us weeks to build.
It was on this 360 rotating set just for those couple of seconds.
And that's what's so, to me...
I'm still blown away that we're able to do that.
And the amount of care that we can do.
This is still something that I wake up every morning,
and I'm so happy and excited
to be part of, you know, the tent pole cinema.
You just can't do this anywhere else in the world.
You know, to be able to wreck over 200 cars,
to come up with crazy ideas,
and then have this amazing crew bring it to life.
And to be able to use every tool available.
To even do this, you know, right here, with the jump.
To be able to start practically and then go all the way,
using every tool to tell the story.
So coming up here with Cipher,
this is probably the beginning of something
that I'm really excited to explore with both Vin and Charlize.
And this is the...
I'll point this out, it's one of those luxuries...
For the first time, I allowed myself to think of it
as a final chapter so that we can have scenes like this.
A lot of the credit goes to Vin and the studio
because I have always wanted to only treat
every film, every chapter as its own journey,
and I didn't wanna engage.
I wanna earn the next chapter,
but Vin talked me into thinking of it as we've earned this final chapter.
And Fast 9 is really the first film of the of the three.
So, it allowed me to be able to explore things
and have scenes like that with Cipher,
which is suggesting that there's more to come.
This is the world I chose, Dom.
You know, Dad wasn't perfect.
And then, of course, here, this exchange,
it harkens back to the heart and soul
of the franchise of the first Fast and the Furious.
And even though,
Brian O'Conner's not physically part of this film and journey,
it was very much an effort to always be conscious
that he is part of this universe, and any time we can, you know,
have moments that helps the audience connect with him
and to know that he's still in this universe,
it's really important. And this was one of the great finds.
It was, again, very organic and earned,
but it's also very much part of the DNA of where we all came from.
So we're about to get into this kind of wrapping up
this crazy chapter of going into...
I know we're saying space. Like here, it's space.
But I can officially tell you that it was outer atmosphere.
It wasn't until they pushed that NOS that took them into space,
which is way further, and so they've been drifting for a while.
And, you know, the Minion joke actually came from me
trying to figure out if there's any way of them
coming up with a space suit with no time.
And I was talking to a rocket scientists
and it ultimately came into this idea that, you know,
deep sea exploration diving suits are very close to astronaut suits.
And so the idea that they blow up, that's all kind of based on real science.
And here we are in the race track,
and this Bad Bunny track was amazing.
He actually sent us the track.
And I loved the song and I didn't know where to put it.
And I think once we tried it in the scene,
it really gave it so much more meaning.
You did?
And it was just... Again, I feel so lucky.
You know, when I first joined the franchise,
people weren't sending us tracks to try.
And now we have all these amazing artists
that are just sharing with us materials that they've created.
And when we're able to find these amazing connections,
it just makes me realize how far we've come,
and the fact that it wasn't always like this
and it was something that that we've earned together.
This moment here, I felt like it was so important to have
because when we talk about time travel,
the idea that we're able to explore two timelines,
and finally, we're able to have this kind of temporal and physical space
converge into one.
I was so excited to have this.
But it was also able to wrap this chapter up completely
in a way that it suggests a lot more
that that's happened, obviously,
but at the same time, for Fast 9,
this connection, it was so important to me,
and I'm so glad we're able to achieve it.
And so, the Toretto house, under construction,
that was something that I also wanted to earn our way to,
even though they were living in that farmhouse when we first find 'em,
I always knew our goal was to earn our way back
to the Toretto house and to be able to have our barbecue.
I'm sure when people saw the trailer, they expected
Han to be with Sean and Twinkie and Earl and I...
I love the fact that, for the first time they see each other
is actually in this moment of the film,
that they actually weren't connected at all,
and that they were able to find their way to each other
and to kind of be introduced to Elle, their new member.
Just call me T.
And, you know, Leo, Santos...
We actually... Is also something that I really was excited to do
was to see how they met Dom in that flashback sequence.
And it was awesome to get Don Omar.
In this present timeline, to be able to get him and everybody together,
it just meant so much.
It has so much more value.
Again, I know I said this so many times during this commentary,
but there's a lot of times in writing and understanding
the magnitude of certain things,
but then there's a difference between that and then showing up on the day
with all the actors, with the whole cast.
And it really elevates it to another emotional level
that I think on a cerebral sense, writing it you understand,
but until you get there and you shoot it and you're in that location
in the Toretto backyard, you truly feel it.
I think Daddy has a question for you.
You ready to say grace, kid?
But I don't know what to say.
Oh, it's easy.
Here, obviously, Little Brian, you know, joining the barbecue,
the family barbecue, is significant because it also suggests that
he's going to be at many more barbecues.
Little Brian's ready to say grace with us.
I think that the empty chair...
And I remember sitting there with the set decks
and trying to find the right color to match for Brian.
And then at the same time, like,
having Brian show up at the barbecue with his Skyline,
for anybody that's been part of this franchise,
I just felt like that was the right way to approach
his presence in this franchise,
but hopefully, doing in a respectful way.
Again, you know, I think it was so gratifying to be back,
but I think more importantly, is to be back for the right reasons.
And to be able to do this film
and to be inspired and to know that, "Yes, this is chapter nine."
But we still have all this new themes and arcs and threads
to explore with our characters.
And to do that, again,
I get the business of making these movies
that when you're successful, you have other opportunities,
but on a creative level to know that we can do this,
but be able to have an environment
where we're still challenging each other and trying new things,
that to me, is when it's most fulfilling.
And I think at the end of this,
it's interesting because I knew we were gonna have a tag.
And I remember shooting Fast 6, and I was leaving.
I knew I was leaving, and I was talking to Jason Statham
for a long time about joining our franchise.
And I remember in London, I came up with the idea
that he was going to be Shaw
and that Shaw was going to be the one that killed Han, and...
And I called him and he was awesome and he came in and did the scene.
And then I finally officially decided I was leaving.
I had a long talk with him.
His first reaction was, "If you're leaving, I'm leaving.
"I'm not going to continue."
And I said, "No, no, no, no. Please, you should."
I think there's still a lot more story to be had,
and he obviously stayed.
But I always felt bad because he came and did that scene for me.
So, it was great to be able to come up with the idea for this,
and in many ways, it's the continuation for us, you know,
and to be able to call him and say, "Hey, can you come in here and do this tag?
"And this tag is not about me leaving.
"This tag is about connecting with Shaw
"and it's for us to make the promise
"that we're going to be able to, you know, not only work together,
"but really dig into Shaw the way we wanted to."
And so, it was a great call to make.
I didn't know what to expect.
And Jason was so excited, and he was great.
And just... Again, it made it feel like it was always meant to be, you know?
And so, on this day, when we were shooting it,
it reminded me of shooting that tag on 6.
But instead of this feeling of leaving, it was the opposite.
It was connecting, it was reconnecting,
and the excitement of what's to come.
So, it was a great way.
It was the last scene that we shot in this movie.
And to see him and Han
and the promise of fully doing justice for Han, right,
it was the best way to go out.
And so, I'm excited to be back.
And I had such a great time reconnecting with everybody.
And I look forward to concluding our saga
with all these great characters.
So, thank you, guys, for your time, for sitting through this.
And I look forward to exploring and finding the right next two films
to close out this saga for Fast and the Furious.