It was as much of a surprise to her as it was to everyone else watching the movie…
When you think of the Fast and the Furious movies, it is likely that three things come to mind.
One – Cars. Lots and lots of cars.
Two – Family. A group of actors that keep coming back to the franchise over and over because they seem to genuinely love making these movies.
And Three – Soap Opera Plot Twists. We’re talking amnesia. We’re talking secret babies. We’re talking dead characters not actually being all that dead.
That is certainly what happened with Michelle Rodriguez, who had her character Letty killed off at the start of the fourth movie, seemingly shot dead in cold blood, before being buried, leading to Dom (Vin Diesel) and Bryan (Paul Walker) to seek revenge.
However, SURPRISE!, it turns out that Letty wasn’t actually dead at all, and that was just as much as a surprise to the actress playing her as it was to everyone else.
On the third episode of TBR Spotlight: The Fast & Furious Saga, in which Eoghan, Garry and Rory tackle the fifth and sixth Fast & Furious movies, they discuss [LISTEN from 31:45 below] the magnificent way that Michelle Rodriguez discovered she was actually coming back to the franchise.
So let us set the scene.
It is the post-credits scene of Fast Five, and we see Special Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) in his office, looking for leads to help him find Dom and his on-the-run crew.
Suddenly, in walks Special Agent Fuentes (Eva Mendes), who we haven’t seen since 2 Fast 2 Furious. She hands him a file, and inside it a somewhat blurry photo, but it is clear who we’re looking at: Letty.
This leads directly into the events of Fast & Furious 6, with Letty dealing with amnesia and seemingly working with the bad guys against Dom and co.
However, even Rodriguez didn’t know that Letty was making a comeback until she watched Fast Five in a cinema herself, telling Yahoo! Movies the following:
“They wanted to surprise me. I didn’t find out until I actually went to the theatre and saw it myself.”
Diesel chimed in, referring to Letty’s death scenes in the fourth movie: “We had designed all of those scenes to allow for this inevitable return.”
It doesn’t quite explain who they put in the coffin and buried, but we know better than to ask these questions. And it wouldn’t even be the last time they do this buried-but-not-dead twist, as we all now know that Han is making his return in F9, despite having being killed off in TWO previous movies, Tokyo Drift and Fast & Furious 6.
Fast & Furious 6 and all of the other entries in The Fast Saga are all available to watch on NOW at the time of writing, while Fast & Furious 9 is currently scheduled to arrive Irish cinemas this June.
Clip via The Fast Saga
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