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Compiled by: Jack Foley
Q. At what point during the making of The Fast & The Furious
did you realise you had struck commercial gold, and had a franchise
beckoning?
A. The opening Friday. It wasn't until then, actually. We
knew when we had some early test screenings that audiences loved
it, and we knew when we had some early preview screenings that
audiences loved it, but didn't actually know that people were
going to show up and pay dollars to go and see the movie. I kept
leaving messages on Paul's machine, first night... what did they
involve [turns to Paul Walker]
[Walker shouts] It's a cultural phenomenon!
Q. What are you driving at the moment?
A. I actually only do these movies so I can take the cars from
the movies. If you've seen 2 Fast 2 Furious, I have the blue Camaro
from that movie, a Ferrari from another movie. I love cars.
Q. At what point, when the sequel was being planned,
did it become clear that Vin [Diesel] wasn't going to be part
of it, and did that cause any major disruptions to the initial
plan?
A. We knew very early on that Vin wasn't going to do the movie
and myself and Scott Shivers, the head of production at Universal,
met with Tyrese, because he was the only person we actually ever
thought of for the role, and there was no auditioning or anything..
he was the guy. We wrote it tailored for Tyrese.
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Q. Will this be the team for the third film, if there is one?
A. I'd love for everyone to be back, if they wanted to be
back. Obviously, the person that's taken us through the first
two of the series has been Paul, and we were talking about it
yesterday and decided that if the audience wants to see it, we'd
love to make it.
But I think this is one of those situations where we had so much
fun making the movie, it would have been a shame if the movie
hadn't come out as well as it did.
My wife actually said to me yesterday, ' do you really want to
make another one of these?', and I said it's been the most fun
I've ever had making a movie and if I could have that same experience
again, I would go and do it in one second.
Tyrese: I think when you're doing something this big -
I've never done anything as big in my life - when you're having
this much fun, you don't really pay attention to how big it is,
and how crazy it is, and how much people are anticipating it,
or the pressures of trying to have something equally as successful
as the first one... I mean, not once did I think about it, especially
since Paul was a part of the first one and we were doing the sequel
together; the fact that me and him got along as well as we did
- and we didn't do it just for the sake of our publicists - was
a bonus. I was in his room, he was in my room, we were having
barbecues, I was trying to dump black girls on him, or whatever...
That's what it was about, we just had the time of our life, and
when you're having this much fun, you don't really pay attention
to those kinds of pressures.
Neal: There was a lot of pressure every day, cos you know
Paul and myself, especially, because we were back from the first
one. And there was a lot of pressure because amongst the audience
for this movie, this was their favourite movie they had ever seen.
There was a poll done last year, while we were making the movie,
and they asked them which their favourite was, and this was their
number one, ahead of Spider-Man,
Matrix and Star
Wars. So we know how much the audience really loved that first
one and there was a lot of pressure to go out and make a movie
that the audience could go out and love as much as the first one.
And what was so nice is that in our first test screenings - we
had one in Sacramento and one in Los Angeles - and in both those
screenings, over 90% of the audience said that they liked the
second one more than the first. And that was a challenge for us
to overcome.
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