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Compiled by: Jack Foley
Q. As an acclaimed director, what were your feelings about
taking on the reigns of this movie, and how many cars did you
total and which one gave you particular satisfaction seeing redumed
to a whimpering pulp?
A. I'll do em in backwards order. I got no satisfaction out of
seeing the cars pulped up, because they were really expensive
cars. When the audience is watching the movie, whether or not
it's that Mustang going under the semi-truck or the Challenger
smashing into that thing, their looking at it with so much admiration
for the cars, that when you see a car like that, just smashed,
you just wince. And the second thing is, I don't have a number
for how many we smacked up, but we smashed up a whole lot of cars.
To answer your first question, I was intrigued to find a way to
top the first film; the first one was so established, it was a
window onto the culture, on to the street racing culture that
is a big phenomenon over in the States, so my thing was how to
get to the next level, to make it look as new as possible, and
try to do it in a style that was different from the first film.
I thought I was going to shoot it different from the first film,
because I thought it had to look different from the first film.
That's all I did, and I think it's working out for us.
Q. What are you driving at the moment?
A. I just bought a new car. It's a Mercedes SL500. It's got
loads of kit on. A great sound system, suede interior, 296 horse
power...
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Q. Can you tell us more about the choreography for the amazing
final chase scene, where suddenly the screen seems absolutely
flooded with cars?
A. It's rehearsal. A lot of those cars were from the Miami
street scene and there was a mixture of stunt men and the people
who actually owned the cars. We had some stunt drivers driving
in uniform fashion and we had a couple of people driving their
own cars.
But there were hundreds of cars out there and not one accident,
amazingly enough.
We were worried about what happens if somebody damages their car,
because it's a personal thing, were they going to try and sue
us, but it worked out.
Q. How realistic a depiction of street-racing
is the film?
A. What we did in the film is much more stylized than what
happens. Usually, it's more of a straight-forward race. I wanted
to add turns and some obstacles.
Paul Walker: Actually, what we did is actually the craze
in Japan right now. Japan's like two steps ahead of us, especially
with the opening race, they're actually doing that right now.
They set the standard.
JS: That beginning race, we deliberately led the audience
to believe that it was a straight-forward race and then that first
turn comes, so it shocks them...
Q. Did you have the soundtrack in mind when you
made the film?
A. Since I was in Miami, I always knew that I wanted to have
a sort of southern-based hip-hop over the picture, cos that's
what's in that area, and I wanted to have that music in the film.
I didn't want to have all these really cool artists on the soundtrack
and not have the music represented in the film.
I also felt that the generation that was watching the film is
raised on music videos, and to see things in a quicker fashion,
so I thought that if I played the music over these images, they
would just go along with it.
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