Paul Walker’s memory clearly lives on in the hearts of his friends, with his Fast and Furious co-star Vin Diesel even naming his baby daughter in honour of his late friend.
“I named her Pauline,” Vin Diesel told US Today show host Natalie Morales in an interview on air as they toured the city of New York by helicopter.
The on-screen tough guy is clearly a softie underneath his hard exterior and will now be reminded of his late friend every time he looks down at his baby daughter.
“There’s no other person that I’m thinking about as I’m cutting this umbilical cord,” he said. “I knew he was there and I felt like, you know, a way to keep his memory a part of my memory, a part of my world.”
Baby Pauline is Vin Diesel’s third child with his long-term partner Paloma Jimenez – they also have daughter Hania Riley, six, and four-year-old son Vincent. He announced her arrival, sharing a touching black and white photo on the 17th March before heading straight from hospital to the first public screening of Furious 7 where he gave a very teary tribute to his late friend.
“This was a labour of love,” Vin said as he introduced the film. “It was in some ways the hardest movie I ever had to do because the relationships you see on film are so real. When the tragedy happened, I lost my best friend. I lost my brother.”
The cast of Fast and the Furious 7 have been publicly reliving their memories of their co-star as they undertake the publicity trail to promote the film’s release. It was Paul Walker’s last film before the tragic fatal car accident last year that took the life of the actor and his friend Roger Rodas.
The cast of Fast and the Furious 7 have been publicly reliving their memories of their co-star as they undertake the publicity trail to promote the film’s release. It was Paul Walker’s last film before the tragic fatal car accident last year that took the life of the actor and his friend Roger Rodas.
“We grew up in the business together, we became famous together, we represented the biggest franchise together and he was my partner,” Vin Diesel said “I’ve been acting all my life, and they don’t teach you in acting how to mourn someone and how to simultaneously pretend they’re in a scene with you.”
Paul’s younger brothers Caleb and Cody, who bear a strong resemblance to Paul, were asked to step in and film the final scenes of the high octane instalment following the sudden passing of their elder sibling who had not yet finished shooting his scenes.
Speaking on another US talk show, LIVE with Kelly and Michael, in August last year, Vin Diesel also commented that the sudden adjustment to filming without Paul, as he grieved for his friend was incredibly difficult.
“We grew up in the business together, we became famous together, we represented the biggest franchise together and he was my partner,” Vin Diesel said “I’ve been acting all my life, and they don’t teach you in acting how to mourn someone and how to simultaneously pretend they’re in a scene with you.”
Michelle Rodriguez says that she was also deeply affected by the loss of her close friend and co-star Paul.
Fellow Fast & Furious franchise star Michelle Rodiguez meanwhile has admitted to her own struggle with processing the grief of losing her friend, saying she went “pretty crazy” following Paul’s death. The star, who has been pictured sunbaking and canoodling with British model Cara Delevingne and hunky Hollywood star Zac Efron said that she used “ travelled and had sex” in attempt to “feel alive”.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly she said, “I actually went on a bit of a binge. I went crazy a little bit …. I went pretty crazy.”
“A lot of the stuff I did last year I would never do had I been in my right mind.
“I felt like nothing I could do could make me feel alive, so I just kept pushing myself harder and harder. I was travelling and I was having sex. And I was just trying to ignore everything that I was feeling.”
It has obviously been a tough year for the friends and family of the much loved Paul Walker, but they are clearly doing everything they can to ensure that his memory lives on.
The Fast and the Furious 7 is due to hit cinemas on 2nd April
