“He’s so dope, man,” gushed Michelle Rodriguez of filmmaker Louis Leterrier (Now You See Me) who jumped in the driver’s seat to take over directing Fast X when Justin Lin pushed the eject button after reaching a breaking point during a disagreement with Vin Diesel, as THR reported.
Leterrier has since packed the car with a creative team from his native France. “This Fast and Furious is the French Fast and Furious,” Rodriguez explained during a chat with The Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet at Comic-Con where she was promoting her role in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. “Our special effects team, all of the guys who are doing the the fights, they’re all French. Our second AD is French. Our director’s French. It’s like the French takeover, dude.”
And Rodriguez is the first to say “Oui” to all that. “Trust me, at the beginning, I was like two weeks in with no director. I’m like, ‘What are we gonna do?’” she explained.
Enter the Frenchman: “He came with all this energy of love. We haven’t had that in Fast and Furious for a very long time where we get somebody excited who’s a real fan and who really wants to take it places that it hasn’t gone before. We’ve been at it for 20 years, bro. After all that time, you get jaded and kind of forget what you do it for [until] a director like Louis comes in and reminds you, ‘This is beautiful. Let’s go make magic.’ We’re so lucky to have him bro.”
This story first appeared in the July 27 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.