14 DAY TRIAL // Actor Kurt Russell has just joined the ever-growing cast of the “Fast & Furious” franchise, but he was nonetheless hit by Walker's violent and tragic death during the making of the seventh film. He opened up about the incident in an interview at the Sundance Film Festival.
Russell was billed to play Torreto's dad in the movie, with Paul Walker reprising his role as the former FBI agent turned rogue outlaw. His says in an interview quoted by Entertainment Tonight that his filming schedule was nearly complete, with just one day left to shoot when Paul Walker died.
The actor reveals how this unfortunate and unforeseen event impacted the movie production: “They're having to rewrite, they're having to do whatever they're having to do to deal with the situation.”
In fact, the rewrites could also affect Russell's own character from the movie, and he claims that at the moment he has no knowledge about how the plot is going to turn out, or if Walker's character will be killed off.
He continues: “Listen, it's catastrophic. It's the worst thing that could happen to a movie, but it's not as bad as what happened to Paul,” then bitterly adds, “So everything is in perspective. He was a terrific guy. And life is full of curveballs.”
The 62-year-old actor spoke on the matter from the Sundance Film Festival, where he's currently promoting the documentary “The Battered Bastards of Baseball,” an interesting production which tells the story about his father's minor-league baseball team.
Paul Walker died back in November of last year in a violent car crash that also killed his friend and business associate, Roger Rodas. At the time, his death sparked numerous racing events in his honor, as well as many condolences from people in the acting community.
Right now, production on “The Fast & Furious 7” is still halted, with the future of the film still uncertain. Rumors spoke of killing off Walker's character, then retiring him and finally, of shooting the rest of the film by using his brother as a body double with Walker's face added to it using computer animation.