Every time a new movie from the ‘Fast & Furious’ saga is released, it’s almost like it’s Christmas. And it is that it is difficult not to go to the cinema with a smile from ear to ear dreaming of opening a gift that, if it continues with the trend that ‘Fast Five’ began to mark, will contain inside a bunch of nonsense, madness and nonsense even bigger and hilarious than the previous one.
‘Fast & Furious X’, as expected, has not disappointed in this regard, and has given us a string of dreamy excesses for all of us who entered the game of the franchise with complicity. But, beyond impossible setpieces and non-existent laws of physics, one of the great rampages of the film is none other than Dante, its histrionic villain.
Don’t laugh, it’s worse
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Louis Leterrier, director of ‘Fast X’ replacing Justin Lin, explained the key to building the character of Jason Momoa: Plain and simple, trying to make Vin Diesel laugh on set.
“[Jason Momoa y yo] we met on this film, and we realized that making each other laugh was a fantastic way to create Dante. So we rewrote the dialogue together. I’d say, ‘You should say enchanté,’ and he’d add ‘bad daddy.’ We really liked to make each other laugh, and the bonus points, the wild card of our game, was making Vin laugh and go out of character with him as Dom Toretto.”
Of course, things did not go too well, because as Leterrier himself has confessed, the good old Diesel is concentrating too much enough to indulge in slips in the middle of a take.
“We constantly try. Like when Dante calls Dom ‘butthole’ [en la versión original], but Vin is so focused when he’s on set that it was impossible. When we’d say ‘cut,’ Vin was like, ‘Oh, you tried so hard!’ We were like kids on set, it was hilarious.”
There is no doubt that this technique, when carried out successfully, is a real gold mine when it comes to directing actors. And there is nothing better than breaking with expectations and loosening the atmosphere to get the best out of the performers.