Vin Diesel’s hug to Paul Walker at the ‘Fast & Furious’ tribute in Cannes: “It was not planned that this blond blue-eyed guy would be my brother”

Cannes celebrated this Wednesday the 25th anniversary of Fast & Furious and paid tribute to one of its main actors, the late Paul Walker. Led by Vin Diesel, the original cast walked the red carpet at the festival for the screening of the first film in this saga. Earlier, Diesel told the audience how the festival director, Thierry Frémaux, had praised the film by calling it a “classic.” “Universal, the studio with which we have a great relationship, proposed it to us and we thought it was a great idea,” Frémaux explained yesterday afternoon at a press conference prior to today’s festival opening. “It is a phenomenon in the history of cinema.”

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Walker, who died in a car accident in Southern California in 2013, was represented by his only daughter, Meadow, who had a cameo in Fast and Furious X. “This movie you are going to see is the beginning of a word. And that word is love,” Diesel said inside the theater, where they received a standing ovation for several minutes. “I pray that in your lives you can have a brother like Paul. At first, it was not planned that this blond-haired, blue-eyed guy would be my brother,” he added through tears.

“It’s very hard for me to watch it because there are many moments in this movie that you see, and I see differently,” Diesel added. “In the scene you see, I see the moment when Paul told me he had a one-year-old daughter.” His daughter, Meadow, and Diesel shared a touching hug on the carpet and in the middle of the room, while she recounted something he had told her that same day: “I’m 27 years old and I’m watching this movie that my father made at 27.”

The screening of the first Fast & Furious film was included in the Cannes Classics section program, dedicated to celebrating the history of cinema and the titles that have had the greatest impact on the seventh art. Alongside the iconic 24 steps leading to the Grand Théâtre Lumière awaited his co-stars Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster.

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Vin Diesel has always worked to keep the actor’s legacy alive. In 2023, on the day Walker would have turned 50, Diesel posted on Instagram a picture of them together: “For me, this image represents the moment I knew we would be brothers forever. It was January 2010, the night before we went to Haiti… and it reflects the joy and passion you had for helping others. You said emergency services shouldn’t wait, and that you wanted to dedicate your life to that. That was you. And you shared it with me, your brother.”

On a personal level, Diesel’s role has also been important. Legal guardian of Meadow after Walker’s premature death, he walked her down the aisle at her wedding to Louis Thornton-Allan. This Wednesday he again highlighted the importance of this bond: “Meadow has been a great source of strength for me, and I know he would be very proud of you.” “This is a movie where my brother Paul and I present our brotherhood,” Diesel continued. “And the person who was not going to let me come alone to represent that brotherhood is Meadow Walker,” he concluded.

This Universal studio franchise has grossed more than 7 billion dollars to date across twelve films, while another is already scheduled to be released in two years. Additionally, Fast Forever will hit theaters in March 2028, with the original cast, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who joined the franchise after Fast Five, and Jason Statham, who will join soon. Diesel also recently explained that it will also become a series, something later confirmed by NBCUniversal.