In November 2013, the world was shocked by Paul Walker's death. While the star rose to
fame thanks to the Fast and Furious franchise, he had many other interests besides his love
of acting and cars. Let's take a look at the last twelve months of Paul Walker's life.
There's no denying that Paul Walker was good-looking. And even though his attractiveness may have
led him to many of his earlier acting roles, the focus on his looks rubbed Walker the wrong
way. Just a few weeks before his death, he told Collider,
"I took some lumps and bumps, early on, and it jaded me. It made me somewhat cynical.
I realized that I was actually just a hot piece of young a--. That sucks, but that was
the truth. That was a hard lesson for me. It still happens. The industry is still guilty.
Now I know, but there's still a little bit of a chip. I'm still angry at the structure of things."
Many of Walker's earlier films saw him play the stereotypical brawny and beautiful roles.
Eventually, those stereotypes bled into his real life and how people perceived him. But
he was also introspective and intelligent. In one of his last interviews, Walker articulated
his thoughts on the meaning of life, telling Checa La Movie,
"Focus, it's right here. It's what's important. It's what's of the heart. It's family. It's
friends. The rest, pfft, nonsense."
In April 2013, Paul Walker started filming one of his last films, Brick Mansions, in
Montreal. The role had the actor learning parkour and bounding throughout the city with
parkour founder, David Belle. What wasn't shown on screen, however, was Walker grimacing
through knee pain on set. The actor was still recovering from a knee injury when the filming
was scheduled to begin, but rather than delay it for everyone, Walker chose to work through
the pain.
The original injury was caused on the set of Fast and Furious 6, and in February of
2013, he had ACL repair surgery, just two months before shooting began. Matt Luber,
Walker's manager of 18 years, could see he was struggling. Luber told the Los Angeles
Times,
"After a break, he was called to set, and I saw him limp over. [...] He loved what he
was doing, but he always ran with one foot in the business and one foot out."
Paul Walker considered leaving the industry a few times to instead focus on being a dad
to his daughter, Meadow. In a later GQ interview, Walker spoke more about these possible life
changes, saying,
"It's so funny, my daughter now lives with me full time and my original plan was to work
up until I was 40 then reassess my life, even go in a completely different direction with
things. She keeps encouraging me to do all this stuff. I thought at this point in my
life I would need to be home with her, but she wants me to keep acting so she can travel
around the world with me. Would that be so bad?"
According to Walker's father, Paul Sr., however, the quitting talk was serious. He told the
Daily Mail,
"Paul was planning on taking a break from starring in movies, and stepping away from
Hollywood, to spend more time with Meadow. He was so proud of her, she is incredibly
intelligent and beautiful, and Paul wanted to be there for her."
Paul Walker may have bandied about the idea of taking a hiatus from acting, but his schedule
showed no signs of slowing down. While already committed to Furious 7, he was allegedly convinced
that an eighth film would happen. Vin Diesel spoke about Walker's thoughts on the franchise,
telling MTV,
"Paul used to say that eight was guaranteed."
Walker had also agreed to star in The Best of Me, a Nicholas Sparks' adaptation, and
signed on for the lead role in Hitman: Agent 47, a reboot from the Hitman franchise. After
Walker's untimely death, the Agent 47 role went to Rupert Friend, and his part in The
Best of Me went to James Marsden. Marsden told US Weekly,
"All I can say about that is he is just one of those tremendous actors that was even that
much more special of a human being. You always want to be good stepping into a role like
this but [it] felt a little bit more of an honor to play this role because of him."
Paul Walker wasn't just the lead in a franchise about cars and racing — he lived that life.
Speaking with Entertainment Tonight shortly before his death, he was asked if his love
of cars was a macho thing. Walker denied that.
"In my family, that was just stuff we did. Like, that's just the way it was."
In the I Am Paul Walker documentary, his sister, Ashlie, recalled his infatuation with speed
starting at a young age.
"He liked to go fast. As soon as I was old enough to hang on tight, I was on the back
of his big wheel with him going for the ride of my life."
In an interview with Motor Trend from the summer of 2013, the actor spoke about how
finding the Fast and the Furious franchise was serendipitous for him. After informing
the studio that he was interested in racing cars on film in 2000, the studio approached
him with an idea. He explained,
"Universal came to me with a newspaper article about street racing in L.A. and I was like,
'Are you kidding me? I grew up doing that.' [...] Even though a lot of these guys have
been around the cars when we're filming, they haven't lived with cars the way I have; they
haven't spent time with cars on the track the way I have."
Despite taking part in six of the first seven Fast and the Furious films and five of the
first six promotional tours for the franchise, Paul Walker never seemed to tire of talking
about the movies. Sure, he once questioned if the franchise had overstayed its welcome
and wondered if it had strayed too far from its roots. Nevertheless, his love of the films
was never in doubt.
Talking with The Hollywood Reporter, Walker spoke of his character, Brian O'Connor, saying,
"I will always be Brian. Rarely am I Paul, you know, especially with kids. You know,
the Latino audience, I'm always Brian. I love that, though."
In the summer before his death, while promoting Fast & Furious 6, Walker spoke about how the
growing cast energized the franchise veterans. He also talked about how easy it was to continue
working beside his long-time castmates, like Jordana Brewster, telling Coming Soon,
"I love Jordana. I've known her since she was 19 years old. Like, I love her. I would
die for her in a heartbeat."
Before Paul Walker started acting, he was a college student majoring in marine biology.
In a 2011 interview with Beauty and the Dirt, he explained that he'd run out of money for
school, saying,
"I thought I would make one movie and pay off my loans and go back and finish school.
It just hasn't stopped."
Neither did his love for the ocean. When he was asked by GQ what he wanted to accomplish
before he died, tragically just months before it happened, his thoughts went to the water.
He explained,
"Inside I still feel certain things calling me. That's why I was doing the shark tagging
recently and will be doing it again in two weeks on an island off Hawaii. I'm also going
to go do the Grouper spawning."
Those two shark tagging expeditions were with Dr. Michael Domeier. At first, the marine
biologist doubted Walker's involvement, but he soon saw his passion. Domeier talked about
their time together on the water, telling Entertainment Weekly,
"Paul was much happier in his life than I've ever seen him before. Sometimes I see people
on social media that can be very mean: 'Oh, he's only there for ratings.' The irony is
that's how I felt at first, too. But at the end, it wasn't true. He was doing it because
he loved it."
Filming for Furious 7 began in September 2013, which Paul Walker was sadly unable to complete.
Neal Moritz, the franchise's producer, told /Film that most of the actor's scenes were
shot, but they still faced a challenge. He admitted,
"We wondered how we were actually going to make this work. I have to say, he was looking
down on us. Because of unused footage that we had from previous movies and the use of
new technology, we were able to complete the film inspired by Paul's spirit and give him
and his best-known character a perfect cinematic send-off."
The task of re-creating Walker required the Weta Digital team to finish an astounding
350 shots. Visual-effects supervisor Martin Hill talked to Variety about the hardest of
those, saying,
"[S]cenes such as Paul sitting still, or delivering dialogue in closeup, because you don't have
the action and the kinetic cutting to help distract from the effects."
In addition to recreating scenes using older images of the actor, the team leaned on the
Walker family, specifically Paul's brothers, Caleb and Cody, to fill in some of the gaps.
After Paul Walker's death, news of his generosity began filtering through. Stories were told
about the charitable efforts he kept quiet, like the support he gave in Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
after the 2011 tornado or in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. In fact, it was after
the latter event that Walker founded Reach Out WorldWide. He saw a need to connect the
post-disaster people and places with the skilled resources they need, so he set about creating
it.
Spokesperson JD Dorfman told the Inquirer,
"Paul wasn't someone who would just write a check and lend his name to an organization;
he was the heart and soul of Reach Out WorldWide. Paul was the first one in and the last one
out, he led by example and his hard work and dedication inspired everyone who had the privilege
of working with him. [...] Some people play a hero, Paul was a hero."
On the day of his death, Walker co-hosted a charity event called "Winter Drive," a toy
drive to raise support for the Philippines' typhoon victims. It was shortly after leaving
that event that the vehicle carrying Walker crashed and killed the actor.