While Furious 7 star Vin Diesel has made no secret of the impact that Paul Walker and the Fast and Furious franchise made on his Hollywood movie career, the Riddick star insists that the proud father to daughter, Meadow, was also a mentor in his private life. According to the latest gossip news updates, Walker gave his bald headed bestie all kinds of parenting advice as Vin also approached fatherhood, which is why he named his daughter Paulina, after his dead friend. Diesel has also announced that he and Universal are going ahead with the new Fast 8 film, just as Walker would have wanted. Word has it that Kurt Russell may be tapped to fill in the screen time that would have otherwise gone to Walker.
Sure, Paul Walker was one of Vin Diesel's closest friends at work, but the Varsity Blues actor and the action star often talked about more important things than what was going on on the set.
During a recent interview with E! News, Diesel recalled how Walker's advice on fatherhood stuck with him to this day (via EcumenicalNews):
"He went into fatherhood a lot earlier than I did. He took on that role of kind of being the guide into fatherhood for me. It's kind of beautiful.
"The one thing Paul always wanted me to do was be present at my child's birth. He was so adamant about it."
According to Diesel, he's been trying to keep the good advice Walker gave him in mind since day one of being a dad:
"When I was in the delivery room, I said that I felt like Paul was there. I named her Pauline. He was in the room.
"There's no other person that I was thinking about as I was cutting this umbilical cord. It felt like, you know, a way to keep his memory as a part of my family and a part of my world."
In fact, Vin Diesel first claimed that the only reason they're making the next Fast 8 film it to further honor the memory of the man that helped make the franchise the juggernaut that it is today.
Even though it seems incredibly soon to be viewed as anything other than crass, MTV News reports Vin also just recently announced that he's already got the release date all picked out for the next installment:
"Vin Diesel told a packed house of theater owners, journalists, exhibitioners and more at Las Vegas CinemaCon on Thursday [April 23] that the Furious franchise would indeed live on, and that the next film would be released on...April 14, 2017!"
Although, Walker's character is still very much alive and well in the Fast and Furious universe, it's already being suggested that Kurt Russell's new character is going to be filling the void left by Paul's absence instead of CGIing his little brothers in his place like last time.
Russell explained to Jimmy Kimmel that things weren't completely ironed out just yet, but it looked like his CIA agent character was going to be featured heavily in the new movie (via IBTimes):
"I got an idea, a sense of what Vin maybe wants to do in the future that this character could be a good part of."
"We created somebody...he's 'Mr. Nobody' we never know his name and you never know quite what world he's in and I think that's what's fun and exciting about it.
"If they do more and if it goes on, we'll try to do something to top this, which I'll tell you is going to be pretty hard to do."
Alright...but at some point they have got to run out of things to throw out of an airplane.
