The Fast And Furious Stars Who Got Their Drivers License Right In The Nick Of Time
If you're going to star in a "Fast & Furious" movie, it's probably best to come prepared with a driver's license. After all, this is the franchise that's been called "'Point Break' with Toyotas." It's all about cars, crazy stunts, #fambly, and living one's life a quarter-mile at a time. There's even a scene in one film where the future Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot, asks for Vin Diesel's license. His character, Dom Toretto, may respond, "What driver's license?" as if he don't need no stinkin' license, but if you'll pardon the pun, Dom is a fictional driver who does have a license to say such things.
At ten movies and counting, the "Fast & Furious" franchise still shows no signs of slowing down in 2023. (We'll shift gears out of puns now). Famous faces may come and go — welcome back, Dwayne Johnson — but two cast members who have been with the long-running franchise since the beginning are Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez. They co-starred with Diesel in the first movie, "The Fast and the Furious," back in 2001, but amazingly, neither Brewster nor Rodriguez had a license to drive before they joined the "Fast" family.
This is something the DVD special features revealed once upon a time (via Insider), and it's something both actresses have discussed in the media. In 2013, ahead of "Fast & Furious 6," Brewster — who memorably takes the wheel from Paul Walker in "The Fast and the Furious" — told VH1 Celebrity:
"There was a ticking clock. If I didn't get my license I wasn't going to be able to get insured for the movie. Within a week of taking my driving test, we were flown to Las Vegas for this special driving class. So I had to pass or I wouldn't have been in the movie."
'I got my license for Fast and Furious'
After learning to drive for "The Fast and the Furious," Jordana Brewster didn't have much luck talking her way out of tickets. "I tried once with a cop," she said. "I was really close to my house when I got pulled over and I really had to pee. I told him that and he didn't care."
Brewster indicated that her inexperience with driving stemmed from growing up in New York and relying on public transportation there. When asked who the worst driver in the "Fast & Furious" cast was, she said, "It used to be me. I would say it's a tie between me and Michelle [Rodriguez] because Michelle didn't have her license at the time," either.
Rodriguez was infamously written off ABC's "Lost" after a real-life drunken driving incident in Hawaii, where the show was filmed, and she conceded to Entertainment Tonight in 2013 that learning to drive for an action movie may have led to some unsafe offscreen driving on her part. "I got such a bad record with speeding 'cause I got my license for 'Fast and Furious,'" she said.
Brewster and Rodriguez weren't the only cast members who had to learn how to drive for the "Fast" franchise. As we previously reported, "2 Fast 2 Furious" co-star Devon Aoki had never even been behind the wheel of a moving vehicle before she showed up in Miami to drive a hot pink Honda S2000 for the film. To her credit, Aoki did master a stick shift, something Brewster still hadn't learned to do after filming "Fast & Furious 6." Yet with as many (nearly) unlicensed actors as the franchise has employed, it's amazing Vin Diesel has never thought to explore the franchising potential of a "Fast & Furious"-themed driving school.