Movies - TV
Paul Walker Knew A Lot Of People Would 'Hate' Running Scared
By JOE ROBERTS
After finding mainstream success with "The Fast and The Furious" in 2001 and its sequel, "2 Fast 2 Furious" in 2003, Paul Walker started to feel like his clean-cut nice-guy roles were beginning to fail him. Interested in mixing things up, Walker went on to star in Wayne Kramer’s 2006 haunting crime thriller, "Running Scared."
In the film, Walker’s natural charm and kindly manner helped make his mobster character, Joey Gazelle, sympathetic despite being involved in some pretty despicable business. The actor suspected that people wouldn’t respond to the film’s intensely violent and disturbing content, but ultimately didn’t care.
During an interview with The Morning Call at the time of the film's release, he said: "I made this movie for myself. [...] A lot of people are going to hate 'Running Scared.' There's lots of violence and the language is terrible [...] It's definitely not for everyone, but it was quite an exercise and I enjoyed the hell of it."
In regards to the project being so different from his usual movies, the actor said: "[Running Scared] was like a way of exorcizing the demons I guess you could say. [...] I love dropping basically everything everyone knows me to be and what I love, [...] and just going all the way to the other side. I love it. And that's the only way I really want to do it any more."