Cardi B’s character, Leysa, will stick around for at least one more Fast and Furious movie, confirms series star Vin Diesel.
In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, the actor explained how Cardi’s character Leysa’s story will continue in F10 and why Cardi B will help bring the long-running action franchise to a satisfying conclusion.
“We are very much excited to evolve her character and to expand it to the finale,” said Diesel, 53. “She came in Fast 9 just in time.”
The Fast franchise is slated to wrap with its eleventh film, F11, of which Diesel teased, “You know, like I said, the finale’s coming and F9 starts to align everything perfectly for the greatest finale in cinematic history.”
Current director Justin Lin also raved about the “Up” rapper and how the franchise benefited from her involvement. Explaining that Cardi is now a “part of the family,” Lin explained that her character will answer a lot of questions that have persisted through the franchise.
“I love how when I got together with her, her and Vin were talking about the character because she’s actually really embedded into the overall universe,” Lin hinted. “She’s been around for a long time and this is just the first time we are seeing her, so I’m really excited to explore that character of her.”
The Grammy-winning rapper said she’s proud to be playing Leysa, telling ET in a prior interview, “I like the fact that I’m representing such a powerful, strong woman.”
Meanwhile, Vin Diesel had a much-publicized feud with his Fast & Furious co-star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson back in 2016 we are learning, — something Diesel now chalks up to what he calls a little “tough love.”
Johnson, who debuted his Luke Hobbs character in 2011’s Fast Five, referred to some of his male co-stars as “candy **** and “unprofessional” on Instagram back then, which fans quickly speculated was about Diesel.
“It was a tough character to embody, the Hobbs character,” Diesel says in a new interview with Men’s Health.
“My approach at the time was a lot of tough love to assist in getting that performance where it needed to be,” he explains. “As a producer to say, ‘Okay, we’re going to take Dwayne Johnson, who’s associated with wrestling, and we’re going to force this cinematic world, audience members, to regard his character as someone that they don’t know’ — Hobbs hits you like a ton of bricks. That’s something that I’m proud of, that aesthetic.”
“That took a lot of work,” Diesel continues. “We had to get there and sometimes, at that time, I could give a lot of tough love. Not [Federico] Fellini-esque, but I would do anything I’d have to do in order to get performances in anything I’m producing.”
Diesel, 53, and Johnson, 49, addressed the rumors of their on-set feud at the Fate of the Furious premiere back in April 2017.
“Just like, in life, you have different philosophies and people have different fundamental philosophies on how you do things,” Johnson told Entertainment Tonight then.
“In my house, he’s ‘Uncle Dwayne,’ and I’m proud of that,” said Diesel. “We still love each other, that’s my boy.”
Johnson doesn’t appear in the franchise’s latest installment, F9 charges into theaters June 25.
