The moment in Fast X where Jason Momoa gets nail varnish out has become a talking point – and as director Louis Leterrier tells us, it nearly didn’t make the film.
From the off, it’s worth noting there’s a little bit of spoiler-y stuff in here for the new Fast & Furious film, Fast X, which has now hit some premium video on demand services. As such, dissection has begun on a particular moment in the movie featuring Jason Momoa’s villain.
This is the scene in question, if you’ve not had the pleasure…
cant believe no one has posted this fast x clip yet pic.twitter.com/idKdKjSdpL
— ︎ ✞ (@theshapeburns) June 10, 2023
We’d been quite taken with the sequence when we caught the film, and when we had the chance to interview the film’s director – Louis Leterrier – it was one moment we specifically brought up. Thing is, as he told us, it’s a scene that was intended pretty much as a DVD extra.
As we asked him, “there’s one scene in particular, where he’s painting the toenails of two corpses with nail varnish. That is perhaps the most incredibly strange, unexpected scene I’ve seen in any Fast film. So was that scripted?”.
He chuckled, and admitted “no, that wasn’t in the script – it was added later. That’s an idea we had as we were shooting. We loved Jason, and we wanted to have more of him. Jason has all these bombastic scenes, but we thought, ‘What’s his regular, every day life like?’”
As he further explained…
“It’s funny that you noticed this scene. It’s one of my favourites. It’s Grand Guignol, it’s dark humour, it’s all that stuff. Frankly, none of us, including Jason, thought that scene would be in the movie. [Laughs] We said to each other, ‘This scene is so crazy, it’ll make a great DVD extra.’
“Then as we were testing the movie, people were loving this scene. They were laughing and going crazy. And frankly, you get to understand that with this character, it isn’t just for show – he really is absolutely insane. His everyday life is as crazy as the show he puts on, you know?
“So we decided to put it in, and I don’t regret it. It’s fun that these movies can reinvent themselves and have a bit of a sense of humour about themselves. It’s also a wink to the audience – this guy’s crazy. Stay with us, it’s going to be a fun ride.”.
The full interview is here. Fast X is still playing in cinemas.
—
Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
