A lot of Fast and Furious seemed to love Jason Momoa’s villainous character, Dante, in Fast X. A lot of people believe he was the best part of the movie. I personally wasn’t a fan and found the character annoying, like fingernails on a chalkboard annoying. Nothing in that last movie really clicked with me, and I’m a fan of the franchise! But hey, if you liked it, you liked it.
Anyway, Fast X director Louis Leterrier, who is also set to helm the sequel, recently teased what we can expect from Momoa’s Dante in the sequel. He explained to Empire:
“Let’s do something else. It’s never twice the same with Jason. Dante will truly evolve. Let’s explore something we haven’t seen before.”
Leterrier went on to explain Momoa’s take on the character and what he believes made him so interesting:
“He was fuelled by vengeance. He could have played it dark, angry. But it was interesting to play with the duality and the push-pull within the character, where within the same sentence he’s laughing and feels the pain of losing everything. Only an actor like Jason could have done that.”
After the film was released a report surfaced that Diesel was not happy with Momoa’s portrayal of the character. A source said: “Vin is embarrassed Jason is being branded the only bright spot in the film and stealing his thunder in the franchise he built himself.” Insiders are also saying that Diesel is telling people that Momoa’s “overacting” and “scene-stealing” nature was a factor in the poor reviews and undermined the film.
Diesel later shared a post on social media that offered some kind words about Momoa saying: “I love how expressive and collaborative all of the actors in our franchise feel coming into the World’s Saga. Jason wanted to try something totally unique and special and ended up creating a scene stealing character that the world won’t forget.”
Leterrier previously shared how the character Dante was created over he and Momoa making each other laugh and also trying to make Diesel laugh, and they could never break him. He said:
“[Jason Momoa and I] found each other on this movie, and we realized that making each other laugh was a great way to create Dante. So we rewrote the dialogue together. I’d say, ‘You should say enchanté,’ and then we would add ‘very bad daddy.’ So we really liked making each other laugh, and the extra points, the joker of our game, was to get Vin to crack up and come out of character as Dom Toretto.
“We tried really hard. Like when Dante calls Dom ‘butthole,’ but Vin is so focused when he is on set that it was impossible. And when we would call cut, Vin would be like, ‘Oh, you guys tried really hard!’ So we were like kids on set, and it was absolute fun.”
Are you looking forward to the next chapter of the franchise? Did you like Momoa in Fast X and are you excited to see how the character continues to evolve?
