Actress Jordana Brewster recently gave fans a look into the character development within the highly anticipated film, F9, by revealing her character Mia will finally share a scene with Michelle Rodriguez's Letty. F9, the ninth installment in the Fast & Furious franchise will star the franchise’s usual suspects, along with some long awaited returns of characters from the earlier films. Those tried and true Fast & Furious OGs include Vin Diesel, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster.
Though the world of Fast & Furious exists within a pretty diverse world, there’s no doubt that it is somewhat male dominated. However, there have always been strong female characters, played mostly throughout the franchise’s past eight films by Jordana Brewster (Mia), Michelle Rodriguez (Letty), and Wonder Woman herself, Gal Godot (Gisele). These empowering female leads were often seen in the action or the team meetings, but rarely did they get to have conversations with each other. Needless to say, most if not all of the F&F films would barely pass the Bechdel test, if at all. The two remaining female protagonists within the franchise, Mia and Letty, have never shared a real moment together.
However, according to Insider, that will change with the upcoming F9 film, which Brewster says will include some bonding between Mia and Letty. In a recent interview, Brewster opened up about co-star Michelle Rodriguez’s push to strengthen the image of their characters as strong women who can relate to each other. Brewster also mentions that director, Justin Lin, was all for it. Read what Brewster said below:
Michelle [Rodriguez] was like, 'Dude, we've never had a scene together. We're always secondary with the guys. We don't interact. We have a sisterhood. We need to explore this.'
Brewster then commended Rodriguez for her diligence to creating a diverse, powerful, and equitable world within the franchise. The actress went on to say that she hopes this dynamic is further developed in the following films within the franchise, explaining:
Michelle's always been very outspoken about not doing anything that isn't true to character, and that means not placating the guys, that means not playing second fiddle to the guys.
I'm really grateful that we got a chance to do that. Hopefully, we'll continue to explore it because there's so much to unearth there.
Though the lack of interaction between Mia and Letty is a missed opportunity, it is one with great reasoning behind it. Due to the complex nature of the Fast & Furious timeline, there weren’t many moments where their characters crossed paths. Both actresses appear in the first film, but neither in the second or third. The fourth film is when Dom’s crew believe Letty to be dead, leaving Rodriguez out of most of the fourth film and not returning until the sixth. But even in Fast & Furious 6, Letty sides with the villains due to memory loss, which makes her unable to remember the truth of her past. The majority of Letty’s arc in the seventh film is occupied by Dom trying to trigger a return of her memory. Additionally, Furious 7 was more focused on giving Fast & Furious actor, Paul Walker (Brian), a proper send off after his untimely death in 2013. Seeing as though Mia is Brian’s partner, Brewster did not appear in the eighth film as the franchise attempted to recalculate its future without Paul Walker.
All of this makes it so that Mia and Letty only had one concrete time to interact along with one hypothetical opportunity. Concretely, Mia and Letty could have had a moment together in the pilot film—but that film spent so much time establishing the relationship between Dom and Brian that any other non-romantic relationships sort of fell by the wayside. Hypothetically, Mia could have helped Dom attempt to get Letty’s memory back. But, of course, this was used as a plot vehicle to mainly reinstate and strengthen the romantic relationship between Letty and Dom. Whatever the reason, Fast & Furious fans will be glad to see the two women in action in F9.
F9 is set to premiere in theaters on June 25.
Source: Insider