[Warning: this story contains spoilers for The Fate of the Furious]
With The Fate of the Furious, family took on a whole new meaning.
The villainous hacker Cipher (Charlize Theron) manipulated Dom (Vin Diesel) into doing her bidding, and for a time it was unclear why. Then, there was a bombshell revelation.
Cipher had kidnapped Elena (Elsa Pataky), the Brazilian police officer and former romantic interest of Dom. Not only that, Elena had secretly given birth to Dom’s son and had been kidnapped before being able to tell him she was pregnant.
The dramatic premise gave Pataky and Diesel the chance to deliver some of the franchise’s most emotional scenes yet, with help from their young, scene-stealing co-star who played their son. In a heartbreaking scene, Elena is executed in front of Dom, and he’s left to honor Elena’s memory by raising their son (named after Paul Walker’s Brian) with help from Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and the rest of his crew.
In a conversation with Heat Vision, Pataky opens up about her final days on set, saying goodbye to the franchise and if this truly is the end for Elena.
It was very sad and surprising your character died. What did you think when you learned Elena’s fate?
I think all stories have to have a beginning and an end, and it was a long trip for this character. The relationship with Dom and her job were really interesting. They were in love, but then Letty came and he was in two different relationships. It was a beautiful way to end it. Very dramatic and very sad. All of the emotions I dealt with.
What did you think of the ending, with your onscreen son meeting his new family and him being named for Paul Walker’s Brian?
It’s great. She trusted Dom and knew he would care for him. It was really beautiful at the end, [that you know] he will take care of their son. She lived for a cause and she died for a cause. That will be a story that will forever be in the franchise.
You and Vin had some great scenes together. How did you prepare for those challenging scenes, particularly your death scene?
They were very dramatic scenes and very special moments in the movie. I’m a mom, and just having all those feelings of your children in danger — I was thinking of my young kids and if something would happen to them. I would want to save them. I think it’s good being a mom [for this part]. And Vin, he’s a dad. He’s got three kids, so I think in those dramatic moments, we were having those feelings for real.
You never know with this franchise if a “death” will be permanent. Do you think this really is the end for Elena?
You never know. You didn’t see Elena die, so you never know. In this franchise, there are characters you think are dead, and they come back. So there’s always a hope. We’ll see.
What comes to mind when you think of your last day at work on this movie and saying goodbye to the franchise?
It was really emotional, because it’s like a family…. There’s going to be a bond with all of us. My relationship with Vin is crazy, we really like each other and we have beautiful moments to share. Every time I come to work with him, we just have another one. It made me really happy because it’s something special.
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
[Warning: This story contains spoilers for Fate of the Furious]
Fate of the Furious got an unexpected dose of adorable, courtesy of a scene-stealing young actor with an infectious smile.
The film included the surprise revelation that Dom (Vin Diesel) had a son with Elena (Elsa Pataky) he never knew about. The young tyke was in peril, with Cipher (Charlize Theron) kidnapping mother and son in order to manipulate Dom into doing her bidding.
Though young Brian (as he would later be named, in honor of Paul Walker’s character) was in trouble, the actor who played the baby had a blast on set.
“We call Carlos the miracle baby,” director F. Gary Gray tells Heat Vision.
The team cast baby Carlos out of Georgia, and he proved to be a life saver for a filmmaker who knew working with a child could be challenging.
“This kid was amazing. It’s very difficult to work with comedians, animals and kids. In that order,” says Gray with a laugh. “It was amazing to see this kid perform when the cameras started to roll and we were all like, ‘Oh my God, did he just do that?’”
While shooting the tragic death scene of Elena, Carlos provided something extra special, notes his onscreen mother, Pataky.
“He was really smiling all the time. One of the scenes…he was actually pulling Vin’s hand and saying, ‘da-da, da-da,'” she recalls. “I couldn’t believe it. He is going to have a big career.”
Though the submarine battle was much touted ahead of the film’s release, a scene between Jason Statham’s Shaw and Carlos may go down as the movie’s most beloved. The sequence saw Shaw kill a lot of bad guys, all the while holding the baby in a carrier (headphones on, so his little ears wouldn’t be hurt by gunfire).
“It’s something that I was very anxious and afraid to do. You ride a real fine line,” Gray says. “Now I know we have a lot of submarines and over-the-top stuff in this movie and it’s fun and titillating and it’s a Fast thing, but you have to thread the needle. We aren’t used to seeing Jason doing this as this character because there are a few chuckles in there.”
One of the challenging parts of working with a baby is that they can be nervous to be around so many new faces. Not Carlos.
“He’s smiling a lot and they got a lot of fun faces from him,” Pataky says. “He was really confident. The mom was around, and he really had a lot of fun I think.”
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
Subscribe Sign Up
Warning: This story contains spoilers for The Fate of the Furious
It was the kiss that launched 1,000 tweets: In the trailer for The Fate of the Furious, Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto locks lips with Charlize Theron’s baddie Cipher in front of his wife, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez). How? Why?! It turns out Cipher blackmailed Dom into working for her by threatening to kill the son he never knew he had. So how did Dom get out of this bind? By teaming up with his nemesis and using a very special necklace. Confused? Let us explain:
When were Dom and Elena together?
Way back in the fourth Fast film, Fast & Furious, Dom’s childhood sweetheart Letty appeared to die in a car explosion. In Fast Five, Dom moved on and romanced Brazilian cop Elena (Elsa Pataky). The two were living a peaceful, explosion-free life together in Spain at the beginning of Fast & Furious 6.
But Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) tracked them down and told them that Letty was still alive. She apparently lost her memory and joined a group of terrorists led by Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). Elena, being an incredibly understanding person, eventually tells Dom to go save Letty, which he does.
MORE 10 Fate of the Furious Plot Holes That Only Make the Movie Better
When did Elena get pregnant?
Elena tells Dom in Fate of the Furious that she found out she was pregnant right before Letty returned. That means she probably knew she was pregnant at the end of Fast & Furious 6, and through Furious 7. Elena appeared twice during those films. First, at the end of Fast & Furious 6 when she tells Letty, no hard feelings, she can have Dom. She’s back in the beginning of Furious 7 when Shaw’s brother, Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), attacks DSS headquarters. Deckard blows up Hobbs’ office, and Hobbs saves Elena by grabbing her as they are launched out of a window.
That means that Elena was pregnant when she flew out of a building and landed on a car, which could not have been great for the baby. Mere details…
Dom didn’t know
Elena says she planned on telling him about the baby after he and Letty got back from their honeymoon in Cuba. Seems odd since the baby looks to be well over a year old when we finally see him. Also, she hasn’t named him for an entire year. Again, odd not to mention impractical.
Cipher turns out to be the ultimate Fast & Furious baddie
They’re the Russian nesting dolls of villains. Let’s work backwards: Cipher has multiple terrorists, including Jakande (Djimon Hounsou) from Furious 7 and Owen Shaw from Fast & Furious 6 on her payroll. Shaw was also the boss of the drug lord Braga (John Ortiz), the man who ordered Letty to be killed in Fast & Furious. And it was Owen’s death that led Deckard to wreak havoc on the crew in Furious 7.
So basically Cipher is responsible for all of the bad things that have happened to the Fast family in the last five films. If you had any doubt that she’s really bad, she kills Elena just because Dom was flirting with his own wife. Talk about cold.
MORE How The Fate of the Furious Handles Paul Walker’s Death
Dom calls on another family for help
The Shaw family doesn’t love Cipher: She recruited Owen Shaw to her team and then left him for dead in a hospital when Dom threw him off a plane in Fast & Furious 6. Dom figures this out after Cipher tells Deckard he chose the wrong team when she breaks into the crew’s super-secret headquarters and gives them all wicked concussions.
Dom somehow manages to reach out to the Shaw brothers’ mother (Helen Mirren, who we hope will get behind the wheel of a car in Fast & Furious 9). He then pretends to kill Deckard. Shaw’s mother is waiting for him in the ambulance to devise a plan to take down Cipher and save Dom’s baby while Dom is busy stealing nukes in Russia.
While it’s great that Owen and Deckard saved Dom’s baby, let’s not forget that the brothers are responsible for the deaths of Dom’s friends, Gisele (Gal Gadot) and Han (Sung Kang) in Fast & Furious 6. In fact, the plot of Furious 7 centered around the gang tracking down Deckard to kill him and avenge Han’s death. Considering all the trouble he went to in the last movie, Dom seemed to forget all of that pretty quickly when he decided to team up with the Shaw brothers this time around.
How did Deckard fake his death?
Leo (Tego Calderon) and Santos (Don Omar) are two members of Dom’s crew from Fast & Furious and Fast Five. They bicker while they pull recon jobs—like clogging up the toilets in a police station so they can masquerade as janitors to infiltrate it. At the end of Fate of the Furious, we see them gambling their millions in Monaco. They weren’t in the last two Fast films but return for a brief cameo in Fate as two fake ambulance drivers who move Deckard’s “dead” body.
MORE We Ranked Every Possible Detail of the Fast & Furious Movies
How is Deckard able to track Cipher’s plane?
If that cross necklace looked familiar, it’s because it’s been kicking around the Fast franchies for years. Dom gave it to Letty before she “died” and started wearing it again in her memory. It fell off during a fight in Fast Five and Elena picked it up and started wearing it around (which is sort of weird). Dom got it back from her and gave it to Letty to try to help her regain her memory in Fast & Furious 6. She, in turn, gave it to Owen Shaw to prove she didn’t care about Dom. Later, Deckard Shaw dropped it at the site of Han’s murder as a sort of threat to Dom. Dom retrieves it when he visits Tokyo to bring Han’s body home.
And now, besides sentimental value, it apparently has a super-powerful tracking device implanted inside. This clever move leads Shaw to Dom’s son’s location, setting up the delightful scene in which he kicks bad guys’ butts while carrying a baby.
Write to Eliana Dockterman at .