When I saw The Fast and the Furious, I didn’t know who Paul Walker was. I’d heard he was excellent in Varsity Blues and The Skulls, but that assessment by teenage girls begging for his autograph at the Fast/Furious premiere didn’t phase me. I interviewed him for both Fast movies as cursory assignments, so it wasn’t until reflecting on those interviews and researching Walker in preparation for our Timeline interview that I became intrigued.
Walker has a daughter by an ex-girlfriend. He is not married, nor do we hear about who he is dating in the standard gossip press. Not that I’m a gossip hound, but it suddenly seemed like the key to Paul Walker was finding out how he balances parenthood, his relationship with the mother and whoever else comes into his life. When he came in wearing the T-shirt of his favorite Austin restaurant, The Kerbey Lane Cafe, he started shooting the breeze like a regular guy, so it was easy to slip the personal questions in.
Then there’s Timeline. Walker plays another action hero, this time a modern kid who travels back to medieval France to rescue his archeologist father, who became stuck in history. He fights knights and digs through tunnels, getting a bit more hands-on than in his driving movies, where he’s safe behind the chassis of an automobile.
What’s your T-shirt for? I love that place. This T-shirt’s six years old. I actually got this when I just finished working on Varsity Blues. I ate there every day. I was actually leaving, I said goodbye to people, they gave me the T-shirt.
What was their specialty? They had these multi-grain pancakes with cinnamon apple chunks in it. So good. I’d get those and I’d get three eggs over medium, chicken breast with sourdough toast.
Can you eat whatever you want? I pretty much eat whatever I want, but my mother always cooked real healthy. So I’ve always without even thinking, I always eat healthy. But I eat a lot. I consume probably close to 4,000 calories a day.
You exercise a lot? And I think just my personality. I have a lot of nervous energy and I think that burns a lot.
Are you enjoying these action hero roles? The thing I liked was in the past I got to play cool guys. Especially Fast and the Furious, the guy had a bit of a front and I had to put on kind of the façade that he was kind of tough just because of his involvement in what he’s doing, that sort of thing. This guy, I like him just because he’s more vulnerable. I really liked the relationship that he had with his father. I identified with that. I just thought it was really sweet and real genuine. You look at the relationship the professor character has, I think it’s pretty much the ideal father-son relationship. I liked that about it. That was a really big draw. Then on top of that, I’ve always had this fascination with the medieval period. I wasn’t supposed to see Excalibur when I saw it. My father had it on tape. I remember coming and seeing it because it’s kind of racy. I was raised Mormon and my parents didn’t want me seeing PG-13 or R type stuff, although I don’t think PG-13 rating was even around then. But I remember sneaking it and watching it and that was so awesome. Then a Richard Donner movie, I loved Ladyhawke. I love fantasy, I love knights and wizards and barbarians and all that sort of thing. I love Braveheart. I love those types of movies, so the science-fiction aspect of this really wasn’t attractive. Medeival France? That’s awesome.
You’d rather fight knights than drive cars? Can’t I do both? That’s why I like my job.
What did you think of the book? It was hard because you’re always trying to make the best movie they can having compressed a 500 page novel into 120 pages. Some things they did I thought were really smart. Like for instance, in the novel, there was more buildup and there’s more time to establish characters and the relationships and the dynamics between the two. For instance, in the movie now, most of the relationship between Chris and the professor wasn’t in the novel. He’s my father. In the novel, he wasn’t. But think of how much time that saves in trying to build up and explain because all of a sudden, I’m jumping on a platform and I’m going back to medieval France. If he wasn’t my father, there’s no way in hell I’d ever do that. So it’s cool.
What is your approach to acting? Everything to me is like a sport. Making movies is really a team sport. That’s why people have such problems with those people that aren’t team players and egos and so on and so forth. Those people are really a hindrance. They don’t work well. The Lakers don’t make it to the championship time and time again because Kobe’s taking all the shots. Although sometimes he does take too many, but he’s distributing the ball. But I look at it as a team sport. I know that in order for things to really sing, everyone has to have their opportunity and everyone has to feel comfortable. No one can feel threatened. And I’m in a position where now I just let it be known that I’m not just a me, me, me guy. I genuinely care about everyone’s concerns and I realize that everyone who’s there wants to get their moment and they don’t want to have to worry about Joe over here stealing everything that they’re doing and stealing adlibs that they were doing in rehearsal once we get it on film. Things are a lot more relaxed and there’s this feel-out process like the first week or two weeks where everyone’s on edge and everyone’s just trying to find their place and trying to figure out everyone’s personality. And I just try to be the biggest jerk-off possible by just screwing around and laughing and playing, smacking people in the back of the head and tripping them. That’s really my approach. And then once I get into it, I’m a pretty open minded person and I’m pretty sensitive. The thing that really helped me with this one is I feel like I really had to work. It wasn’t just run around and drive cars and have fun every day. Doing Fast and the Furious is a lot easier than making this kind of movie. The physical acting and reacting of driving, I do that stuff all the time. But to do this and to work with people that I really think, and this another sports analogy, but it’s like if you play with people that are better than you, you get better. It’s the same thing. When you make movies, you work opposite someone that’s better than you are, you’re better. You just are.
What is your situation with the daughter. Do you have custody or visitation? Her mother and I haven’t gone through anything like that. We’ve been friends forever. We’ve known each other for a long time. We both love each other very much and it’s important to her that I’m a part of my daughter’s life, so when I’m in town or when I’m on location, she just makes sure that I get to spend as much time with her as possible. With my schedule, you can’t really set anything. It can’t be too regimented. Everything has to be loose. She has to be more patient and really understanding, and fortunately enough for me, she is.
Why don’t you date your daughter’s mother? We love each other very much and we’re talking long term stuff here, so I don't know what’s going to happen there. Right now she’s in Hawaii and I’m running around, I’m doing my thing. She doesn’t like the life that I live.
Does your daughter have questions about the girls you date? No, she’s not exposed to that stuff.
Is it hard to stay normal when teenage girls fawn all over you? No, you just laugh at it. It feels good. I mean, look, girls are cute. I’m 30 now and she’s 15 and she still thinks I’m attractive. That’s good.
Do you try to distance yourself? No, just smile and you make eye contact and you give them a hug and you do all that stuff. You just do. It feels good. I mean, “Oh God, it just sucks everywhere I go, people find me.” Shit, don’t go to the mall. Give me a break. Shop on Rodeo Drive one more time, you know what I mean? Come on. You go where people are, people are going to recognize you. I don’t want to hear you snivel. You’ve got an assistant, dammit. Send her if you don’t want to go shopping.
How are you dealing with fame? It’s fine. You know, the thing is it’s so funny is that if you dwell on it, everyone who’s really in it, and you see like in the limelight all the time, they are because they want to be. And I think I’ve proven that because, not to say that I’m Tom Cruise because I’m not, but how often do you guys see me in a magazine? How often do you hear stuff about me? I choose to lie low and I do and it’s not a problem.
Has your lifestyle changed? Do you have a big house? No, I don’t even own a house. I’m renting a place right now in Santa Monica. I lived out in Huntington Beach with some friends, but I just go through my life and I just play oblivious. The only thing is when those people do come up from time to time and they go, “Hey, what’s going on?” You talk to them for a couple minutes and they go. I avoid magazine stands. I don’t look at that stuff and I pleaded with my friends and family, like if you read anything this or that, just know that 50% of it’s probably BS and I don’t want to hear any of it. And that’s how I live my life.
Are you concerned about being stereotyped? Yeah, I mean, I think about it from time to time, but the truth of it is I love doing the kind of movies that I’m doing right now. I love it. And you get paid pretty well to do them. They’re fun. More than anything, the most important thing to me is just be on movies that people love, people like to see. Like Fast and the Furious isn’t the kind of movie I want to go watch, but there was a time that it was. I love kids coming up to me, whether they’re 15, 16, 17, maybe 25 years old, coming up to me going, “Man, The Fast and the Furious, I love those movies” and you see the twinkle in their eye and you just know there’s no BS there. They mean it when they say it. That’s what’s really good.
Will you do a third Fast and Furious? Yeah, I would have to. All these kids who think Vin Diesel’s such a prick for not doing a sequel. I wouldn’t want them badmouthing me.
Do you think Rob Cohen’s a prick for not doing the second? No, because everyone has their reasons. It’s just business. And it sucks because you never know. It’s such a roll of the die. I know both of them are kicking themselves in the butt. You don’t need to tell me, I just know they are. I love Rob and Vin’s cool. People are going to say this, people are going to say that. We got along really well.
Do you spend time with Vin? No, he’s too busy.
Why didn’t Rob want to do it? Because Vin wasn’t going to do it and didn’t feel like it would be a sequel without him. His allegiance was with him because he already had one in the bag with XXX. I mean, we didn’t have a conversation, but I sympathize. I felt bad for Rob in his position because he’s really sensitive. I know he couldn’t sleep at night. I just was like man, that poor guy is beating himself up right now. But he made that decision. There’s talks right now. Vin apparently is trying to position himself to do the third one.
How does Tyrese feel about that? No, I think it’d be cool. Me, Tyrese and Vin. That’d be such a good time. The studio should foot the bill for that, I’ll tell you that. They should bring all three of us. I think it’d be a gas.
What do you think of the straight to video Skulls 2? I didn’t even know about that until recently. Neal’s going to do what he can to make another dollar. I love that guy.
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