The Fast & Furious franchise has always been about family and Dom’s chosen family features people from all walks of life. F9: The Fast Saga star Nathalie Emmanuel says the series’ diversity has played a large part in its success and initially drew her to the series as well.
“It means the world [to be part of a series with such representation],” Emmanuel told ComingSoon. “Part of the reason why I even was attracted to The Fast and the Furious, the first one, was because of the representation within it. 20 years ago, that kind of representation just wasn’t happening. Well, it was, but they certainly weren’t the like leads of their own movies and were the heroes. The one that we’re like vouching for. There’s so many tropes that, especially actors of color, take up in TV and film, but they definitely weren’t like the leads and the heroes. So I always just felt that was so important, especially to a young woman, and a young black mixed woman to see this was so huge and important. That kind of ethos has just kind of grown and grown and grown, and with it, even to the point of like the fact that we go all over the world, we see all these different cultures and hear different language and music and it creates this idea that we’re all connected. We all should be represented. I think it’s instrumental to the success of these films.”
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Emanuel also discussed getting to play an intelligent woman that is into technology.
“She really embodies a person that I wish I’d seen growing up, you know? I just love that she has really, and her place in this team just because she’s so brilliant and what she does and because of her expertise, because of her very specific skillset. They can’t do the things that they’ve been doing without her, or they can’t do it in the way that they do without her. So, it’s really amazing, and especially just as a woman in the tech space, a woman of color in the tech space, is very underrepresented. I just love that Ramsey gets to be that in the world.”
