The Fate of the Furious is the first film in the Fast and the Furious franchise without Paul Walker, and everyone is feeling it...especially Michelle Rodriguez.
The actress chatted with E! News' Maria Menounos at the premiere of the series' latest sequel over the weekend and admitted the movie was difficult without Walker, who died in a car accident in 2013. However, she knew they had to do it.
"Not easy," she described of the filming process without her late co-star. "I think that's a big reason why we went dark on this one and why it's not all fun and games…But at the end of the day, the big picture of it all is that this has become a global monster that's kind of letting in the 99-percent through the backdoor into Hollywood that never really created anything for them in the action-movie realm."
She continued, "Nobody else is spending $300, $250 million on a multicultural audience outside of Sci-Fi. So we have a responsibility, and we have to keep it up."
However, she did note, "It was hard to move on without him. He is the essence of why we were excited to come on-board because he kept that childhood excitement about that realm and following through in what we were doing. He's a big part of the family, but at the end of the day, we have a big responsibility, and it's a global one so we gotta keep on trucking."
Meanwhile, though the latest Fast movie is certainly not the same without Walker, it does see some newcomers, including Helen Mirren, Charlize Theron and Scott Eastwood.
In fact, when Eastwood first signed on in April 2016, he shared an emotional post in honor of his late friend.
"It's hard to put into words how excited I am for the next Fast & Furious," Scott wrote in Instagram. "To me, the series is so much more than just a franchise. It's a legacy. These great actors who have been in it together for so long have become a family. I absolutely can't wait to join it."
At the end of the post, Eastwood noted how he relates to the Fast family's ever-present loss over Walker's death on a personal level.
"Paul was a close friend of mine," he wrote. "We surfed together, traveled together, and he was a huge role model and influencing figure in my life when I was younger. He still is. He was an older brother to me. For me to be able to add to the F&F story, Paul's story, and the FAST family is like a dream come true."