Rita Moreno joins the Fast X family as Vin Diesel’s abuela
The EGOT-winner has actually signed onto the role Diesel first offered a year ago
Aux News Rita Moreno
Nothing’s more important to Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto than family, and the Toretto clan just got a new member. West Side Story’s Rita Moreno has officially joined Fast X as Dom’s grandmother.
“It’s been my dream forever to work with Rita Moreno, and the fact that she’s here playing my grandmother makes my soul smile,” Diesel says in an Instagram video with Moreno and his co-star Michelle Rodriguez. “I’m so blessed.”
“You know what, I think I was getting… I think my old age was waiting for you to invite me. Isn’t that nice?” Moreno tells Diesel. “And now that I’m here, the answer is yes, I’ll do it. And yes, not only do it, but I’m tickled. I’m tickled to hell to do it. I’m so thrilled. It’s going to be such fun!”
Lots of “I love you’s” are exchanged before Rodriguez caps off the video, cheering, “Rita Moreno in the house, baby!”
Diesel first teased Moreno’s role last year, when discussing the expansion of the Toretto family tree for the tenth film.
“Before we get to Mother Toretto, we will get to Abuela,” Diesel told Variety. “And the person that I’m so excited to talk about that role is Rita Moreno.”
At the time, Moreno said, “I’m waiting for his call. I think it’s a fabulous idea. I hope he puts me in black leather…”
Moreno joins the cast alongside franchise newcomers Brie Larson, Jason Momoa, and Alan Ritchson. Those returning to the Fast And Furious universe include Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Ludacris, Sung Kang, Nathalie Emmanuel, Tyrese Gibson, Scott Eastwood, as well as Charlize Theron as the villainous Cipher.
Frequent franchise director Justin Lin recently stepped down from the film, with The Incredible Hulk and Now You See Me’s Louis Leterrier taking his place.
6 Comments
Goddammit Vin Diesel, don’t make me like you. You’re the worst part of your own movies FFS. However Rita Moreno is right up there with Dolly as a worldwide treasure, so good work.
“Tickled to hell”? That doesn’t sound very nice.
Rita Moreno is charming as all hell and will hopefully be super fun- but the real issue with the FF franchise is all the over-inflated egos already on the project. Damn if that last film suffered from Vin Diesel and Tyrese Gibson really wanting to look cool.Also, my first thought of Rita Moreno will now always be that absolutely embarrassing conservative Cubano propaganda from One Day at a Time:
Around the release of F9 there were a bunch of Twitter threads being like “Are the Torettos PoC???” and I was thinking that was so dumb and that they were obviously supposed to be white, with them probably getting Italian surnames once Vin Diesel came on board since he’s what your racist grandpa might call “swarthy”, but I guess now they’ve made the shift to Latino.I took at look at F1’s script, and it does that obnoxious thing where a character’s race is only mentioned if they’re not white, and if their race isn’t mentioned, their ethnic surname is. So Brian is a golden boy, Mia is a stunner, Dom is grease-covered, but shop owner Henry is “an older black guy”, Hector is introduced as Hector Silva, and Pete is Pete Tran (Johnny Tran in the movie). Also, Hector Silva?
She better get to drive the car in a car chase.
Rita Moreno / Helen Mirren car duel when?