Louis Leterrier (‘Fast and Furious 10’) confesses that it was “terrifying” filming in Rome: “There is no CGI. Everything is real”

In “Fast & Furious X”, the penultimate chapter of the saga, part of the story takes place in Rome, a beautiful, iconic and fascinating city that is not exactly comfortable for shooting large productions that require a lot of space and time. Even less if the recording includes a few cars, chases, explosions and action, which are essential elements in ‘Fast & Furious’. And for this From eCartelera we wanted to deepen this further difficulty in the production, in our interview with the director of the film, Louis Leterrierso that I can explain to us what it was like to shoot in that city.

Leterrier points out that the main difficulty they had to face is that, due to its narrow alleys, the number of monuments and tourists, Rome is not exactly the ideal city to shoot a film with the characteristics of the Fast saga: “(Filming) was amazing, except Rome wasn’t built with big, wide American cars in mind. It was crazy. We are there, we put the Dodge Charger and we think ‘it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit’, so we had to find a way. But it was great because we shot some incredible chases on the motorcycle.”

Another reason why it wasn’t easy for them to shoot in Rome is because for “Fast & Furious X” they wanted to do without digital effects as much as possible and burn the wheel in the Italian capital: “One of the things we did, because that was really important to me, is that they were all practical effects. Everything you see, other than them [los protagonistas] they act out their own fights and action scenes, they are real scenes. When you see a chase, be it cars or motorcycles, and when you see a giant one-ton bomb rolling through the streets of Rome and blowing up gas stations: it’s all real. There’s no CGI there, zero, so, you know, you’re going to see real stuff. And that was terrifying. afraid. It was scary because I love Rome and I was like, ‘My God, I don’t want to be the guy responsible for a huge ball coming into the Colosseum and crashing into it.'” Despite Leterrier’s fears, he explains that the shoot was “brilliant” thanks to “fantastic team” who works on the film: “Everything went perfectly, but it takes a lot of planning, it takes a lot of professionalism.”

big team

This planning and professionalism that the director talks about is easier to achieve when the team, the actors and the actresses understand each other well, as Leterrier says: “The thing is, this cast, this team, they’ve worked together for so many years that they’re like a well-oiled engine.”

Because they integrate so well, last-minute changes aren’t as scary, and the team usually has no problem signing up for an unexpected blitz: “You can present them with changes and say, ‘What if we did this today? What about this new idea?’ They said, ‘ok, let me think.’ I changed a couple of things as I rewrote the script as we went along, I was rewriting the ending and I was like, ‘oh, I need something to happen in Rome while they’re shooting there,” so I called them and said, “We have to do this. Is that possible?” And they said, “Okay, let’s see how we do this.” And they understood it. It’s incredible”. For Letterier, “Being part of a team with this energy was going straight to heaven”: “There is nothing better, there is nothing higher. It’s like going from driving a Peugeot to a Ferrari.”

Preview of ‘Fast & Furious X’ In cinemas from May 19.