[Warning: This story contains Fast X spoilers.] The Fast and the Furious saga is about family. After F9 introduced Dominic Toretto’s (Vin Diesel) estranged brother Jakob (John Cena), Fast X revealed another new Fast family member: Elena Neves’ (Elsa Pataky) street-racing sister Isabel (Daniela Melchior) and the aunt of Dom and Elena’s son, Little Brian (Leo Abelo Perry). Returning to Rio, Dom saves Isabel’s life during an explosive street race against Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa) — seeking vengeance for his father’s death at the hands of Toretto’s crew in Fast Five — and they part ways with hope for the future: Isabel wishes to meet her nephew.
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“I jumped onboard the project when [original director] Justin [Lin] was still on it as well, and he told me that he had some plans for my character to continue and everything,” Melchior told The Hollywood Reporter. “So, as soon as I met Vin, I started building my character, and I didn’t work only with the script that I had. I worked out a backstory that she could have and that would affect the future as well.”
After revealing her connection to Dom, Isabel expresses guilt that “the good sister” died at the hands of the cyber-terrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron) in 2017’s The Fate of the Furious.
“Her guilt and her pain is interesting, but how big is this pain? Is it just about Elena? When I read the scenes that I have with Dom, I was like, ‘Okay, maybe everything she touches gets ruined,’ and that’s another layer. So I wasn’t only focusing on the script,” Melchior explained. “I was also thinking about the next movies, but at that time, I didn’t know about the trilogy. So I thought, ‘What can I put on the table now that can lead into the future?’”
In the lead-up to the tenth chapter of the Fast Saga, star and producer Diesel teased Fast X as the start of a finale trilogy instead of a two-part franchise finish. Asked if Part 2 or Part 3 will address Isabel’s vendetta against Cipher for her sister’s murder, Melchior remarked that it’s a question she posed to Diesel.
“I was like, ‘Does Isabel know that it was Cipher that killed Elena? Does Isabel think that it was your fault because you let it happen?’” she said. “So I asked all of those questions to Vin, but because we didn’t know where the story would go after this tenth movie, he was just like, ‘Those are interesting questions. Think about them, but you don’t need to put anything in this movie about them right now.’ So the way that I played it was that it was all in my head. I was putting some guilt on Dom, but we don’t actually know if Isabel even knows about Cipher’s existence.”
The last we see of Isabel in Fast X, she’s speeding away from a Rio bridge to get Tess (Brie Larson) medical treatment for a sniper’s bullet. (It’s one of several cliffhangers that ends Part 1.)
“I don’t know,” Melchior said when asked if Isabel saved Tess. “That could be the beginning of the next one. I don’t even know if she would get along with Tess.”
Starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris”Ludacris” Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jordana Brewster, Sung Kang,Jason Statham, John Cena, Helen Mirren, Charlize Theron, and franchisenewcomers Jason Momoa, Brie Larson, Alan Richtson, Daniela Melchior, andRita Moreno, Fast X is now playing in theaters.
