Fast X director Loius Leterrier explained how the villainous Dante only worked because he had the opportunity to create the character alongside actor Jason Momoa.
Per ComicBook, the filmmaker addressed the creation of the antagonist, noting that the end result was designed to be the antithesis of Momoa himself. “[The] threat comes through humor, and humor comes through danger, and just having those switches made us realize that we’re on a common ground,” Leterrier said. “And then we started working, we started rehearsing, we started [to] come up with new dialogue and new scenes — frankly, entire scenes for his character. But it’s Jason, I would not have been able to do it with anyone else than Jason.”
The director went on to describe how Dante turned into a warped version of Momoa, a vision that the actor embraced. “Whomever Dante is is a Bizarro version of Jason Momoa. The violent, angry, perverted Jason Momoa,” Leterrier elaborated. “Jason drives 1938 Bentleys, and builds these motorcycles, and has silk scarves and all that stuff. You just have to take this and then push it a little bit, and then you have Dante.”
A New Kind of Fast Villain
This isn’t the first time Leterrier has addressed Momoa’s wild and erratic performance in Fast X. The filmmaker notably commented that in his attempts to create a grounded villain, he ultimately “brought back an alien” in the form of Dante. “Honestly, I sort of ran with Jason’s take. He was on fire. He came into this franchise wanting to have fun. He was like, ‘I get to play the bad guy!’ He hadn’t played a bad guy in a long time, and he loves playing bad guys,” Leterrier said.
While Fast X may have disappointed fans and critics alike, audiences largely agreed that Momoa’s performance as Dante was the highlight of the explosive action film. Shortly after the movie premiered, rumors began to circulate that star Vin Diesel, who has been a mainstay of the franchise since the original The Fast and The Furious, was feuding with Momoa due to his positive reception. The actor ultimately shut down the speculation, noting that “Jason wanted to try something totally unique and special and ended up creating a scene-stealing character that the world won’t forget.”
Fast X is now available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, DVD and Digital.
Source: ComicBook