Michelle Rodriguez did not enter The Fast and the Furious feeling as though she had just won the Hollywood lottery. From the worldview she had grown up with, the entertainment industry already existed somewhere on the other side of a line she had been taught not to cross.
Rodriguez reflected on that culture shock while celebrating the original movie’s 25th anniversary at the Directors’ Village Theater in Los Angeles on Aug. 17. Raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, she told PEOPLE that at 20 she viewed herself as already playing in the “so-called devil’s world” when Hollywood suddenly opened up to her.
That perspective also meant the size of the opportunity did not initially impress her very much. Rodriguez had only recently broken through with the independent drama Girlfight, and she remembered being far more interested in what the new job allowed her to physically do than in the status attached to a major studio movie.
Those instincts turned out to be an unusually good match for Letty Ortiz. Twenty-five years later, the character remains central to Rodriguez’s career, while the cast she initially approached with emotional distance has become a group she now describes in terms of family.
Her Religious Upbringing Made Hollywood Feel Like Another World
Rodriguez said she was still adjusting to the idea of being an actor when The Fast and the Furious came along. Girlfight had been her film debut, and she was only beginning to understand the industry when she suddenly moved from an independent drama into a major Universal production.
“I came from a Jehovah’s Witness background at the time,” she told PEOPLE. “So it’s like none of this really means anything to me.” She described herself as a 20-year-old who already believed she was participating in the “so-called devil’s world,” which left her unusually unmoved by the machinery of Hollywood around her.
Rodriguez put her attitude even more bluntly, saying she “could give two s—s” about the prestige of the movie beyond the fact that the job paid better than the work she had been doing before.
That reaction makes more sense in the context of an upbringing she has discussed for years. Rodriguez was raised partly in Texas and the Dominican Republic before settling in Jersey City, and she has described struggling with the contrast between what she was taught through religion and what she encountered in school and the outside world.
In a 2015 interview, she said those contradictions left her feeling as though people were constantly giving her conflicting versions of reality. By the time acting became a career, questioning those boundaries was already familiar territory.
Vin Diesel Saw ‘Girlfight’ and Wanted That Energy for Letty
Rodriguez’s route into the franchise began with Girlfight, Karyn Kusama’s 2000 drama about Diana Guzman, a troubled teenager who discovers boxing. The performance immediately established Rodriguez’s physical, confrontational screen presence. According to Rodriguez, Vin Diesel saw the movie and responded specifically to what she brought to Diana.
“I think Vin had seen Girlfight and he really liked the character and wanted that character to be his girlfriend in Fast,” she told PEOPLE. Rodriguez then met with director Rob Cohen and landed the role of Letty, Dom Toretto’s girlfriend and a member of his street-racing crew.
That meant her second major film experience was dramatically different from the first. Instead of a small independent boxing drama, Rodriguez found herself surrounded by modified cars, stunt work and the machinery of a studio action movie. Yet those were precisely the elements that finally got her excited.
What Excited Her Was Getting Permission to Break the Rules
Rodriguez said the attraction of The Fast and the Furious was less about becoming famous than about being paid to do things she would not ordinarily be allowed to do. “I really loved being able to get in a car, train, learn how to shoot guns, learn how to race cars,” she told PEOPLE.
For Rodriguez, that was the fun of filmmaking. “Doing things that you weren’t allowed to do in real life,” she explained, listing activities such as breaking windows and performing violent action.
Rodriguez’s career would repeatedly return to that kind of role, from Resident Evil and Avatar to Widows and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. But Letty became the character she would continue revisiting for decades. After appearing in the 2001 original, Rodriguez returned for 2009’s Fast & Furious and eventually became one of the franchise’s longest-running performers.
Twenty-Five Years Later, the Cast Feels Like Family
Rodriguez’s relationship with the franchise now sounds very different from the detachment she remembers feeling when she first joined it. At the anniversary celebration, she reflected on spending decades alongside Diesel, Jordana Brewster and the other performers who became part of the series over the years.
“That’s the bond, right? Of being alive,” Rodriguez told PEOPLE. “It’s like you meet people, your kind, and next thing you know, 25 years go by and you realize that they’re a big part of your life. And that’s how families are made,” she added. “Not all of it is blood-related.”
That history was particularly visible at the Aug. 17 celebration. Meadow Walker joined her late father Paul Walker’s longtime costars, while Diesel, Rodriguez and Brewster reunited to mark the movie that first brought their characters together.
Walker died in 2013 at age 40 while Furious 7 was still in production. The franchise has continued to keep both the actor and his character, Brian O’Conner, present in its mythology.
The Original Movie Is Back in Theaters for Its 25th Anniversary
Universal is marking the milestone by putting The Fast and the Furious back on the big screen. The 2001 movie returned to theaters on Aug. 21 for its 25th anniversary, giving audiences another chance to see the comparatively grounded street-racing story that eventually grew into a globe-spanning action franchise.
The celebration continues at home four days later. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment is releasing a newly remastered 4K Ultra HD edition on Aug. 25 with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.
The anniversary edition also includes a new retrospective titled Riding a Legacy: 25 Years of Fast, featuring Diesel, Rodriguez, Brewster, producer Neal H. Moritz and Meadow Walker. Universal says the conversation was filmed at the Cannes Film Festival and looks back at the origins and legacy of the original movie. The franchise itself is still not finished. Its next film, Fast Forever, is scheduled for 2028, with Rodriguez expected to return as Letty.
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