15...
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
♪ Happy birthday to you... ♪
♪ Happy birthday, dear Paul...
The reason why we all
were devastated about Paul Walker
is because he's the nicest dude on human feet.
♪ Happy birthday to you
Make a wish.
Paul had real relationships with everybody.
You felt his love.
You felt his spirit. You felt his energy.
You felt the morale,
the camaraderie, the inclusion.
Birthday boy, look this way.
Paul, look this way.
Look at Daddy.
He was somebody that cared,
and he was somebody that really was experiencing life,
and on the daily
trying to experience it to the fullest.
"Never back down" mindset, you know?
Go big or go home.
He was just a kid from Sunland-Tujunga,
you know, the gun-toting hippie, balance of opposites, you know?
A lover and a fighter.
He got in a lot of fights when he was younger.
He didn't lose very many fights.
He would have been a great fireman.
He likes to grind.
He's not afraid to get dirty,
talks a lot of trash.
He just fits in.
I just thought
he was the coolest guy in the world,
and it had nothing to do with the movies, nothing.
Here's a guy
who's getting phone calls left and right from creditors,
and right in the middle of that, he's like,
"Dude, I'm going to be a dad."
Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Paul Walker.
Aw, dude, ladies flip out.
When you meet this dude,
you felt like he jumped out of a magazine.
You know what I mean?
It was like, that's who he was.
The cinema didn't capture it all,
couldn't capture it all.
Paul was always an actor
who had one foot in and one foot out.
He would just disappear.
When Paul wasn't making movies,
he wasn't in L.A. He wasn't even in the country.
He would be, like, in the Amazon,
or he'd be, like, diving with sharks.
Hey, we got him hooked good!
Each time he appeared
in a Shark Week episode,
he donated to my non-profit.
He didn't even tell me.
He did take care of people,
to the point where he wasn't looking after himself.
He'd pretty much made a decision
that he was going to back away from Hollywood.
He was like, "Time?
I don't have time. I don't get time." You know?
"I got money.
I don't got time."
New fuels,
new devices to get the most out of engines,
and new thrills.
My dad set records in Bonneville.
Our family car
was a car that he raced when I was growing up,
and Paul wanted to hear all of these stories.
Yay!
He loved it.
Paul used to go visit my dad
and just want to be with him in the shop,
and my dad was not a talker, but he would talk to Paul.
He became a gearhead because of my dad.
- Wow. - Yeah.
My brother had big shoes to fill.
My brother was actually the fourth Paul Walker.
My grandpa was actually the second Paul Walker.
He came from a line of just, like, bad-asses.
My dad's totally a guy's guy,
tough guy, you know, military guy.
Shooters ready.
Go get the arrows.
What are you doing, Paul?
You going to blow some bubbles up?
Yeah.
Whee!
Yay!
Okay, swim to the side.
He was always sweet, always kind, always nice,
the most loving person I've ever met in my life.
I mean, like, if he cared about you, you knew it.
L.A. is a big place,
and Paul grew up in Sunland-Tujunga,
which is definitely
just an ordinary, common street with homes,
and very much of a blue-collar place
to grow up and raise a family.
There's cool dude.
This was Paul and I.
We'd just get outside.
Whatever it was,
let's just get outside and do something.
Just fun memories of just doing things outside,
all the time.
I have to say, it didn't surprise me
that he became so successful in acting.
That's Toby next door.
I'm not supposed to feed him.
Whenever I feed my puppy this new puppy food,
Toby goes crazy.
He would try out different voices...
Sorry, Toby.
...and characters,
and really took a lot of pleasure
in tormenting me with some of these characters.
Paul, in your opinion,
which of the two of you
looks better onstage today,
you or your sister?
This is serious?
Yeah, it's serious. Right here.
Myself.
He always had
that, like, ability to tell a story,
and of course he had the looks.
He must have landed or got a callback
on, like, 80% of the calls he'd go on.
One of the people that really showed a lot of faith in Paul
was Michael Landon.
Look, I'm a stranger around here.
You kids know the Drake plant?
My mother's Mr. Drake's assistant.
She knows that place inside-out.
Rita Travers.
He cast Paul as one part,
I think it had to do
with the ocean and fishes and stuff,
and then there was another one
they needed a kid to play in the Special Olympics.
Todd...
where do you live?
A-at... at the group foster care home...
...with Mrs. Burke.
I was surprised at how good it was,
even though I was there watching it being filmed,
because he had this innate ability to just feel.
I'm your brother.
M-my... my brother?
Yeah.
My brother!
My... my brother!
Wild man.
When Cody came into the family,
he was a surprise to my parents,
and so obviously a surprise to all of us,
but Paul was almost 15.
Cody, Cody.
I remember always a really sweet,
really tender relationship between the two of them.
Because of that age gap,
Paul wasn't just like a big brother to me.
He was another father figure to me.
If we were going on vacation
or, you know, for spring break or whatever,
we knew where we were already going.
We were going to Carpinteria State Beach,
which is just south of Santa Barbara.
We'd get a camp site, tents for the kids.
Every night we were roasting marshmallows and s'mores
and doing the whole campfire thing.
That was the Walker family vacation.
Carpinteria was...
That's where we went for everything.
I would wake up early in the morning
when it was going to be minus tide at daylight,
and I would get the kids up,
and we would go out to the tide pools.
Paul was just fascinated by all of that,
and that's where his heart always went after that.
We had a motor home,
but the boys always popped up their tents,
and there's a...
Paul is sitting in the opening of the tent,
he's eating, like, a bowl of cereal.
- Is it good, Paul? - Mm-hmm.
And his little brother, Cody, came over
and just put his arms around him and gave him a hug.
Aw, now he's giving him a hug.
You don't forget stuff like that.
Say hello, Paul.
Hello, Paul.
- Hello, Paul. - Hi.
Move out of the way, Brent!
Don't look at me.
He's camera shy.
Yeah, that'd be the day.
When Paul reached 18 years old,
the acting thing was, you know,
it was...
he really wasn't too thrilled with it.
All right, we're going.
Bye, Paul.
See you.
In the process of walking away
from, you know, this career
that his mom had put so much effort to and everything,
um, a lot of things, you know, went sideways.
Money was gone that he thought he'd earned
to be able to go to college.
Hey, Paul. Look...
Hi.
So what is today?
Graduation.
Really? And did you make it?
There was explanations for it.
Whether it's the truth, I don't know.
I think it, uh, possibly went to his, you know, education,
going to Village Christian, doing all these things.
In my opinion, he would go make money,
and it was so easy
that then he would spend it easy, too.
Yeah, definitely not the best at managing his money
and all that kind of stuff,
but who would be
if you grew up where it would come like that?
I was scared.
I was scared that he wasn't going to turn around
and go to school
and do the things that we had talked about his whole life.
He wants to figure it out.
Let him have a break.
Here he is, 18.
He's already been working for, what, you know, 15, 16 years?
You know?
Let him go do what he's gonna do.
He was one of those kind of kids
that parents hate.
He was fearless, and that scared me.
I don't mean to say
he was amped out of his mind on adrenaline.
He liked to do exciting things.
Paul was just that way.
He got in a lot of fights when he was younger.
He didn't lose very many fights.
No one messed with Paul.
You know, you don't really think of that as Paul.
You think of him as kind of like a heartthrob
if you don't really know him,
but, you know, Grandpa and Father were always showing us
how to punch, and, you know, all that stuff.
He was a tough kid.
He grew up, he had a tough dad
that was, you know, a Vietnam vet
and just, uh, played all sports, and was just very athletic,
and-and very scrappy growing up.
Paul's super loyal,
so if there was anything that would happen,
a circumstance that would happen
that he feels like his friend's being threatened
or something like that,
there's a little bit of a switch
that Paul could turn on, you know?
And it gets real serious pretty quick.
I can remember one time
Paul is walking to the store, and a guy was walking out,
and had his arms full of cans or whatever he had,
so Paul opened the door so he could walk out.
As he walked by Paul, he goes, "Thanks, bitch."
It was on.
So Paul tuned him up.
Basically K through 12,
we all went to the same school.
We just grew up together.
We got in fights together.
We got chased by the cops together.
We did things where our parents,
we'd get in trouble together,
and by the time I became a stuntman and was doubling him,
it was just brothers that grew up together.
He told us,
he had us around because we'd keep him in check.
He knew we wouldn't let him get away with stuff.
He saw other actors losing touch with reality.
Sometimes he didn't like the answer we'd give,
and he'd be mad at me for a couple days,
and then it was always better, you know?
I met Paul for the first time
at some party in Glendale.
Paul was just kind of like this bro guy.
"Hey, what's up?"
He and I hit it off right away
because he was a surfer guy from California.
I was from Hawaii.
We'd both been actors when we were kids,
and he just automatically...
He's like, "Dude, you've got to meet my friends.
You've got to come hang out.
We've got to go camping. We've got to go surfing."
So I was, like, "Dude, great."
We lived in Huntington Beach for a while,
and that was not healthy for him.
There's too many guys down there who want to fight,
especially if you're an actor.
Some guy on the street that rips off his shirt
that's 250 pounds and looks meaner than anybody,
Paul's going to snap.
His acting skills would come in,
and he would act for a few seconds,
and half the time
I wouldn't know if the fight was on
until it was halfway through.
He was living in a garage
and the whole bit,
and he's got this phone that keeps ringing nonstop,
and I'm like, "Dude, is that, what's that,
like, your girlfriend? Like, what is it?"
He's like, "No, it's another bill collector."
He was getting calls from bill collectors,
like, every two minutes.
It was crazy.
And, uh, he just really didn't have any money.
He started getting a lot of pressure
to come back and do films or TV shows, things like that,
from his previous agent from when he was a kid.
I talked to him about it considerably.
"Look at the numbers.
You're already a commodity.
You've already got your foot in the door."
Sometimes I regret that I did it.
Based off his age and his look
and his, you know, just his vibe and everything,
I think he kind of knew instinctively
that there might really be a crack here.
He was like, "All right, you know,
might as well do this for real."
And he made some phone calls, reconnected, got a manager.
I remember first meeting Paul.
His hair was...
I don't want to say afro-y,
but it was definitely big curls and longer.
He had a great sense of humor, a lot of energy,
like, a very magical look in his eyes,
and, uh, it was kind of mesmerizing, actually,
when he looked at you,
but he really looked at you.
Just a really present human being.
We definitely had a bond and a trust with each other,
and, uh, I did right by him, and he did right by me.
He ended up testing for some serious films,
and then ended up booking "Pleasantville" shortly after,
with a major, A-list director, Gary Ross,
and an incredible cast.
What's all the commotion?
Where's the cat?
Um...
it's, um...
I'm a naive '50s jock, uh, captain of the basketball team,
the dreamboat, the dreamboaty guy, I guess.
I'll see you at school, Mary Sue.
Who's that?
He was always known as "the vagrant."
Always barefoot,
shop at the surplus stores for, like, army clothes.
Paul had a truck
that would break down all the time
on his way to auditions.
He would skip auditions.
But when he went into the room
and he actually met with directors
or read with casting directors, he executed.
Happy birthday, Deedles!
Whoo-hoo!
Happy birthday to us, bro!
That's right, Big 18!
Fully legal!
The "Meet the Deedles" premiere
was the first big premiere
that, like, our whole family got to go to.
Pretty photogenic yourself there, buddy.
Look at that.
Hi, Paul.
How are you doing?
What's today's date?
- I forget. - March 27th.
I remember, like, almost crying,
seeing his name on the marquee.
Oh, bro, we're a walking Kodak moment.
It's fully Deedle-mania.
We all got in our best clothes
and met up at the family home.
It was... it was stressful.
Paul was dressed really nice,
and at the last second, had to go get a dry shirt.
You know, like, he was worried.
That was one of those times
where I actually got to see my brother really human.
But he liked being able to share those moments with us.
Here's a guy
who's getting phone calls left and right
from creditors,
and right in the middle of that, he's like,
"Dude, I'm going to be a dad."
And I'm like, "Oh, my god, this is horrible, dude.
What are you going to do? You know?
You've got no money, and you're an actor."
You have to know
that his relationship with Rebecca was from...
they were... they were kids together.
They were sweethearts, and then they were friends,
and they were sweethearts, and then they were friends.
He was scared.
The idea of having a baby
when he wasn't really ready to have a baby...
They weren't married.
I said, "Well, you guys could just get married,"
because I thought "They're in love.
They're never going to be apart anyway."
I was taught, I mean,
Mom and I were going to be together,
and I was raised Mormon.
I was told Mommy and Daddy were supposed to be together,
and it was a hard one for me.
I was so conflicted.
I was thinking down the road,
I was like, I knew where I was at.
I was into chicks and having fun, you know what I mean?
I was an animal.
I want to be there.
My heart wants to be in it,
but the mind just isn't following it.
Rebecca had been around our home so much.
I treated her as if she was my daughter.
We just became a family that's a little different.
You know, you have kids young,
that's part of the game.
You know, it sounds cool and all,
but, you know, you look back,
and it's like you thought knew yourself.
You just didn't.
Emotionally I wasn't there yet,
because I didn't even know who the hell I was, you know?
Say hi, Meadow.
Wave.
He wanted to be, like, the super dad
and be there as much as he could,
but at the same time, that's when his career went crazy.
He was all over the country, filming different movies
and, you know, being gone literally half the year.
Quarterback Lance Harbor!
Let's hear it!
I was lying in bed last night...
...and, uh, I drifted off to sleep,
and I had a dream
that we were beating Bingville 14-3.
Paul Walker is a heartthrob
both on and off the big screen.
Good to have you with us this morning.
Okay, your movie, "Varsity Blues,"
big, big hit at the box office this weekend.
Yeah, that's so exciting. You guys don't even know.
How psyched are you?
Are you recognized
when you're walking down the street?
Not too much. I mean, I'm still the new guy.
He smells good, just like you, Andy.
It's good to have you onboard.
Yeah, thanks a lot.
Thanks so much for having me by.
Just super to have you here.
Paul Walker, everyone. Wow.
25 years old.
I was casting "The Skulls,"
and Paul comes in.
You know, I don't...
He's sort of like a surfer dude,
but, you know, he looks right,
and I said, "Let's read this part,
and remember, in this part
you have to leave California behind.
You have to adopt the east coast,
and east coast back to the Mayflower."
So he read it, and I said,
"We're going to have to work on this language thing."
"Oh, Erik, you and I, we need to move to New York City."
He said it a few times, "We gotta move to New York City."
I'm like, "Why do we got to move to New York City?"
"We've got to get the California, all this out of us.
We've got to become, like, sophisticated guys
that wear, like, turtlenecks
and sit at coffee shops and.
We've got to shake the "bro" if we want to, you know,
if want to be taken seriously in the film business."
I took him aside and I said,
"Look, I want you to come back in,
but please don't blow this audition.
Come in here and give me the east coast."
He came in.
He was dressed differently.
He was much more buttoned down,
and he... he did it,
and I gave him a hug, and I told him,
"You've got the part."
What are you talking about?
I know what you did.
What are you talking about?
Know where I found this?
Hm?
He was so good in that scene.
He gave Josh such a run for the money.
He was so threatening and dark,
and he's, "Why is that, Lucas?"
and he was aiming these lines,
and-and you really felt the power.
From the time of the cage scene to all the rest of the movie,
I was working with him like an actor, right?
Not like a pretty California boy, you know,
surfer dude, football jock, you know?
It was, like, "you're acting now."
He was sopping it up,
because I don't think any director
had ever talked to him like he was a legitimate actor,
and, uh, and I knew he was, and I did.
I feel like I really worked
with a director that I really clicked with,
and when I talk to my agent
or I talk to my representatives back home,
the thing I say over and over again
is that I either want to work with Rob again,
or I want to work with someone just like him.
And he goes, "So what are you working on next?"
and I said, "Well, you know,
I'm at the very beginning stages of this thing.
I don't know."
And he goes, "Is there a part for me in it?"
I said, "I told you, yes,
I'm developing the lead for you."
He goes, "Well... Well, tell me about it."
I said, "Well, you're a cop
who goes undercover in the street-racing world,
and instead of doing your job as a cop,
you fall in love with the people."
"I get a gun.
I get the girl.
I get a fast car.
I play an undercover cop.
I've got a big conflict.
What else is there for an actor?"
He goes, "I'm in. I'm in."
He really liked the cars,
and on those movies, he got into it.
He could tell you what size turbos the cars had,
or what they should do different to make 'em better,
and the other actors don't even know
how to drive a manual transmission car.
He did his homework like nobody else.
If you took Vin Diesel, okay,
and if you've ever been to New York
or on the east coast,
what kind of guys are in New York?
The kind of guy that's in your face.
And then you go to Paul Walker,
and he's like, "Yeah, cowabunga. Kick back.
It's all good."
So you took each coast
and you ended up, like, throwing them together...
Smoke 'em.
You know, it'd be like oil and vinegar,
and you've got this great salad dressing
for some unbeknownst reason.
It's like, you know, it mixed good.
I owe you a 10-second car.
I remember sitting on the lawn of Universal,
Vin and Paul and me,
doing the press junket,
and I said,
"You know, I think all our lives are about to change.
I have a feeling this film
is going to be so much bigger than anyone's expecting."
I always believed
the subject matter had a chance to be successful,
but when I walked out of that screening,
I knew he was a movie star.
I'm enjoying it.
I have a blast. I love my job.
I get to travel.
Gosh, I mean, it's just amazing.
I mean, this has really been going on for me now,
like, maybe like six years.
I think "Pleasantville" I did like six years ago.
Please welcome Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. Boys?
You know, I don't ever want it to end.
I saw the transition immediately.
I remember coming out of a Detroit radio station.
Paul and I are going on the sidewalk
and saw a girl break down in tears
that Paul was coming out of the...
and we looked at each other, like, "Did that just happen?"
You are just, like,
the hottest guy I've ever seen.
Has anyone ever told you that?
Yeah, what are you trying to do to me right now?
Are you trying to make me blush, or what?
The ladies love you, Paul Walker!
Oh, my goodness.
It's just really bizarre.
I mean, just not too long ago, I was...
I was living out of a garage, and I was panhandling.
Hey, how's it going?
I'm Paul Walker, and this is my rolling crib,
so why don't you come on in and check it out?
This is where we keep all of our surfboards.
Probably the height of our memories of surfing
was the Surfing Safari trip.
We got our old beat-up motor home.
It was a nice motor home, but anyways,
we started in northern Cal
and went down the California coast, surfing,
just stopping at all the different breaks,
the best breaks of California.
He actually makes his...
his first "MTV Cribs" in our motor home
that we went on the Surfing Safari with,
so it was just funny.
It's classic Paul, right?
Like, hanging out in this beat-up motor home
for MTV Cribs.
Um, but yeah, thanks again for coming out. Appreciate it.
You guys went ahead and make yourself at home.
Take care. We're outta here.
Being a movie star takes a lot more responsibility,
just the way you carry yourself, the way you are in public.
Paul was always willing to take a picture
if asked by somebody.
He was always willing to sign an autograph.
He was very gracious with that,
but it never changed his spirit.
It never changed his heart.
How much of an issue
is paparazzi for you now?
I guess they're going to start
hounding you very soon.
Are you prepared for it?
I know how to hide out.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
Things were not easy for Rebecca,
because of people realizing who Meadow was,
and they would come up in the grocery store
and try to pick her up,
and it was a little scary.
So she wanted to go move to Hawaii
to finish college and become a teacher of art.
And I think that was, like,
"Wow, I've made enough money
to be able to pay for my baby's mama
and my baby to be in Hawaii and do this,"
and it was like a real dream of his
for her to grow up and learn about the ocean,
and learn about, you know,
just kind of being a hippie and learn that style.
Paul showed up one day,
and I was the only one home,
and he said, "How is a person supposed to balance this?
I want to be there for Meadow.
I want to spend all my time with her,
but you gotta work while there's work."
"2 Fast 2 Furious"
had a bunch of women on the set
and a bunch of women in the city.
To be young, handsome, making all that money,
the token negro and the token white man
in Miami...
it was, uh, it was hard
to get a lot of work done out there,
you know?
My god.
Girl, you know your boy
can help you put that fire out!
Look at the bubble on that.
I don't know. We just got along really well.
The only problem, really,
was, though, we got along so well
that we were screwing around more than half the time.
While you were supposed to be working?
Yeah, exactly. And so we got, you know,
John Singleton barking at us
every once in a while, telling us to get serious.
Right. What up to John Singleton.
In that one, I did a big car jump over a drawbridge,
yeah, in a little Nissan Skyline with no suspension,
so it was... it was a hard landing.
Whoo!
He would ask me how big the hits were
and how much it really hurt, or...
you know what I mean?
He was so curious on that part of it.
I like to think that's what separates me
from some of these other cats.
It's like, hey, I want to do these stunts, you know?
As many of them as I can, anyways.
Shit.
Damn, Rome! How do you like them apples?
Show-off!
If you had to look up the definition
of ideal handsome white man,
Paul fit every profile there is.
Blond, blue eyes, 6'3",
surfer dude,
muscles at all times.
I mean, this dude had muscles in his kneecaps, man.
He was full throttle.
Some dudes where they handsome
and they become arrogant with it,
and they're unapproachable,
as a man, he wasn't intimidating,
because he was so regular and so grounded and so cool.
He was the guy that every woman wanted to be with
and every man wanted to be like.
Our personalities just clicked, man.
We both shared this kind of feeling, like,
it's perception versus reality.
I think there's nothing more scary
in me and Paul's eyes
than to have someone to give you all this good energy,
and they have the worst of intentions toward you.
You run into executives at studios all the time,
and it's almost like... it feels mafia. Like...
It's like, "Hey, oh, we love you.
We love you.
Get rid of him right now, okay? Thank you.
Hey, man! Let's do lunch later."
It's like, wow, they were so cool,
and then...
you find out how they really feel about you.
And so me and Paul had plenty of those conversations.
I think after "Fast and the Furious 1,"
he became much more hypersensitive
to what he wanted to do.
For most part,
Paul was always conflicted on whether to do a film or not.
You know, I think it's just patience.
You know, I've gotten to a point now where, you know,
I'm fairly comfortable,
and, you know, if I'm going to do anything,
I want to... I want to take pride in it.
Paul was screen testing for "Superman."
I think it was a $10 million deal,
and he was the frontrunner.
I knew he was up for it.
I knew he was thinking about doing it,
and I knew he did not want to do three or four "Supermans"
and be Superman for the rest of his life.
And all of a sudden, the phone rings, and it's Paul.
"I've got an ass on.
I've got a cape, boots, the tights.
This is not me.
I'm getting the outta here.
I gotta go. you." Boom.
And he was gone.
I should be out there prospecting.
Quit your job?
No, I was fired, but it's all part of the plan.
I'm just going to get this thing going,
get the boat shaped up,
get out there, make a big find,
and we'll live the rest of our lives on our own clocks.
Paul, he loved the water.
He loved to scuba dive.
He loved action.
"Into the Blue" checked a lot of the boxes.
I think it started off as a good script
and everything like that.
I'm not saying he didn't like the movie,
but definitely did that one for the location and the time.
To be able to go to the Bahamas
and rent a big fat house on the water
and work with cool people...
He loved the ocean.
He loved the water more than anything.
I mean, going out on his boat and stuff
was so fun for him.
He got hurt on that show on his day off.
Wake-surfing behind the boat, and twisted his knee.
He was just very honest and pure.
He just wrapped it with ice
and came in straight away and told them, and then, like,
"No, I'll just finish the show, and we'll make it work."
Did not want to get surgery and get it handled then.
When we were offered a film
and Paul was considering it,
it was always a major process to...
to get to the starting line.
It was never easy.
We saw "Running Scared" as a vehicle
with a great filmmaker
that could put Paul in a grittier light.
When they told me, they said,
"Hey, look, uh, you really have to read this,"
their words were,
"This is exactly what you've been looking for,"
and I was like, "Oh, really?"
So it was either we understood each other
and we were going to be working together for a long time,
or we were going our separate ways, you know?
What's your name?
Conchita.
Now, you listen to me, Conchita, you listen to me real good.
I don't want to hurt Manny.
Until he was proposed for "Running Scared,"
it wasn't somebody
that I thought was ideal for the film.
The Fast and Furious, they were entertaining movies,
but they had more of
a comic book, cartoonish kind of feel to it.
As silly as it is,
I actually think that was more of who he was, you know?
Fighting bad people for the law, like a good guy,
where Brian O'Conner was a narc that undermined the driving,
so he was really never stoked on Brian O'Conner.
"Fast and Furious" fans will hate that,
but you know what I mean?
Paul committed to the movie,
we start pre-production,
trigger the financing, everything,
and then I can't hold of Paul.
The clock is ticking.
Uh, we're weeks into preproduction.
We're getting ready to start.
Finally I'm like, "If Paul doesn't call me this week,
we're recasting the movie."
It's, "You have 24 hours."
"What's going on?
Have you seen him? Have you seen him?"
Like, he's calling everybody, like, around the clock,
because he can't reach him.
Paul finally calls me,
and he goes, "Hey, Wayne, how's it going?"
I said, "Paul, I've been trying to get hold of you,"
and he goes, "Yeah, sorry about that, I've been..."
I don't even remember where he was.
"But don't worry.
I'm going to come to set a couple of days before.
We'll figure it all out,
and I'll be there for you 1,000% every day,"
and he was right.
You know anything about a gun?
- No, no. - No?
No, it's lot five, number 602.
That's where he is.
Okay.
We have to do the scene
where Paul, uh,
tracks down the janitor's home address,
and he... he knocks on the door,
and then she's holding a newborn baby.
You don't call Manny.
You don't tell Manny I'm coming.
You don't warn him for anything,
because if you do, I'm going to come back here!
As soon as we call "cut,"
the baby's mother rushes onto the set,
grabs the baby up, sweeps it off,
and everybody on the set is, like, "This is intense.
This is too far."
Then Paul comes over,
he drops down next to me behind the monitor,
and he bursts out laughing,
and he's, like, almost hysterical.
He goes, "This is so up."
He was always a little bit risky,
and a lot of times he'd, like,
break a finger or break a bone in his hand
at the beginning of the movie,
and he wouldn't say anything to anybody the whole time.
Inside he liked it,
because it gave him a little pain,
something to react to.
I don't want to sell pain.
I don't have to act pain. Hurt me.
That was who he was.
Paul was a real tough guy.
He wouldn't back down for anybody.
He just had an aura of, uh, intensity about him.
Paul loved the making of "Running Scared."
He loved the finished product of "Running Scared."
He really respected Wayne.
Every day I'd be saying,
"God, we've got to get a technocrane for this,"
and the line producer would go,
"We've got no more money in the budget,
so forget about it."
The next day, there'd be a technocrane on set,
and I'd be like, "Great, we got the technocrane."
I would find out afterwards Paul was paying for it all.
Paul was saying,
"Don't tell Wayne where this is coming from."
So... I mean, that's who Paul was.
He was a super generous guy.
When he finished filming "Running Scared,"
he said, "You know what?
This is what I needed,
but I'm still, like, all gnarly.
I've got to get it out of me.
I've gotta go surf."
He called me up one time and said, "Dude."
I don't know where he was,
but he was like, "I gotta get in the water."
Call it the negative ions.
Call it whatever it is.
He felt anxious.
He loved his time off,
and would just disappear
and check away from all of us, actually.
Paul wasn't a guy
who was off getting, you know, up
or doing anything crazy or any of the rest of it.
He just knew when he needed a break.
I think that wasn't as much of an escape
as just going back to reality.
That was real for him.
A lot of times, you know, you get good waves
and they could be in nice places,
and in some pretty impoverished places,
and I think it exposed the world to him in a tangible way.
A lot of the times in his movie career
he'd be just, like, "Enough. I'm out. I'm outta here."
He's definitely not a puppet.
You know?
He's definitely not somebody
that's gonna just be told to do something
and then do it.
He didn't like just going to a press line
and talking about himself and the movie and the role.
He wanted to talk about things that he really cared about.
When I met Paul,
I was about 10 years
into a great white shark research project
at Guadalupe Island.
When Paul joined us for an expedition,
we were catching these big females
and attaching these satellite transmitters to them.
Basically we were hauling up
giant monsters from the abyss,
great white shark,
anywhere from 15 to 18 feet, you know,
over 4,000 pounds,
all in the name of science.
The first time
Paul saw a white shark get pulled out of the water,
he was like a little kid.
Hey, Mom, look at me.
His face was the biggest childish grin.
I will never forget the look on his face.
The estimation was 16 foot.
Looking out on the water, it's 16'5".
Nice.
That's it, dude! That's what we needed!
You're so stoked, your hands are shaking.
Yeah, I'm trembling inside.
This was his very first opportunity
to see a white shark right up close.
I mean, you can touch it.
That'll get your heart rate going.
He had a blast.
That's where he was in his top element.
It was way more important to talk about that
than it was any movie.
Adventure.
Hey, man, I've jumped out of helicopters, you know?
Snowboarded in, like, plush champagne powder, you know?
I've done all that cool stuff.
Dropped in on waves, you know?
Twenty-foot-plus faces, you know?
And this still takes the trophy, I'm telling you.
Our common ground was the ocean.
We both loved to fish, loved to spearfish,
loved to dive, loved to surf.
By the time he got off the boat,
I had a whole new respect for Paul.
He started making plans
on "How can I really have an impact...
Paul Walker have an impact on the ocean?"
And he knew he couldn't do it by himself.
Whoo!
You know, I've traveled the world.
I've been to a bunch of places.
I've-I've experienced a lot,
but nothing compares to what I experienced on this trip.
I'd walk away from it all to do this full-time.
He'd always say, like, "I wanted to be a park ranger,
you know, make 28 grand a year,
and, like, live in the wilderness."
Like, that's really what he wanted to do.
Paul looked around hard
where he wanted to settle down,
'cause he was very nomadic.
Santa Barbara is a special place.
Most of my time
is spent, you know, Santa Barbara north.
As I've grown older,
I appreciate more where it's more lush and more green.
There's nowhere else like it on Earth.
It's... it's unique.
Santa Barbara to Paul was like his safe haven.
350 acres just up above Carpinteria.
He had a place
where he could go up there and hide
and run around, get muddy, and plant trees,
and, you know, just do guy shit, you know?
What?
You almost lost it.
Oh, I thought I was going for sure.
Paul liked to race cars...
not street racing,
but really race cars on tracks.
Our common interest was cars.
Cars brought us together.
He walked over to me,
go, "Hey, are you the guy that just bought my GT3?"
And, "Yeah," I told him that I'm the guy,
and I also told him that, you know,
a man should never sell a GT3 in his life,
and from that moment on, we become close friends.
Really good driver, conscientious at all times.
He talked about it, he... you know, regularly,
"I need to be that role model.
I need to practice what I preach."
He's an adrenaline junkie,
if you know him.
He loves adrenaline.
He loves things that's fast.
"Always Evolving,"
Paul built that along with Roger.
They put together a team,
and he started hanging around more and more
with professional drivers,
and he started
really, really learning a lot of great skills with cars,
because look, back in the day,
we have a lot of famous actors, they're race car drivers.
Steve McQueen, right?
You have Paul Newman.
He went from a movie character
to really become a race car driver.
A lot of respect for that.
He'd get to go to the track, spend a day being himself,
talk some trash, and, you know, who's fast, who's not fast.
I remember going and seeing
his private collection of cars up in Valencia,
and there's an amazing amount of cars.
It wasn't even pretentious cars.
He wouldn't go for, like,
the most expensive Ferrari or whatever it was.
He liked his Japanese racing cars.
He truly loved the Nissan Skyline
and those kind of cars
more than muscle cars.
He liked the technical part and the better brakes
and all the stuff,
but then, really, what he drove in his everyday life
was the Tacoma truck.
He wanted somebody to cr... you know, ding him,
and he'd be, like, "Don't worry about it,"
and they'd just be shocked.
If he was here right now,
and, you know, had something cool parked outside
and you made a comment about how cool his car is,
he would literally throw the keys at you
and say, just, "Cool, go have fun."
It didn't matter, like, when he didn't have anything at all,
and then when he had everything.
Like, nothing about him changed.
Paul had a passage from George Bernard Shaw
that said, you know, "I want to be all used up."
You know, "I'm not just some flickering candle.
I'm going to be a torch,
and when I'm done,
I want to be thrown, completely used,
on the trash heap of life,"
and, uh... I can actually say he did a lot of things
that made a lot of difference
in a lot of people's lives, you know?
He... he was a giver.
That massive earthquake in January of 2010,
Paul was frustrated with, like, "Well, what can I do?"
He made some phone calls,
got friends that knew firemen, paramedics, EMTs.
Within the firefighting community,
there's kind of a group within a group of guys
who sign up
because they're willing to literally go anywhere.
We remember watching Hurricane Katrina happen,
Hurricane Rita,
and being frustrated,
and so the same thing happened in 2010
when the earthquake hit Haiti.
That's when one of Paul's childhood friends
reached out to me and just said,
"Hey, I know you really want to go help out.
I have a way that you can go. Would you be interested?"
And I said, "Yeah."
One day I got a call,
and he said, "I'm on my way to Haiti."
I said, "You're what?"
I was very proud of him, but I was also terrified.
He kept talking to people who kept telling him
"No, that's not possible, no, you can't do that."
"You've got to have clearance from the governments,
and how is he even going to get there?"
They don't have plans,
flying by the seat of their pants.
There was no chance
that they were going to get a plane
into Port Au Prince.
I remember we didn't have any way into the country.
The flights were getting turned around.
The airport was only accepting certain flights,
so we had talked about flying into the Dominican,
and so we just had the basic plan
of, "Let's get to the Dominican and see what we can do."
You know, Paul's relationship with Vin
over all of the years,
uh, Vin's got family in...
and contacts and stuff in Dominican Republic,
which is right next door.
I remember meeting Vin Diesel
and some other people,
just hearing about,
"Yeah, we might be able to get you guys a helicopter,"
so the next day we were...
I remember we were loaded into a couple vans
and taken to an airfield.
I remember looking out the window,
watching the country go by.
We were thinking a lot about our families,
because there was a lot of scary rumors that were going around,
um, about attacks on aid workers,
the machete bands of, you know, warlords and things like that,
so I remember there was...
it was a quiet flight, and we were all just kinda,
"All right, we're gonna do this."
Haiti was like nothing I'd ever seen.
I've never seen anything like that since then.
It was literally the worst traumatic scene
you could imagine.
People were being shipped in with multiple amputations,
multiple crush wounds, no painkillers.
It was awful.
Paul was literally holding a kid down
as we set his bone into place.
I remember seeing that and thinking,
"Man, that's... that's real genuine.
That's... that's why I want to be here."
I appreciate that about him,
and the fact that we were there
because he reached into his own pocket
and got us there.
I'll never forget that.
When Paul started "Reach Out Worldwide,"
he warned me.
He said, "No press.
No PR, no press.
I don't want any... It's not about that."
Everybody wants to go viral
for what they're doing, you know?
If you're doing it from your heart,
why do you want all the attention?
He never did Reach Out Worldwide
with the intentions of press and PR
and wanting people to know
that he was the hero that he was.
Let's join R.O.W.
by supporting their efforts in the Philippines,
because together,
we're going to realize a much bigger impact.
The race to relief starts now.
One thing that I'm wondering about
is the "let's."
"Let's join R.O.W."
It's sort of, um, separating yourself
from the organization,
like you're not a part of it.
Ah, they don't need to know it's my thing. You know?
It's like... it's something that I believe in,
so let's join it together,
and it makes it more like we're doing it,
as opposed... "we're joining them"
as opposed to "join me and R.O.W."
You know? I just... I think it's cooler.
There was an intensity in Paul's life
that you knew, like, okay, now, this is...
this is really what matters to him.
This isn't just the Paul going chasing waves,
but this is the Paul that cares for people,
and, uh, really makes an impact on people's lives.
I don't think anybody can go to a place like Haiti
after that event
and not come back changed.
I think we all came back different.
I know we all came back different.
I wasn't in part 3,
I wasn't in part 4,
and it wasn't because
I didn't have interest in being in it.
There were various other people
that was kind of... going out of their way
to snuff that out.
Paul Walker was on a mission
to get me back into the franchise.
This just went from Mission: Impossible
to Mission: In-freaking-sanity.
You know, we talked a lot about family.
We talked... we both have daughters.
As a father, you find yourself chasing your career,
chasing your relevancy in Hollywood,
and so when it comes to money, one would say,
"You just made all of that,
so you don't have to go do three, four movies in a row.
You could just get this big chunk of money
and then go spend all this time with your daughter
and be at home and go surf and live your life."
At that time, his life was all about Meadow,
and he would just be, like, "Dude, she's the coolest.
Like, she's like... I'm so proud.
You know, I mean, she's just a cool girl."
When Paul found out talking to his daughter
that she wanted to leave Hawaii
and she wanted to live with her dad,
it made him so happy
to know that she wanted to come and live with him.
He was, like, riddled with fear,
because he referred to himself as this Disneyland dad.
"I'd always show up
and she'd get to go travel with me,
go do this, go do that,"
and he said that.
It was, like, you know, "Rebecca's a great mom,
you know, and I didn't have to go through, like,
the flu, the chicken pox, you know, this, that," you know.
He goes, "Now I get to be there, you know,
probably in the most important time of her life,
and I've got to be that dad."
She tries to be
a little tougher than I want her to be.
I want her to be more revealing,
like, "You're not home enough,"
or, "You don't pay enough attention to what I'm saying."
Like, I want her to say those things.
She's honestly,
she's the best partner I've ever had.
She lives with me full-time now,
and, uh, so we're in all this together.
When it comes time to, you know, considering a project,
whether I'm going to do it or not,
we sit down and we pow-wow.
We discuss it.
He would be, like,
"Dude, I only got six more years until she graduates high school.
I only got five more years 'til she graduates high school,
and I'm contractually obligated to do this or that,
and they'll sue me if I don't do it,"
and when it's time to work, he's gone for months on end.
The "Hours" was... we went after that script.
We loved that role for him.
We loved that script for him,
and I think the "Hours"
was one of the best performances Paul ever had.
Yeah! Hello? Hello?
Hey, can you hear me? This is Nolan Hayes.
I'm at Saint Mary's Hospital.
I've got a baby on a ventilator that needs a rescue team.
Right away, please. She needs to be moved.
You know, he's trying to save his daughter,
and I knew he tied in,
and he told me he tied in on that.
As he was getting older,
and the way that he was changing,
being a father,
doing the things that he was...
Hello? Hello?
...He was actually stepping
into becoming a really good actor.
I knew he was gonna be.
There was only so many guys
that are in their late 30s, early 40s
that looked the way he looked,
that were built the way he was built,
that could do the action.
I always said to him,
"You're going to be Steve McQueen
in your 40s, you know? In your 50s, even.
You're so handsome right now,
that age is actually going to be good for you.
More lines on your face, give you some grit."
You know, we were on an upward trajectory.
The sky was the limit.
Paul! Paul!
Hey, Tiger!
Paul! Paul!
Paul, to the left, please!
Being a big Hollywood star and the whole thing
is, like, it's...
it's so difficult to do that
and to have a functional family.
He told me he actually had some conversations,
like, "What if I just take some time off?"
But ultimately he said,
"I have a responsibility to a lot of people.
A lot of people rely on me doing this.
I have a publicist, a manager,"
and he goes, "I help provide for you, Ashlie.
I help provide for Mom."
What are you doing?
Happy birthday.
You're going to give me a car?
It's a Lexus.
Who says material things don't make people happy?
He did take care of people,
to the point where...
he wasn't looking after himself.
I worried about him.
I worried about that taking its toll on him,
and I wish sometimes
that maybe I had been more...
had a hand in helping him stop.
I think Paul wanted most to be a great father,
and I think that...
when he was away from Meadow
or he wasn't spending time with his daughter,
that wore on him the most.
What is success to you?
Uh, success is, uh, balance in life.
That's the most hard...
that's the most difficult thing to find.
Every single person in my family,
every single person that calls Paul a friend,
has been told by Paul, from his mouth,
"This is the last one.
Oh, this is the last one.
This is the last one, and I'm done."
Heard that forever, but he couldn't walk away.
He couldn't quite...
he couldn't quite walk away yet, in his mind,
and, uh...
that's one thing that's, like, so killer,
that sucks so bad about...
You know, he never got to really enjoy,
like, just watching his daughter grow up,
and enjoy everything he had worked so hard for.
He was finally starting
to really kind of put that together and, like...
Yeah, and then he just got... got cut short.
He took Meadow out to breakfast,
and when they came back,
I was in my pajamas in the kitchen,
a little embarrassed that I still was in my pajamas,
but he said, "Oh, Mom, it's, you know, fine."
I think he got a text on his phone,
and he looks at me and he goes, "Oh, my gosh.
I'm supposed to be somewhere right now."
He told my mom, he said,
"Oh, there's an event that I'm supposed to go to.
Um, it's this toy drive."
We made plans to be back together in the evening
and decorate a Christmas tree that night.
And then after he left her house,
he called me.
He had, like, this...
this game plan on, like,
how to bring the family even closer.
And then after he got off the phone with me,
he called Cody and had a similar conversation.
He actually called me on his way to that toy drive...
and, uh...
I was at work that day, uh, and, uh...
god, I'm so glad that I wasn't on a call.
I was able to answer the phone.
When the toy drive was finished,
I was driving the Carrera GT from where he was parked,
trying to put it back into the garage.
Roger comes out, joking around with me,
saying that, "Hey, you know,
you probably don't know how to drive a Carrera GT right,
and it's my car.
Let me take it home."
And that's when Paul was leaving,
and said he wants to take a ride with Roger first.
It's just so stupid.
I've been on that same exact loop.
It's an industrial park.
There's nothing there on the weekend.
There's no cars. There's...
It's all closed up.
There's nothing there.
And it was just kind of like,
"Oh, you just, like, do a loop,
and, like, get it...
get the car running up to temp,
and then, like, put it away."
You gotta let these cars run.
You've gotta run them.
You've got to rotate the tires.
You've got to do these things, and this is a customary thing.
And so we're there, still cleaning up.
The next thing we know,
we hear a loud noise, a loud bang.
Supposedly...
the impact knocked him out,
and then the car just became this inferno.
He's stuck in this car,
he's unconscious on impact,
and then he just burns alive.
After Paul left for that toy drive,
my mom called me and asked me what I was doing,
and, um, I went over to the house,
and we ran an errand together, and...
Lucas Wimer walks through the door,
covered in soot,
like, singed eyebrows.
He told me that he couldn't get him out of the car,
and then he said he couldn't find him in the car.
Well, I'm immediately saying, "We need to go find him."
I didn't know what he was trying to say
was he couldn't find him
because the car was on fire and they couldn't get to him.
At the scene of the crash,
deputies had to wrestle one of Walker's friends away
seconds after it became clear
Paul and Rodas couldn't be saved.
Our coroner's office also determined
that the cause of death, Mr. Walker,
is combined effects
of traumatic and thermal injuries,
and the manner of death was Accident.
I... I was actually the one
that had to call each member of my family.
I felt like I had to keep breaking more people's hearts.
If you knew Paul, you loved him.
That's just how it was.
I tried reaching Cody.
I couldn't, so I got ahold of his fiancée.
She said, "Oh, he's working."
There's my wife, and she's just sobbing, and...
my supervisor says, "You're going to go home,"
and, uh, she pulls me outside,
we start walking towards the car.
I'm like, "What's wrong?"
She's like, "Something really bad happened."
I said, "What's wrong? You've told me that.
What's wrong?"
And, uh, she just looks at me,
and she goes, "It's your brother, Paul."
Take your sword.
I will.
Say it right now.
- Hey! - What?
My name is Cody.
Do you want to fight?
Yah, yah, yah!
I said, "Okay, so he got hurt?
What's wrong?
Is he... Is he going to be okay?"
And, uh, she just shook her head.
To lose somebody like Paul,
it's not, uh, it's not for the weak, you know?
It's not for the strong, either.
It's just something that's totally messed up.
Your son's not supposed to go before you.
I... it's your worst fear,
and it came to pass.
How old are you now?
13.
Okay, this is the...
We're going to test you now.
This is the test.
What's today's date?
September 20...
I mean, December 24th.
Yeah? What year?
19... um, 1986.
Uh-huh.
I just remember the very first time I...
I heard it.
You know, I immediately jump in my car
and I drive down to be with the family, you know?
I remember, uh, giving...
giving Cheryl a hug,
and, uh, her words were, "Paul and you were brothers,
and you will be forever."
I guess, like, uh, a little bit of,
"What can I do to help," right?
With Meadow and everything like that,
you're, like, there's so many uncertainties.
He would have helped out if it would have been reversed.
He would have been the one taking care of everything
for my family.
I really just wanted to go to sleep
and not have to get up again,
because I just wanted to be with him.
Swim to the side.
Come on, I'll hold onto you.
Swim! Swim! Swim! Swim!
Kick those feet!
Even if I died age 80 or whatever,
I will never live even a third of the life Paul lived.
I mean, that guy...
that guy made the best of every single minute.
Whoo!
He was just a guy
who... could take life on its own terms
and find the joy in it at all times.
There's nobody
that ever worked with him or ever knew him
that doesn't feel the loss.
I'm so, so grateful that he was in my life,
and that he was my friend.
He was a, uh, supporter,
and a, uh, you know, a champion for you.
He would be going absolutely bananas
over the fact I've discovered
a brand-new population of adult white sharks
very near his back yard in Santa Barbara.
I know he would have been bugging me 24/7,
"Hey, let's go again,"
and I really wish
I could have him out there with me.
Paul taught me that,
it may seem simple, but to do good.
Many times when he hung up the phone
or, uh, ended a conversation,
he said, you know, "Be good."
And he meant it.
He wanted to do good things.
He wanted you to do good things.
He wanted us to do more to do better for the world.
I had no idea
the impact worldwide that Paul has had
until he passed away.
I think we were all amazed to see
how far and wide Paul's influence went,
and how many people loved him.
Beef jerky time.
I learned a lot from Paul, man...
humility, treat everybody the same,
respect and love.
Go out of your way
to create moments of uninterrupted quality time.
He gave the best hugs, man.
There isn't a day that's gone by since his passing
that I haven't thought about him,
and sometimes I just talk out loud.
I say what I want to say, what I'm thinking.
"We still miss you.
We still love you.
It'll always be like that."