During a one-on-one with reporter Natalie Morales during a recent broadcast of The Today Show (see the video here), Vin Diesel told Morales that in honor of his good friend, companion, and long-running co-star Paul Walker in the Fast and Furious film franchise, he and Paloma Jimenez have decided to name their new daughter Pauline. This is the couple’s third child together.
Walker died in a tragic car accident in November of 2013, when the car he was in crashed into a light pole while traveling at extremely high speeds. Diesel told Morales, “It felt like a way to keep his memory a part of my family and a part of my world.” The interview took place in a helicopter flying high above the city of Los Angeles, and was part of the marketing campaign that is proceeding the release of the most recent of that franchise, Furious 7.
According to Today, Walker had finished filming almost all of his scenes for the movie prior to the accident that took his life. The friendship between the two men extended far beyond the their Hollywood connection. Diesel also told Morales during the airborne interview that, “He was in the room. There’s no other person that I was thinking about as I was cutting this umbilical cord. I just … knew he was there.”
Today met with the entire cast to honor Paul Walker and the entire cast got to share how they felt about Paul, and how they remember him. It was a moving tribute to watch, and you could tell that the sense of ‘family’ still existed – and always will. You can see a portion of that interview in the video below.