Spoilers for Fast X are ahead. If you haven’t seen the 2023 movie schedule entry, you can buy it online now.
While there are a ton of sick car stunts and set pieces throughout Fast X, one of the most epic fights of the film happens when Michelle Rodriguez’s Letty and Charlize Theron’s Cipher brawl while trying to escape from the black site prison. Considering the two women have been in the Fast and Furious franchise for a while, seeing them go head-to-head was legendary. Now, a new video has shown how the fight came together, making it an even cooler action sequence from the latest Fast film.
Louis Leterrier, the director, Oliver Schneider, the supervising stunt coordinator, Rodriguez and Theron all spoke about the making of this sequence in a new BTS video shared by Collider. It shows the scene and the crew talking about how they made it, and as Samantha Vincent, a producer of Fast X put it, this fight was a “battle royale.” Check it out:
Get a closer look at the Letty/Cipher showdown in this behind-the-scenes clip from @FastSaga's latest, #FastX: pic.twitter.com/r2Kmmakm4LJuly 31, 2023
Seeing one of Fast and Furious’ iconic villains go up against Letty, who is an OG and a total badass, was a highlight of the movie. However, learning that this was done practically, made it even better. Louis Leterrier broke down the fight a bit further in the above video, saying:
I think we went to the root of the characters, who they truly are, and how they truly interact. We went with practical effects.
Michelle Rodriguez gave some insight into Letty’s feelings in that moment, noting she was “pretty angry” about it all, which is understandable. Considering Cipher was responsible for the death of Little B's biological mom, and she caused a lot of other damage to the family in The Fate of the Furious, it does make sense that this fight happened. There was a lot of pent-up anger, and Letty finally got her chance at payback.
So, to show that anger, and to give these two women an epic fight scene, they worked to create a practical battle. Oliver Schneider, the second unit director and supervising stunt coordinator, noted this as he said:
Everything you see in the film has been done for real fight-wise.
On top of all this, the two actresses shot their fight in Fast X without a director. Rodriguez explained that they “nailed it,” and she complimented Theron’s performance, saying she was a “monster.” She also noted that after Justin Lin left they continued shooting, saying they “kept that train running.” Then, Leterrier took over, and she noted that he “saved our ass.”
Along with the sick battle between Letty and Cipher, they also broke down Charlize Theron’s fight toward the beginning of the film. The Oscar winner said she was “thoroughly excited about it.” She also noted that since her villain had to take on guards she had trained to escape, it made the entire scene an “amazing challenge.”
Overall, seeing these women get such epic action sequences was incredible, and hopefully, there is more of it in the movies to come. After Fast X’s ending, we know Gal Gadot’s Gisele will be making a return, and she’ll be paired with the two women since she saved them. So, I think it’s safe to say there are more phenomenal fight scenes like the one between Letty and Cipher in the near future.
