Michelle Rodriguez says she’s out unless Fast And Furious revs up female characters
Over the course of the Fast & The Furious franchise’s evolution from a drag-racing crime drama to the most over-the-top display of mechanical excess this side of the Transformers movies, Michelle Rodriguez’s Letty Ortiz has remained a constant. First introduced in The Fast And The Furious as main man Dom’s (Vin Diesel) girlfriend, over the course of eight movies her character has evolved into, um, Dom’s wife. A skilled street racer in her own right, Letty is the only original female character left over from the first film, although she’s been relegated to the background for much of the past few films. And Rodriguez is getting bored with it.
In a post on Instagram earlier this week, Rodriguez essentially threatened to hit the gas and drive away if Fast & Furious doesn’t “show some love to the women of the franchise on the next one.” The series has featured a number of ass-kicking female characters over the years—including future Wonder Woman Gal Gadot in Fast & Furious 6—but most of them have been either killed off or sidelined after a movie or two. This year’s The Fate Of The Furious introduced Charlize Theron as the villainous Cipher, who (spoiler alert) has the potential to return for the ninth film in the series. We‘ll see if the series is ready to ride or die with her, and with Rodriguez, when the next film hits theaters in 2019.