Remembering Paul Walker: My Uncut Interview with the Actor for the Thriller ‘HOURS’

I am still in shock after learning yesterday about the fatal accident that suffered Paul Walker. I talked to the actor a couple of weeks ago, November 14 at the Wilshire Hotel, for his upcoming survival thriller Hours (in theaters Dec. 13). In that brief encounter I saw how nice, relaxed, energetic, focused and down the earth the 40 year-old star was.

I have decided to publish the full uncut video as a way to share exactly what I have experienced in those 4 minutes with the young star of the Fast & Furious saga.

‘TV junket interviews’ are sometimes awkward, but Walker, who was bare-feet, tried to break the ice by complementing my outfit. I was paying so much attention to the technicians running things behind the cameras that I didn’t understand him and couldn’t thank him properly.

Then he did it again, jokingly asking if I called ‘Fast and the Furious 7’ “a big bastard” when I said “a big blockbuster”. He pointed out that they are fun movies to make but acknowledged that things get pretty ridiculous.

On the other hand, ‘Hours’ was a passion project that he did after falling in love with the script: “In a world were all this crazy stuff is going on, it is nice to show something that’s pure”.

He told me that the first things that he “would grab in a second” from his house if a natural disaster hit were his grandfather’s boxing trophies. The actor revealed that he was in real pain through a shoot that took place in just 16 days. “When Nolan won, Paul won!” he said.

To end on a light note and to include his co-star Genesis Rodriguez I came up with a silly question regarding one of the Latina’s father songs (he is a famous singer known as ‘El Puma’). I thought about cut it out from the interview, but it shows that Walker was nice even when he didn’t play along.

The word that he kept saying in regards with ‘Hours’ was “truth”. And the truth is that films like this one, ‘Running Scared’ and others prove that he was a very talented actor.

My sincere condolences to his family, friends and fans.

“Before sunrise on August 29, 2005, Nolan Hayes (Paul Walker) arrives at a New Orleans hospital with his pregnant wife, Abigail (Genesis Rodriguez), who has gone into early labor. What should be one of the happiest days of Nolan’s life quickly spirals out of control when the birth goes tragically wrong and Hurricane Katrina ravages the hospital, forcing an evacuation. Told to stay with his child, who is on a ventilator, and await transfer by ambulance, Nolan and his newborn are soon cut off from the world by power outages and rising flood waters. When no one returns to help, Nolan faces one life-and-death decision after another, fighting to keep his daughter alive, as minute-by-agonizing minute passes, becoming unimaginable hours.”