Actor Vin Diesel paid tribute to the late Paul Walker at the Fate of the Furious world premiere at New York's Radio City Music Hall over the weekend. Diesel introduced the film by attributing its success to "the decades of work that my brother Pablo put into this franchise."
"There wasn’t a second we made this movie, not a minute, not a day that went by that we weren’t thinking about our brother Pablo: how to bring him into the movie, how to represent him, and how to make something that he would be proud of. Pablo, I hope you are proud tonight," Vin shared with the crowd, including Walker's mother Cheryl and daughter Meadow who were both at the screening.
Before the premiere, Ludacris also told reporters (via The Hollywood Reporter), "We like to say the last one is for Paul and this one is from Paul. We wanted to make the best movie possible."
Walker passed away in a fiery car accident in Valencia, California in 2013. He was 40. The actor, best known for his role as Brian O'Conner, completed his dramatic scenes for the seventh installment before his untimely death, and his brothers Caleb and Cody joined the cast to help fill the small gaps left in production.
The Fate of the Furious is the first film in the smash Universal franchise following's Walker's death. The movie, also starring Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Kurt Russell, Charlize Theron, Helen Mirren, and Scott Eastwood, is in theaters April 14.