Jordana Brewster
"The whole cast except for me went around on the race track to feel how the speed felt and it's very technical in terms of when you make a loop. I think you're supposed to go in the opposite direction and then - - it's really complicated. The only thing I did was you have to speed on this race track at least 80 miles an hour and it was really short. Then there were three lights and two of them turned red and one of them turned green and at the last minute they would change the light so that you'd have to go into the one lane that was green, just to test your reflexes.

"A lot of the extras on the set brought their own cars, so I got to talk to them a lot. I learned how much skill it takes and I think a lot of people are like, 'Oh, they like to go fast and that's it.' But they spoke about their cars like it was their baby, and just how much they invest in them and how smart they are. No one could understand half of the technical jargon they were throwing around like it was second nature."

Paul Walker

"They taught me that I really didn't know a damn thing about driving even though I thought I knew everything. They taught you how to take corners, how to come in, like the approach. You don't want to come in too steep. You want to come at a lower angle and then exit high. They talked to you about the apex where you want to exit. This is all racing jargon, stuff that people really don't need to be familiar with unless you go to race car driving school."

Michelle Rodriguez
"I went to car racing school for one day, you know. It's a beautiful experience but all it did was tease me and make me want to do it in real life. You would've given me a month, those would've been my own stunts but we didn't have that time."

Vin Diesel
"I think probably the only thing I probably got out of driving school was how to take a turn, how to come in and get out of the turn without taking too much time off the clock."

Rick Yune
"We all went and were all staying up, gambling all night and drinking till five in the morning. Rob Cohen was leading the pack. The next morning we had to get up in 120 degree weather and put on the helmets and the jumpsuit and man, it was an exhilarating experience. When you're driving on the street and driving on a track it's entirely different because you're dealing with angles and apexes and things like that, so you're going on a straightaway and then you have to hit the curve just right and curve it so that you're not wasting that amount of space. A few feet can win or lose a race. We were learning about that and going through simulations. It was a great experience.

"We had an obstacle where we had to learn how to skid, so you'd hit a corner and have to skid for a certain amount of feet before you had to stop. There were times when everybody was skidding out and almost wrecking, things like that. It's kind of hard because you have to break at the same time as you turn, so it's hard to explain. It's things that you have to do before you do [the stunt]. You practice before you do it. It's nothing you can explain and it's a tremendous amount of respect. Dale Earnhardt had been around for 30 years and one race took him out, so it shows you exactly how much these guys have to really pay attention and focus. That's what the speed is about. Everybody's been so interested in speed since Grease and the Steve McQueen movies and all of that. It makes you focus and keeps you alive for a few seconds and nothing else matters but to keep focus like that."

For full star interviews go to the Cast & Crew page...