When Devon Aoki first arrived in Miami, she had never been in the driver’s seat of a moving car, nor did she have a license. “I had driven a golf cart around of course, but that was the extent of my driving experience,” she admitted in a behind-the-scenes featurette for the film. “It was crazy, because when I got here they were like, ‘So, you know how to drive, this will be easy’ […] and I was like, ‘Umm, well, not really.'”
“She had to learn how to drive, period,” John Singleton added, “and then she had to learn how to drive stunts to make it seem as though she’s a professional driving in the picture.” It was up to stunt coordinator Artie Malesci and his team to give Aoki a crash course in speed racing.
“She had to start from scratch and learn to drive a stick-shift and actually take it around the corners pretty fast,” Malesci explained. Luckily, Aoki was a fast learner; after a few days of drills in a Mustang Selene, she’d more or less gotten the hang of it. “It’s quite an accomplishment.”
“You know, you look at her in the film, you believe she’s a street racer,” Singleton remarked. “As pretty and cute as she is, it’s phenomenal to see her face, she’s just going for hers. She’s hanging with the dudes.” It might be an installment that most fans and critics would like to forget, but “2 Fast” was still a pretty fun ride from start to finish and a lot of that has to do with the street racing throughout the film. It’s great to know that the cast was so committed to making the action feel immersive and real, whether they were licensed or not.