Audiences that flocked to theaters to watch Fast X might have been impressed by the movie’s reveal of returning characters and a glimpse of long-forgotten ones. We all know that the franchise is always about the core family of Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel), but the new installment saved a little fuel to work on a separate family member which is a late introduction to the story. In an interview with Collider's Perri Nemiroff, Daniela Melchior dedicated some time to talk about her debut in the Fast & Furious franchise, and her character Isabel Neves.
During the interview, Melchior revealed what kind of backstory she thought up when approaching the character: Isabel is the sister of Elena Neves (Elsa Pataky), who had a baby with Dom Toretto and was killed by Cipher's (Charlize Theron) orders in The Fate of the Furious. The actor talked about the kind of work that was put into forming the basics of Isabel while she prepped to make her debut. She started out with the Elena-Isabel relationship:
“I think, as in real life, many people have the same parents, they went to the same schools, they had the same experiences, or not, and they end up becoming different people and they have different paths and journeys and everything. I really think for her backstory, for Isabel’s backstory, it could have been Elena went to the police school and everything, and from that she would be like, ‘Oh, okay. Yeah, I know. She's the perfect daughter,’ and then it would go down from there. It could have been a lot of stuff, but my way of thinking and living my character was really that I was living in her shadow even though she was with me all the time and she was very selfless and always worried about family and everything. So I didn't hate her, but I was jealous in a way, very, very deep down.”
There's a Lot More to Isabel Than Shown in Fast X
Melchior then moved on to talk about what was the thought process she went through in order to imagine what events Isabel lived in order to shape up the person that we see onscreen in Fast X. This included, of course, what kind of relationship she had with new villain Dante (Jason Momoa). Even though the movie never tells us how Dante and Isabel know each other, Melchior makes the connection that due to her tendency to hit rock bottom, Isabel may "Have been working for Dante, at least on drug smuggling." Fast X shows us that Isabel is a skilled Brazilian racer, but Melchior imagines that "in her free time, she would do a lot of wrong things, even for Dante or just to survive."
As the interview progressed, Melchior revealed that all of this background information is the result of frequent message exchanges with Diesel (who is also a producer of the franchise). The actor asked Diesel everything she could think of in terms of character development, and she ended up coming to the conclusion that Isabel is a person who’s had terrible things happen in her life, which she thinks it’s all her fault. So, she tends to keep everyone at arm’s length so that losing someone isn’t even a possibility anymore. Melchior revealed that if she gets invited for future installments, she’d love to explore that darker aspect of Isabel:
“If there's a future for Isabel, I would love to explore in that way. I was thinking, the quote that I told him was, I could imagine Isabel feeling like a burden to everyone around her, and that’s why she didn't want to have connections with anyone, and feeling that everything that she touches would rot. I was thinking about [it] in such a dark mode for Isabel, I don't know why!”
Fast X arrives on digital later this week. You can watch our full interview with Daniela Melchior below: