Vin Diesel was fighting back tears as he gave a heart-wrenching tribute at the People’s Choice Awards to his fallen Fast and Furious costar Paul Walker.
On Wednesday night, Diesel was accepting two awards for Furious 7, favorite movie and favorite action movie. However, Diesel got caught up in a whirlwind of emotions after reflecting on how difficult it was to film the movie after Walker’s death in a 2013 car crash.
Diesel was visibly shaken and choked up during his acceptance speech as he remembered his close friend.
Vin Diesel accepts the award for Favorite Movie and Favorite Action Movie for Furious 7. #PCAs https://t.co/s00lcjGdg2
— People's Choice (@peopleschoice) January 7, 2016
“You know, as I was coming up here, I always do this. I say I’m not going to get emotional about, you know, winning these awards, and I was cool when I was sitting in my seat, and then they handed me two awards. One for favorite action movie and one for favorite film. You all thought that this was your favorite film. I think of Dom and Brian and I start to think of Paul. They said to make this short and sweet, so I will try to make this short and sweet. It was a labor of love. My only message to you is you’d be amazed what you can do with love. You’d be amazed at how powerful a force that is. When we didn’t want to come back to filming when the tragedy was too heavy, it was the love of everyone combined that saw us through to the end.”
The 48-year-old actor thanked fans and Universal for their support since he stepped into a producer role for the franchise 10 years ago.
“I’m up here accepting this on behalf of my producing partner, Neil and myself. They’ve supported me all along as I kind of crazily told them we could get to Fast and Furious 10 with the true story and with integrity and with a multicultural theme and a multicultural family.”
“It’s just pure fans saying how much they appreciate our work, and that means the world to me,” Diesel said before invoking Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s “See You Again.” “And I thank you so much and the only thing I can say now, ‘It’s been a long day without you, my friend, and I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again.'”