Photo: Summit Entertainment

Chris Luckett

Today mark’s the tenth anniversary of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, the movie that rescued the street racing franchise from the DVD dumpbin and reinvented it as a genre-morphing series of bigger-and-bigger action spectacles.

Fittingly, then, it’s been announced that one of the most respected actresses in contemporary cinema, Helen Mirren, will be joining Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, and Kurt Russell in the eighth entry, Fast 8.

Last summer, rumours began circulating that Mirren was being wooed for a role in the sequel, with Mirren coyly stating, “I’ll be in it, but only if I’m allowed to drive.”

She revealed her official involvement in an interview in Elle Magazine, which was then confirmed by the Fast & Furious franchise’s Twitter feed. Details of her character are still being kept under wraps.

While Mirren’s public perception of being properly British may make her seem an odd fit for the nitro-fuelled series at first, Mirren’s proven her love for fun, action films time and again in such hits as National Treasure: Book of Secrets, RED, and RED 2.

Mirren joins new additions Charlize Theron and Scott Eastwood, and the returning Diesel, Johnson, Russell, Jordana Brewster, Chris Bridges, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham, Lucas Black, Elsa Pataky, Tyrese Gibson, and Eva Mendes.

Fast 8 revs into theatres April 14, 2017.

(Source: Elle Magazine)