Furious 7 notably ended with an emotional tribute sequence to Paul Walker set to Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again,” which many found sweet and genuine even despite containing product placement and sort of creepy CGI, and coming less than five minutes after Vin Diesel cured Michelle Rodriguez’s amnesia by killing a helicopter. Then Vin Diesel sang the song during a junket interview, and everyone melted, people thinking it was so sweet him trying to sing a happy song when he was still so sad. Then, when he was a presenter at the MTV Movie Awards, he sang it again, unprompted, presumably because people liked it so much the first time.
Which brings us to this interview, with Italian journalist Andrea Esposito, which begins with Vin Diesel singing the same song. This interview was actually uploaded a week before the one that went viral, with almost the same SEO title (“An emotional Vin Diesel sings ‘See you again’ for Paul Walker,” even though Vin seems neither emotional nor to be singing for Paul Walker). Which I guess makes it slightly less weird than if it had just come out this week.
Still, it makes the other video and his MTV Movie Awards appearance seem even weirder now, like it was all part of a pre-planned media strategy. I’m not sure what’s creepier, the fact that people ask him to sing, or the fact that he does it. “Vin! Vin! Sing that song that makes you sad! Ooh, do it again! C’mon, really grieve for us now!” I like him better when he’s blowing up vroom cars.
[hat tip: Vulture]