Paul Walker Has Died

We don't run a lot of obits here; I find the whole thing where people get teary-eyed about an 80 year old shuffling away to be strange. A lot of the famous people we've lost in the last few years have been older, and have lived immense, full lives - and lived them to their conclusion. If only we could say the same about Paul Walker, who died today at just 40 years old. This wasn't a life that was finished. This was a race interrupted. 

Walker died in a car crash after leaving a charity event in Los Angeles; it's terrible that a man who has become known for the defining car movies of our time would die in one. 

I'm not going to pretend that Walker was one of the great actors of his generation, but he was an exceptional performer, a man with tremendous appeal onscreen. He had that sort of charisma and charm that made you like him instantly, the kind of smile that made you trust him. And Walker worked hard, giving his all in every role he played. Walker didn't always make great movies, but he was almost always the best thing in the movies he made. 

Over the course of his career he made some movies that I truly love. Running Scared is a brilliantly unhinged film, and Walker taking the lead role in a movie as strange and edgy as that was not a safe career choice. He was looking to do good work, and he found an outlet for it with that film. And of course there's the Fast and Furious movies, where he reminded us that easygoing star power is absolutely vital to a certain kind of film. Walker was an integral part of what made those movies work - and they fucking work, in a fundamental way. That comes from how much we like those characters, and that in turn comes from how much we like those actors. 

But if there's a film that Walker made that I think should be remembered it's Eight Below. The film did well on release - it was well reviewed, it opened at number one - but it seems to have fallen out of the public consciousness. It's Walker and a pack of sled dogs in Antarctica; the movie is mostly a survival tale about these dogs, but Walker provides the human connection at the center in a way that makes the most out of his shining star power. A lot of people dismiss Eight Below because it looks like tripe, but I found it to be a powerful story of bravery and perserverance that pulls few punches. 

Walker made other movies of note - Joy Ride, Flags of Our Fathers, Pleasantville - but he was also a guy who had a little-known interest in ocean life. He majored in marine biology in college, and in 2010 he was involved in a National Geographic project to tag Great White sharks in order to protect them. I interviewed Walker a couple of times, and I always liked to chat with him about that stuff because it made him immediately bright. Not that he wasn't already - there are few actors who are as honesty genial at all times as Walker was. 

Walker was not finished shooting Fast & Furious 7. I hope the film that is eventually released honors the guy strongly; he was a lynchpin in that series, and this will be his final film. 

He leaves behind a young daughter and a bunch of fans. I've been a Paul Walker fan for a long time now; he's been one of those guys I've championed even as many others scoffed at his prettyboy looks. I'm glad that the latter F&F films brought more people to understand why I like this actor. 

A note from Noah Segan, actor and Badass Digest contributor:

Tonight, likely through social media, we heard that Paul Walker, a popular actor of renown, died. I didn't know Paul personally, although both working in a tiny corner of a small industry, we knew some of the same folks and had colleagues in common. There is no reconciling the disaster of someone dying young, leaving their family, friends and endeavors. As an artist, Paul's work was far from finished, and like many, I grew up with Walker's films.

The simple tragedy of Paul's death is further made poetic by his dying doing what gave fans like myself, so much joy. He was in a car. Corroborated reports suggest that he was driving from a charity event, putting his skill and talent to work beyond his job description. These circumstances don't make his death ironic. They make it romantic, in the true sense.

Many folks, This Author included, like to think that creativity and art are existential in nature. We're all afraid of The Unknown, of loss, of death. Art is a way to stave those fears off, to create something, whether a painting, a song, an article or a character, that outlives ourselves. In my opinion, of all modern art forms, cinema is truest to life. Films, and those that make them, mix reality, fiction, emotion and calculation in every permutation of dilution. Regardless of genre, cinema is a record, a way to document that ensures a capsulation, a stasis, a purity, forever.

Paul accomplished what every artist wishes. He brought his work to millions of people in myriad ways. His performances, his art, will never be seen by fewer people, never enjoyed less. His audience will only continue to grow, to be connected to his work. It's difficult to consider the idea of celebrating someone's life in their death, but we don't have to do that. We simply watch Paul's films, the art he made, and we continue to enjoy and share. He may have left us, but long before his death, Paul Walker became immortal.