The Crown‘s Vanessa Kirby is the latest surprising star to join the Fast and Furious franchise, after Dame Helen Mirren made a brief cameo in The Fate of the Furious last year.
Variety reports Vanessa has been cast in Hobbs and Shaw, a stand-alone spin-off movie that teams up Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw — the characters played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jason Statham. Vanessa will play an MI-5 agent, who just so happens to be Deckard’s sister.
It’s a far cry from Buckingham Palace, but this new role is just Vanessa’s latest foray into action movies since hanging up her Princess Margaret tiara. Later this month, she’ll pop up on the big screen alongside Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible – Fallout, having played a cyborg in 2016 sci-fi thriller Kill Command.
As for the spin-off, it will be directed by Deadpool 2 and Atomic Blonde‘s David Leitch, who recently told Digital Spy the film will maintain “some of the DNA of the Fast universe” while creating “something fresh and different for these characters.”
“Hobbs and Shaw come from the agent-and-spy world,” he explained. “It’s obviously about their banter and their relationship, but it’s more about expanding their world and their connections, and creating a family in a slightly different universe. It’s going to be fun.”
Vanessa’s character is the Shaw clan’s newest addition, after Luke Evans played Deckard’s villainous ex-SAS brother Owen in 2013’s Fast & Furious 6, and Dame Helen Mirren portrayed matriarch Magdalene in the series’s eighth installment last year. Clearly the Shaws come from venerable stock, although we’re not sure the Queen (as Dame Helen will always be in our book) should be playing Princess Margaret’s mother.
Hobbs and Shaw is set to open in theaters on August 2, 2019.
Do you think Vanessa can hold her own against The Rock and Jason Statham?