Fast and Furious star Michelle Rodriguez had absolutely no idea how to drive a car when she was cast as Letty Ortiz, a highly skilled illegal street racer, in the very first movie of the adrenaline-fueled franchise.

A closer look

Fast and Furious star Michelle Rodriguez had absolutely no idea how to drive a car when she was cast as Letty Ortiz, a highly skilled illegal street racer, in the very first movie of the adrenaline-fueled franchise. She actually had to scramble to get her driver's license before production began, meaning she was legally a novice driver while pretending to pull off high-speed, death-defying vehicular heists. It adds a wonderful layer of unintentional comedy to those early scenes, knowing that the tough-as-nails gearhead delivering intense glares behind the wheel was probably just terrified of accidentally stalling a manual transmission. Hollywood really loves to preach about the magic of acting, but nothing deserves an Academy Award more than a woman successfully convincing audiences she is a drifting champion while she is still technically in her probationary period at the DMV