Rachael Leigh Cook says the death of Paul Walker hit her “hard”.
The pair worked together on the 1999 movie ‘She’s All That’ alongside Freddie Prinze Jr, Matthew Lillard, Anna Paquin, Gabrielle Union, Kieran Culkin, Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, Lil Kim and Usher and Rachael admitted Paul’s death in a 2013 car crash, left her bereft.
She told Vanity Fair: “I remember how hard it hit me when I heard about Paul’s passing because you always think that there’s going to be — this is the corniest thing I’ve ever said — but you always think that there’s going to be time to reminisce with people, the way I’m doing with you now — or the way I got to do with [Matthew Lillard] — about a time that was.”
Rachael, 41, played outsider Laney Boggs in the movie, while Paul portrayed Dean Sampson, who challenged Prinze Jr’s character Zack Siler to transform Laney into school royalty.
Paul went on to star in the ‘Fast and Furious’ franchise but died from injuries sustained in a single-vehicle collision on November 30, 2013.
According to the coroner’s report, Paul died after the car he was in crashed at a speed of more than 100mph and burst into flames.
His friend Roger Rodas, who was driving the Porsche Carrera GT, also died in the crash.
Kristy McCracken, the investigator for the Los Angeles coroner, said: “For an unknown reason the driver lost control of the vehicle and the vehicle partially spun around and began to travel in a south-easterly direction.
“The vehicle then struck a sidewalk and the driver’s side struck a tree and then a lightpost. The force of these collisions caused the vehicle to spin 180 degrees and it continued to travel in an easterly direction.
“The passenger side of the vehicle then struck a tree and it then burst into flames.”