How Vin Diesel Became Jordana Brewster’s Trusted Confidant On and Off-Screen

Jordana Brewster’s trust in Vin Diesel sometimes supersedes her family!

Brewster, 41, opened up to PEOPLE last week about her sibling relationship with Diesel, 54, on and offscreen while promoting the F9 director’s cut currently available digitally and on 4K UHD, BLU-RAY and DVD.

“My favorite thing about being Vin’s onscreen sister is that I kind of get to be his offscreen sister and share that title with Sam [Vincent], his real-life sister,” she tells PEOPLE.

Brewster plays Mia Toretto alongside Diesel who stars as Dominic Toretto in the Fast franchise.

“Pre-pandemic, I had this huge life decision to make and I talked to my dad, I spoke to my mom, I spoke to my manager, and I called Vin, and I listened to nobody. But I listened to Vin’s advice,” the mom of two recalls.

“Everyone was like, ‘Okay, so you don’t listen to any of us, but you listen to Vin?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, pretty much.’ And that goes for a lot of times where I’m at a crossroads and I really rely on him,” Brewster tells PEOPLE.

She adds, “It’s really wonderful that I have him as sort of this steadfast guide and that’s been really great.”

“And I also just… There’s so much trust that I have in him to guide,” the 41-year-old says.

Brewster also credits Diesel, who is also a producer in the Fast franchise, for making the series what it is today.

“I think when you’re a fan of the franchise, you think it comes together and it looks like so much fun and it looks like… But there’s much thought put into where the characters are going, how they’re evolving, what the history of the franchise is, and paying off certain things that happened in [The Fast and the Furious] and [Fast & Furious] and making that make sense for die-hard fans when they see [F9],” she says, adding, “Vin and Justin [Lin] both worked so hard to make it all come together. It’s really cool to watch that happen.”

As the series comes to an end with the 10th and 11th installments, Brewster says, “We may not be on set anymore together, but I’ll never stop texting and seeing Michelle [Rodriguez] and Vin and Ludacris and Tyrese [Gibson], Nathalie [Emmanuel]… I mean there’s so many of us. We’re just linked for life.”

New actors also continue to be indoctrinated into the franchise.

In F9, fans meet Mia and Dominic’s villainous brother Jakob, played by John Cena, who disassociated from their family at an early age.

Despite playing an enemy in the movie, Brewster tells PEOPLE she couldn’t wait to be his onscreen sister after years of being a fan.

“It’s so funny because I have this picture of me at the… I think it was the Teen Choice Awards where I asked John Cena for a picture, and I felt like such a dork. I was like, ‘Excuse me, can I have a picture with you?’” she recalls.

Once they began to work together, the actress says, “I had to remind him. I was like, ‘Do you remember when I awkwardly asked you for a picture? And now I’m playing your sister.’”

“I was a huge fan of his,” Brewster admits while chatting to PEOPLE. “And then all of a sudden to be like, ‘Oh, now you’re my brother.’”

She adds, “It was very cool. He’s such a wonderfully, professional [person].”

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Of the women in the franchise, the actress says, “We just were these archetypes of like a very strong woman. We’re not catering to the guys in any way, we’re not secondary to them, and I feel like we’ve always represented really strong women, which is something I’m super proud of.”

“It just came to the forefront and now with [F9] because there’s so many of us were really part of the action. And hopefully, we continue in that direction,” Brewsters adds.