Actor Ali Fazal appeared in a brief role in the 2015 Hollywood blockbuster, Furious 7. While his appearance was applauded by fans in India, the actor has now revealed that his scenes were cut from the final film, mainly because of actor Paul Walker’s death during production, which prompted the filmmakers to alter the movie and include more tributes to the late actor

On Cyrus Broacha’s podcast Cyrus Says, Ali said, “I was supposed to have a race with Vin Diesel but it got canceled because we lost Paul Walker.”

The production went on a pause after Walker’s tragic demise. The actor died in a car crash in 2013. After a three-month break during which they went back to the drawing board, it was decided to complete the film with Walker’s brothers standing in as his body doubles, and to give his character a proper send-off.

Recalling the first day of the shoot in Abu Dhabi after coming back from the break, Ali said, “It was the most depressing day. The first day of the shoot, coming back after three months of break because Paul Walker had died. Everyone was just going through the motions and that is why the race got canceled because they had to accommodate a lot of tribute kind of stuff for him and there was this huge Paul puppet, which was this project they had made, they created him out of thin air.”

Ali has also been a part of more international projects such as Victoria and Abdul, Death on the Nile, and more recently in Kandahar. Ali will next be seen in Mirzapur 3