Han is coming back for Fast & Furious 9, but there are many other Fast & Furious characters who’ve yet to return in the more recent movies. After eight films, a spinoff, a couple of short films, and an animated Netflix series (not to mention, 2002’s Better Luck Tomorrow, which was retroactively made part of the series’ universe), the Fast & Furious has a lot of miles under its belt, figuratively speaking. It’s also developed a habit of reusing the same supporting characters over and over, either evolving them into members of the movies’ core ensemble or simply bringing them back for a cameo (like when Tego and Rico showed up in The Fate of the Furious).
Naturally, some of these characters have since met their maker, like when Vincent was fatally shot during Fast Five and Elena was murdered right in front of Dom in The Fate of the Furious. The luckier ones were later resurrected through some type of plot contrivance, with Letty’s return from the dead being perhaps the best example. By comparison, Han’s original death in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Furious 7 was meant to be permanent, but was reversed after fans took issue with the clunky way The Fate of the Furious “redeemed” his killer, Deckard Shaw.
Unlike Han, however, there are a number of characters who’re featured prominently in earlier Fast & Furious films, but aren’t confirmed to return anytime soon (rumors aside, that is). Here are the ones who’ve yet to make a comeback – and whether they’re likely to anytime soon, if ever.
Leon
![Fast & Furious: Every Character Who HASN’T Returned Yet](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/fast-and-furious-leon-johnny-strong.jpg)
A faithful member of Dom’s old car-hijacking team and his lookout for police activity during his illegal car races, Leon hasn’t been seen since he vanished after a truck heist gone wrong and the subsequent fallout in the original The Fast and the Furious. That’s partly because the actor and stuntman who played him, Johnny Strong, pursued a career in music and founded the band Operator a couple years after the film opened in 2001. Strong returned to acting in the zombie horror-action movie Daylight’s End in 2016, but there’s been no indication of him coming back to the Fast & Furious universe since then. Still, there’s a chance (slim it may be) the franchise will eventually address what became of Leon, rather than leaving his fate open-ended.
Edwin
![fast and furious ja rule edwin](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/fast-and-furious-ja-rule-edwin.jpg)
While he only appeared briefly in The Fast and the Furious, rapper-actor Ja Rule’s Edwin was originally slated to play a much bigger role in 2 Fast 2 Furious. The plan was for the sequel to redeem the character following his humiliating car race loss in the first movie, but Ja Rule passed on the project, saying in a 2002 interview “I just felt it wasn’t the best move for me.” Many years later, 2 Fast 2 Furious director John Singleton revealed Ja Rule wouldn’t return his calls during the casting process and said he acted like “he was too big to be in the sequel.” As a result, the character was replaced with Ludacris’ Tej in the film, and the rest is Fast & Furious history. Needless to say, the franchise has left Edwin firmly in its rearview window by now.
Monica Fuentes
![Eva Mendes holds a pager in Fast and Furious](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Eva-Mendes-Fast-and-Furious.jpg)
In addition to bringing Tej into the fold, 2 Fast 2 Furious introduced Eva Mendes as Monica Fuentes, a U.S. Customs agent who goes undercover and works with Brian and Roman to take down the drug lord Carter Verone in the film. Despite being positioned as a potential love interest for Brian in future installments, Monica wouldn’t show up again until Fast Five, and even then only briefly in the movie’s credits scene. Problem was, Universal was disappointed by the underwhelming response to 2 Fast 2 Furious and went with a tangential sequel, Tokyo Drift, after that, before later reuniting the leads of the original Fast and the Furious for 2009’s Fast & Furious. There hasn’t really been an obvious spot for Monica in the franchise since then – and with Mendes having (for now) stepped away from acting since she started a family with Ryan Gosling in the mid-2010s, she’s unlikely to suddenly pop up again, either.
Jesse
![Chad Lindberg as Jesse in Fast and the Furious](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Chad-Lindberg-as-Jesse-in-Fast-and-the-Furious.jpg)
Dom’s trusted, highly-intelligent, ADD-afflicted tech guy on his truck heists, Chad Lindberg’s Jesse hasn’t been seen since the events of The Fast and the Furious. The explanation why is quite simple: Jesse was shot dead by Johnny Tran, the leader of a rival car racing gang, and his cousin Lance Nguyen at the Toretto house in the film, prompting Dom and Brian to chase the pair down (in their cars, of course) and retaliate, with Johnny being killed in the process. His death was pretty clear-cut but, then again, so was Han’s, so there are still fans holding out hope that Jesse could somehow make a miraculous recovery and return to the series. If nothing else, it’ll be interesting to see if Jesse’s name is ever mentioned again or bought up in conversation about Dom’s past as an outlaw.
Gisele
![Gal Gadot in Fast Five](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Gal-Gadot-in-Fast-Five.jpg)
If there’s one Fast & Furious character who hasn’t shown up in the recent movies but has a real shot at returning, it’s easily Gisele. Originally introduced as an overly sexualized liaison for drug trafficker Auturo Braga in Fast & Furious (and played by a then-unknown Gal Gadot), the character really came into her own in Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6, which fleshed out her personality and backstory (revealing she was a former Mossad agent), and made her and Han a fan-favorite romantic couple. Gisel seemingly sacrificed her life to save Han during the climax of Fast & Furious 6 – but if Han can somehow survive a brutal car crash and explosion, then presumably Gisele could’ve survived her fall from a speeding vehicle in that movie.
Obviously, the big concern from a storytelling perspective (like those raised about Han’s resurrection) is bringing Gisele back from the dead would cheapen her original sacrifice and feel like a cop-out. There’s also the issue of Gadot’s schedule; in addition to playing Wonder Woman in the DCEU, she’s very busy starring in films like Netflix’s Red Notice at the moment and would probably struggle to find room in her schedule to commit to another Fast & Furious movie. Nevertheless, out of all these characters, Gisele’s the one whose return would make far and away the biggest waves.
Key Release Dates
F9: The Fast Saga1
Release Date:2021-06-25