15 Times Paul Walker Melted Our Hearts

We miss Paul Walker. Sure, Tom Hardy’s got a cracking beard and Zac Efron’s guns are mighty impressive but does either of them look like a cartoon All-American Boy in human form? No.

Paul Walker did. Hair the colour of a Nebraska cornfield, eyes as blue as a California sky and a smile that screamed positivity, patriotism and Mom’s Apple Pie.

It would have been Paul Walker’s 42nd birthday this week, but for the tragic car crash that claimed his life in 2013. As we raise a commemorative glass to the Fast & Furious icon, here are 15 times he was brilliant.

I’m Telling: Look at his adorable little face! Aged only 14, Paul appeared on this 80s game show (basically like Mr. & Mrs. but with kids – and less weird than that sounds) with his younger sister Ashley.

Varsity Blues: Paul’s quarterback character Lance battles past a knee injury and a straying, whipped-cream-bikini-wearing girlfriend to become a successful coach. U-S-A! U-S-A!

She’s All That: A move into baddie mode for Paul as his smirking surfer dude bets Freddie Prinze Jr (remember him?) he can’t turn geeky-but-actually-gorgeous Rachel Leigh Cook into the Prom Queen.

The Skulls: Paul teamed with Joshua Jackson – at the height of his Dawson’s Creek fame – for this 2000 college thriller. Our favourite thing about the film? Paul’s character is named Caleb Mandrake. Amazing.

The Fast & The Furious: Nitrous-enhanced races, manly glares and when Paul’s undercover cop lets Vin Diesel’s street racer Dom escape at the end, confirmation that it’s Bros Before Po-Po.

2 Fast 2 Furious: Want to catch the drug lord bad guy and impress an undercover agent played by Eva Mendes in one fell swoop? Simple. Ignore all logic and drive you car off a cliff, ONTO A YACHT.

Into the Blue: This 2005 thriller has a brilliantly obvious tagline – ‘Treasure has its price’. It also features a performance from Our Paul that seems influenced by Will Ferrell in Blades of Glory; ‘Clothing optional’.

Eight Below: How to make a boyishly handsome action hero even more likeable? Surround him with eight heroic and loveable sled dogs for this incredible retelling of a remarkable survival story.

Fast & Furious fight: A return to living life a quarter mile at a time and a demonstration of how men deal with complex emotional issues. By fighting.

Shark Men: Paul realised a lifelong dream in 2010 when he was part of a crew tracking Great White Sharks for National Geographic. That face above could be used in the dictionary definition of ‘happiness’.

Charity work: Having founded humanitarian group Reach Out Worldwide, Paul travelled to Chile, Haiti and Indonesia to help earthquakes and tsunami victims. Not just a movie star but also a damned hero.

His daughter’s tribute: Meadow Walker, just 15 at the time of her father’s sad death in 2013, posted this touching message after the car crash that claimed his life. Heartbreaking.

That FF7 montage: A good way to tell if your friends have a heart is to sit them in front of the closing scene of Paul’s final film, soundtracked by Wiz Khalifa’s See You Again, and see if they can make it through without collapsing into sobs.

His legacy: Vin Diesel named his daughter Pauline in memory of his Fast & Furious brother, saying ‘it felt like, you know, a way to keep his memory a part of my memory, a part of my world.’

Ride or die: Excuse us… we’ve just got something in our eye.