Brian O'Conner is a fictional character and the former protagonist of the Fast & Furious franchise. He is portrayed by Paul Walker and first appeared on film with fellow protagonist Dominic Toretto in The Fast and the Furious (2001). Brian was created by screenwriter Gary Scott Thompson, who was inspired by an article on street racing that was published in the May 1998 issue of Vibe magazine. Walker was directly approached by director Rob Cohen to play the character.
O'Conner, under the alias Brian Earl Spilner, first interacts with Dominic as an undercover police officer tasked with bringing him to the law. However, he helps him evade police capture twice, and also helps erase the criminal record of childhood friend Roman Pearce. These events help build many of his attributes: often the second in command to Dominic, Brian is shown to be honorable, honest, and protective, especially in regards to his family and wife, Mia Toretto. Brian is also respectful and believes in delivering fair justice. He is also a keen driver, and challenges Dominic, the implied strongest racer in the group, to races throughout the series.
The role's popularity allowed Walker to become a bankable Hollywood star. He won the 2002 and 2014 MTV Movie Awards for Best On-Screen Team with Vin Diesel for his performances, and Walker became strongly identified with the character, with Brian being widely considered among the primary reasons of the longevity of the series.Paul Walker's 'Fast & Furious' Character to 'Retire' in 'Fast & Furious 7'. Posted January 3, 2014, by Kelly Woo. After Walker's death, the character was retired in Furious 7 (2015).
Character biography Early life Brian was born on July 14, 1978, and raised by his mother in Barstow, California. He remembers little of his father and is close childhood friends with Roman Pearce; attending the same high school, the pair also dated the same women.
Once Brian earned his driver's permit, he was involved in a five-car pile-up on Interstate 40 driving with his mother. The brakes of the car in front locked up, while another car hit them from behind. He joined the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and two months into his tenure on the force, Roman was arrested for housing stolen cars in a garage. While Brian was not involved in the arrest, Roman assumed Brian may have helped him in some capacity; Roman then resents his childhood friend and his association with law enforcement.
Appearances
The Fast and the Furious
During the events of the first film, Brian is working as an undercover detective with the LAPD, who assigns him the task of solving a series of semi-trailer truck hijackings. He is given a very short amount of time to find the people responsible before the truckers start arming themselves with shotguns and taking matters into their own hands. Their only lead is a description of the vehicles used — black Honda Civics with green neon underglow.
When investigating the street race scene, Brian then meets Dominic Toretto whose crew he later infiltrates, first as a rival racer, in a race which he loses, then as a member after helping Dom escape the police. While running with Dom, he proceeds to investigate rival race crews led by Johnny Tran (played by Rick Yune) and Hector (Noel Gugliemi). He even goes as far as to organize and lead a large SWAT team into Johnny Tran's house after finding large amounts of merchandise, the kind from the highway robberies, while infiltrating his garage. Although the merchandise is illegal, they find nothing on Tran except a few minor charges — which leaves only Dom as a suspect. Brian soon finds out Toretto is responsible after watching him suddenly leave in the middle of a party at Race Wars and seeing Mia weeping to herself. He then reveals himself to Mia as a police officer and convinces her that if he does not get to her brother and his crew fast, they could get seriously injured or killed by the truckers who have begun to carry firearms.
As Brian and Mia race out to stop Dominic from making another highway robbery, two of his drivers, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Vincent, are injured in the process, with Letty rolling her car on the side of the road and Vincent being shot in the side by a shotgun from the truck driver whom they tried to hijack. Brian saves Vincent, only to reveal to Dom that he is a cop. Brian later finds Dominic at his house attempting to look for Jesse (Chad Lindberg) when Tran and his accomplice roll up on their motorbikes pulling a drive-by shooting on the Toretto house, narrowly missing everyone there except for Jesse who is killed in the process.
Both men then drive after Tran and his accomplice, with Dom running the accomplice off the road while Brian fatally shoots Tran. Afterward, Brian chases Dom, whom he then races, resulting in Dominic winning closely just before he is hit by a truck. After surviving his car rolling over, Brian pulls him out of the wreckage only to give him the keys to his vehicle, claiming "I owe you a ten-second car" (the price he paid for losing the earlier race was his car). This leads to his aiding and abetting charge, resulting in his removal from the LAPD.
The Turbo Charged Prelude for 2 Fast 2 Furious
Brian leaves Los Angeles before the LAPD gets their chance to arrest him for letting Dominic escape. While the FBI launch a national manhunt for him, Brian travels across Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, winning every street race he participates in using his red Dodge Stealth for his money. However, he is forced to ditch his car at a motel in San Antonio when police officers are notified of his presence. When they collect the car, he manages to hitch a ride from an unknown woman (Minka Kelly), despite her knowing who he really is. She drops him at a used car lot, with him realizing she knows that he is a wanted man. There, he buys a green Nissan Skyline GT-R R34. Later, collecting money from street races, he modifies the car with new rims and repaints it silver before traveling eastbound and winning more races on the way. Upon reaching Jacksonville, Florida, Brian heads south toward Miami.
2 Fast 2 Furious
Brian – now living in Miami, Florida – competes part time as a street racer for his friend Tej Parker (Ludacris). While racing, he is caught by the local authorities and is facing jail time for his minor charges such as destruction of property (while infiltrating Toretto in the first film) and aiding and abetting Dominic Toretto. However, US Customs Agent Markham (James Remar) later gives him an offer to work undercover to infiltrate a local drug kingpin named Carter Verone (Cole Hauser) in exchange for a clean record. Seeing that they can't pin any charges on Verone until evidence of his payoff is in transit, O'Conner is in charge of being placed as a driver while undercover for Verone. Brian is given a partner named Dunn, whom he quizzes regarding his knowledge of cars, and Dunn fails. Brian then proceeds to request his own driver, saying if he doesn't get the driver he wants, he won't participate in the operation and take his chances in Chino.
When Markham agrees to Brian's terms, Brian and his old FBI boss, Agent Bilkins (Thom Barry) seek out his childhood friend Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) who is now a Demolition Derby driver. Not being on good terms, they scuffle on the ground much like from their childhood days since Pearce is unhappy with Brian being a police officer and was arrested two months after Brian got out of Police Academy for possessing eight stolen cars, which Pearce blames Brian for, despite his knowing nothing about it. He is able to convince Pearce to accept the deal. After the agreement is settled, Bilkins and Markham then introduce Brian and Roman to Monica Fuentes (Eva Mendes), an undercover US Customs agent working with Carter. Brian and Roman are then given their cars. Brian drives a 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII, and Roman drives a 2002 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder.
While infiltrating Carter Verone, both men are successful in getting into the organization, aided by Monica Fuentes. Monica, who has fallen in love with Brian, warns him that Verone intends to kill them at the end of their mission. Now the stakes are that if they fail, they go to jail or if they succeed, they get executed. With those choices, both men hatch a scheme to avoid jail time and being shot dead. Pearce reconciles with Brian, accepting that his arrest was not his fault. With help from Tej, they orchestrate a "scramble"—after driving into a garage they later have hundreds of race cars coming out, having switched cars with Tej and Suki (Devon Aoki) while in the garage.
The cars they later move out in are outfitted with ejection seats to rid themselves of unwanted guests. Brian is forced to meet up with Verone, but after beating up Carter's henchman (with help from Pearce) he proceeds to do a classic car jump onto Verone's boat. Afterward they arrest Verone and are off the hook. He and Monica exchange a meaningful glance, and the end scene is shown between O'Conner and Pearce walking away with their pockets full of Verone's drug money planning to open up a high-performance garage.
Fast & Furious
Paul Walker reprises his role as Brian O'Conner in the fourth installment of the film series. This film takes place after the events of The Fast and the Furious and 2 Fast 2 Furious, much before the events of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.
Brian O'Conner, now a fully reinstated FBI Agent, is given the task of bringing down Arturo Braga, a known drug trafficker in Los Angeles and his connections to the street racing world, although his real identity is unknown to the public. Brian is also not surprised to see Dominic Toretto doing a Suge Knight style balcony interrogation of possible lead David Park. Brian is aware of this because sometime at the start of the film, Letty had contacted him in secret with her proposal to infiltrate Braga's organization in exchange for Dom's safe return, a feat that had gone wrong which leads to her death, which ultimately motivated Dominic to find the person responsible for his wife's murder.
Despite being a full agent again, he is still seen doing his trademark bending the rules and occasionally breaking them to solve the case. Similar to the first film, Brian is under pressure by his superiors to bring in Dom, who is still a fugitive in the film.
Brian and Dom both infiltrate Braga's crew, despite neither being aware of who Braga really is. Following the hijacking a Hummer H1 with $60 million worth of heroin in it, Brian sets up a sting operation to meet Braga to exchange some of the heroin for $6 million in cash, but not before making a deal with his superiors to have Dom pardoned for his past crimes if the operation is successful. After having the FBI do a fingerprint database search for Braga, whose real identity turns out to be his "second-in-command" Ramon Campos, fellow FBI agent Michael Stasiak, envious of and at odds with O'Conner, sends in a SWAT team to ruin the bust, forcing Braga to go back into hiding. As a result of this, Brian is taken off active duty.