Paul Walker | Life, Death, and Personality

hello this is dr grande today's question is can i analyze the life and death of paul walker another question here is can i offer my thoughts on the documentary titled i am paul walker just a reminder i'm not diagnosing anybody in this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoyed this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon i'll put the link to patreon in the description for this video first i'll go through the background then i'll offer my analysis paul walker iv was born in glendale california on september 12 1973. his father was a sewer contractor and had been a boxer and his mother was a model he was the eldest of five siblings he was raised mormon but eventually would become a non-denominational christian walker started his career very young he was featured in a television commercial at age two it was for pampers he appeared in many other commercials and tv shows when he was young and as a teenager but his first leading role was in the 1987 sitcom throb he actually started working in movies a year before that but he was mostly in low budget films walker used to get into a lot of fights when he was young it doesn't sound as though it was because people were attacking him he appeared to be the aggressor much of the time he graduated from high school in 1991 and attended a few different community colleges he continued to be featured in movies but mostly in supporting roles he garnered some attention from his performance in the 1998 movie pleasantville however his real breakthrough would come in 2001 when he was cast as brian o'connor in the fast and the furious with vin diesel he would reprise this role in 2003 with too fast too furious he starred in a 2005 movie into the blue and in the 2006 movie running scared but those movies were not financially successful he was in flags of our fathers and eight below both released in 2006 these movies performed better he would be featured in four more fast and furious movies he was filming one when he died this takes us to november 30 2013 at 3 30 p.m in santa clarita california 40 year old paul walker and a 38 year old friend named roger rhodus were at a charity event when they decided to leave and take a quick drive around the area neither man was intoxicated roger rhodus climbed in the driver's seat of a red over black 2005 porsche carrera gt walker was in the passenger seat the vehicle only has two seats the vehicle is powered by a 603 horsepower v10 mated to a six-speed manual transmission it is an exceptionally fast vehicle rodis was operating the vehicle on hercules street the speed limit was 45 miles per hour but the vehicle was traveling somewhere between 80 and 93 miles per hour at some point rodus lost control and the vehicle went sideways the car crashed into a sidewalk and the driver's side struck a tree then a light post the vehicle would spin 180 degrees and continue moving until it crashed into a tree and burst into flames rodus died of multiple traumas walker died from both traumatic and thermal injuries fire consumed both individuals the area where they crashed is known for drifting cars a very dangerous practice under any circumstances but especially on public roads now moving to my analysis in looking at paul walker's history when he was a child teenager and as an adult we get a fairly good view of his personality here is a potential personality profile using the five factor model we see that walker was high in openness to experience he was intellectually curious adventurous and somewhat non-traditional he developed a number of interests throughout his life race car driving martial arts the ocean surfing fighting working as an actor and operating a charity so looking at some of these in more detail walker had an interest in marine biology he started the national geographic channel series expedition great white spending 11 days catching and tagging great white sharks jacques cousteau was his hero his interest in the ocean seemed to be related to how mysterious it was he talked about how there were creatures in the ocean that were more alien than what might be encountered in outer space walker was a car enthusiast and a number of incredible sports cars including a nissan skyline gtr v spec a first generation ford gt and a bmw m1 not to be confused with the bmw 1 series m coupe interestingly though many of his cars were not considered exotic he owned a number of ford mustangs for example now moving to the next trait we see walker had low conscientiousness he was impulsive did not exercise caution and had a questionable work ethic although once he committed to a film he was fairly diligent and he did start working at two years old so it's hard to really think of his work ethic as too bad he would sometimes go missing for days people couldn't find him he would schedule auditions and never show up and he was terrible at managing his money it was said that he had the same attitude towards spending money whether he was poor or wealthy he didn't worry about it he just bought whatever he wanted before he was wealthy he would get calls from creditors several times a day moving to extroversion walker was extremely extroverted he was friendly outgoing assertive had positive emotions and was sensation seeking he was often in a good mood he liked meeting people talking to people he had a lot of friends even before he was famous he was easily bored for example he wanted to quit acting when he was 18 years old he would often be interested in an activity for a while and then move on to the next one he was referred to as an adrenaline junkie this seems to be one of the more clear facets of extroversion that relates to walker the thrill seeking it defined his life and almost certainly contributed to his death as far as agreeableness things get a little bit tricky here with walker on the high side he was described as humble caring and straightforward he did not change when he became a famous movie actor he always related to people the same way on the low side he would pick fights with people all the time and frequently did not pay his bills i think what probably happened here is his low conscientiousness and high extroversion specifically the facet of sensation seeking would get the best of him even though by nature he was actually agreeable so in certain instances he enjoyed fighting more than he did getting along with people similarly he was okay with borrowing money and not repaying it because he wanted to get enjoyment value out of the money he didn't care if he was hurting somebody else in that moment in looking at neuroticism we see he was not depressed anxious or vulnerable he was fearless and generally didn't have mood swings even though he would give in to anger at times overall his neuroticism level appears very low when stepping back and looking at his potential personality profile walker seems to combine excitement seeking with a desire to be true to himself for example we see that he was offered the role as superman in the 2006 movie superman returns but after putting on the outfit he didn't feel like it was him there's also this report that he believed in the so-called superman curse the idea that bad things happen to people who take that role it would have been far better to attempt to defy the superman curse than to attempt to defy the laws of physics walker was very generous he supported a number of charities and he was very hands-on with his efforts as far as his romantic life walker was extremely sexually active when he was young he described himself as an animal he had a child by accident when he was 25 he believed he was too emotionally immature to be helpful so he took care of the child's financial needs his daughter's name was meadow this would change when meadow moved from hawaii where she had been living with her mother to california to live with walker after this walker enjoyed his role as an active father what about his death did his personality tie in with how he died a lot of actors who buy fast and expensive cars are just downright frightening they clearly have no idea how to drive fast and have no respect for the machine itself i've seen this many times with different influencers they buy ferraris and lamborghinis and they don't even know how to drive a manual transmission they just don't have any respect for the vehicle or what went into making the vehicle the way it is paul walker was not like that he actually did know how to race he did have an appreciation and understanding of fast cars now moving to the collision roger rhodus was a professional race car driver now some people have tried to claim that these two went out in this car and walker really didn't know what rodos was going to do there's only one reason to take a quick spin in a porsche carrera gt they weren't going to check out the radio or admire the upholstery walker knew what he was getting into he knew rodas was going to speed i actually think that was the expectation that's what walker wanted to happen running under this assumption that walker wasn't kidnapped by rhodus walker was partially responsible for what happened rodus was operating the porsche in a reckless and foolish manner even though the accident occurred in an industrial park there was still a risk to pedestrians bicyclist and motorist someone else could have been killed just like we see with the fighting behavior and the not paying bills walker had opposing forces in his personality he wanted to be responsible and he cared about people but he really liked thrills he just couldn't resist being reckless on certain occasions as far as what caused the accident i think it's very possible that rhodus simply pushed the vehicle beyond his ability to handle it but there's another theory out there that's actually quite plausible the carrera gt had 3500 miles on it it was still on the original set of tires this means that the tires were about nine years old their grip would have been severely compromised at that age it could have been that rhodus lost traction and a churn or was trying to drift and lost traction at a time prior to when he believed he would lose traction the accident may have come down to the fact that rodus and walker did not have an interest in tires tires often get neglected people pay attention to the rest of the car and don't worry about the tires they're like a boring subject matter especially for somebody like walker who was prone to boredom anyway it could also be they just didn't think to check many people have made it seem like walker died doing something he loved i think that he did like thrill seeking but i doubt he enjoyed breaking multiple bones and then being set on fire his death wasn't poetic it was unnecessary and probably the result of excitement seeking behavior combined with low conscientiousness and low neuroticism it's a recipe for daredevil behavior moving to the last question what did i think of the documentary i am paul walker so this documentary tried to make it seem as though paul walker was a great actor he was a satisfactory actor the fast and the furious movies are not known as the exemplar for great acting even though i actually did like the movies i do agree with the documentary though that paul walker was on his way to greatness he was becoming a better actor as time went on if he had not died in that collision i think he would have been in a lot of movies that were notable and he would have probably become a true hollywood legend it seems as though paul walker was well adjusted in many ways but in other ways he was irresponsible he kind of bounced through life doing whatever he wanted and things mostly seemed to work out for him he didn't seem to have particular concern about the future his philosophy was to pack as much fun into life as he possibly could when someone dies it's not unusual that other people say they packed more in life during the time they had than most people do in a much longer lifespan this is typically just a platitude to make people feel better but in the case of paul walker it's hard to argue with the idea that he did pack a lot into his life he had more adventures traveled to more places and had more relationships than the vast majority of the population paul walker is very interesting in the sense that he's not what people expected i think when people first look at him they see a hollywood superstar blonde hair blue eyes six foot two 176 pounds they think of him as arrogant condescending callous fragile and afraid to get his hands dirty but nothing could have been further from the truth as far as paul walker he was relatively modest a tough guy and like to work with his hands i think some people look at his death like he simply didn't understand what he was doing like a typical actor who wouldn't know a porsche carrera gt from a toyota celica gt but i think walker did understand what he was climbing into again he was doing what he wanted to do it's hard not to like paul walker despite his flaws in a way he was authentic all those roles he was playing where he was a rebellious action hero like the fast and the furious movies were not too much different than how he wanted to be in real life in a way that's what he was aspiring to the very characteristic that made walker exciting and compelling also led to his death in one sense looking at the chances that he took it's amazing he lived as long as he did a sensation seeker with a lot of money is like a stick of dynamite who dances with matches the type of fun that walker liked came with substantial risk paul walker lived his life in the moment and made every moment an adventure those are my thoughts on paul walker please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found my analysis of this topic to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 42,537

Rating: 4.9088645 out of 5

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Id: 2wKb3gKxVEE

Length: 14min 32sec (872 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 30 2021