Fans of the "Fast & Furious" franchise -- and even Michelle Rodriguez herself -- seemed to think her character Letty really bit the dust when she got caught in an explosion during the fourth film. But Rodriguez was surprised to discover that when she went to watch "Fast Five," producers had future plans for Letty.

"[Vin Diesel] decided to keep his word from 'Fast & Furious 4' when he told me that death is in everybody's imagination," Rodriguez told MTV News ahead of Friday's "Fast & Furious 6" debut. "[He said] 'Just watch and see.' Cut to two years later, I'm in Paris and I go see 'Fast Five' because I want to see Vin Diesel go head-to-head with The Rock like everybody else, and then at the end, I see a tag ending with my picture in it."

Diesel, who Rodriguez credits with bringing Letty back, said the decision was a natural one after he shared an epic fight scene with Dwayne Johnson in "Fast Five." "The next place to go was to see a female version of that," Diesel explained. "And we really lucked out by having Gina Carano come, who is so reputable in the combat world. And it's a pretty explosive scene."

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Rodriguez, meanwhile, admits that she was intimidated by the prospect of battling Carano, who is a bona fide MMA fighter in real life.

"On paper, you look at a fight like that and you're like, 'OK, there's absolutely no way that I'm going to get out of this credibly against somebody like Gina Carano,' " Rodriguez confessed. " 'We're going to have to set this up where it's realistic.' So there was a lot of configuring it with the stunt guys to have my own street style compared to her tactical style. It was kind of like fight or flight, survival versus tactical combat."

"Fast & Furious 6" opens in theaters nationwide Friday.

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