Sawa says the cast didn’t realize how powerful the death scenes were while making Final Destination. Years later, an ordinary drive can still remind him of the franchise’s horrors.
Driving behind a log truck still gets to Devon Sawa, who starred in the original Final Destination. Speaking on E!’s Hot Goss, he described how the franchise changed what he notices on the road: “I never even thought of log trucks up until Final Destination, and now it totally makes sense.”
Sawa played Alex Browning, whose premonition sets the 2000 film in motion. The log-truck pileup came later, in Final Destination 2 (2003), but its effect reaches the original film’s star, too.
Elevators also made his list, though that fear predates the movies for him. “Elevators have always, I know they put it in the last one, that those have always kind of freaked me out,” he said. Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025) added another elevator death; the franchise had already killed Nora Carpenter in an elevator in the 2003 sequel.
Sawa also remembered the moment he realized the original movie might have staying power. At its first screening with an audience, he and other cast members sat in the back. When Terry Chaney, played by Amanda Detmer, was struck by a city bus, the crowd erupted.
“We knew right then that this was original, different, and then it was going to have some longevity to it,” Sawa recalled. The franchise has since reached 6 films, with Bloodlines earning $317.9 million worldwide.
