Paul Walker Turns 40 Today(!) — A Look at his secretly awesome past

Let's just get this one out of the way. Walker is definitely best known for playing Brian O'Conner in the various Fast & Furious movies. There have been six so far, with a seventh set to come out next year. O'Conner may have gone from undercover cop to full-fledged criminal to protective father, but Walker remained the adorable, normal-sized partner to Vin Diesel's giant Dom Toretto.

Image: Universal

Walker is actually the most successful actor to come out of 1999 teen classic She's All That. He played Dean, the douchey best friend to Freddie Prinze Jr.'s Zack.

Before She's All That Walker appeared in another popular teen movie, Varsity Blues. It followed a Texas high school football team after their quarterback Lance, played by Walker, gets hurt. So basically, the Friday NIght Lights of the '90s, with Walker's Lance roughly equaling Jason Street. At this point, Lance was the biggest role of Walker's acting career, even though he was overshadowed by James Van Der Beek, but come on, those were the glory days of Dawson's Creek .

Image: Paramount

Once you land a franchise, you have to do a horror movie to show "range," right? In 2002, after the release of the original The Fast and the Furious, Walker starred in Joy Ride. He played a college student on a cross-country road trip from Colorado with his brother and long-time crush (played by Steve Zahn and Leelee Sobieski, so, yeah) who gets mixed up with a deranged driver via CB radio. Again, this movie was released in 2002.

Image: 20th Century Fox

Way back in 1991 (he really is 40), Walker had a small role on Tony Danza's sitcom Who's the Boss. He played a friend of Alyssa Milano's Sam. There aren't any photos of his role, but you can see him at 4:55 of this scene.

Image: ABC

I'll make this as brief and vague as possible, to avoid instant crying. Eight Below came out in 2006, so it's post-Snow Dogs, but beware, it is not nearly as light-hearted as the Cuba Gooding Jr. movie. Walker plays a guide at a research base in Antarctica, who has to travel in rough conditions with a pack of sled dogs. There's bad weather, he has to leave the dogs behind for a few months, the movie shows both his and the dogs' journeys. This was the first time Walker was not the cutest part of a movie, and for many people his first tearjerker.

Image: Disney

Flags of Our Fathers is easily Walker's best non-Fast movie. It was directed by Clint Eastwood and tells the story of the soldiers who raised that iconic flag at Iwo Jima in World War II. Walker was by no means the star, as he played Sargent Hank Hansen alongside Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach and John Slattery. Your dad probably recognizes Walker from this movie.

Image: Paramount

Another amazingly outdated late '80s/early '90s sitcom. Walker appeared in a 1990 episode of Charles in Charge, as a student in a class that Scott Baio's Charles is substitute teaching. The whole episode is available on YouTube in three parts, Walker first appears at 5:50 in the first video. Prepare yourself for some great hair.

Did anyone else completely forget that this movie exists? It came out in 2005, with Paul Walker playing a snorkler who finds both a sunken treasure and a bunch of cocaine, along his girlfriend, who is played by Jessica Alba. They obviously get caught up with the people who the drugs really belong to, there's a lot of action and no one wears much clothing.

Image: MGM