By Brett Malec

Vin Diesel is opening up about his late best friend Paul Walker.

In an interview with the Today show, the Furious 7 star credits Walker for preparing him to be a dad to his three children.

"He went into fatherhood a lot earlier than I did," the 47-year-old actor toldNatalie Morales. "He took on that role of kind of being the guide into fatherhood for me. It's kind of beautiful."

Diesel and Walker were on set filming Fast Five when Diesel's second child Vincentwas born in 2010. "The one thing Paul always wanted me to do was be present at my child's birth," he said. "He was so adamant about it."

"When I Did Fast & Furious 5 and we were on the bridge in Puerto Rico and we were doing the end scene...her water broke in New York," Diesel continued. "My son was being born. He was like, 'We can film later...You have to go now.' And he was right and I did."

Fast forward to earlier this month when Diesel's third child Pauline was born. "When I was in the delivery room, I said that I felt like Paul was there. I named her Pauline," Diesel explained. "He was in the room. There's no other person that I was thinking about as I was cutting this umbilical cord. It felt like, you know, a way to keep his memory as a part of my family and a part of my world."