Vin Diesel

‘Little’ Mark Vincent was born on July 18, 1967 in New York. He grew up in the artsy Greenwich Village neighborhood with his mother, a psychologist devoted to astrology, and his stepfather, an actor and acting teacher. When he was a child he responded to the profile of the protagonist of xXx. He himself has confessed that he liked the risk: “I used to play with my friends to stay on the train track until the locomotive approached.” And it was precisely this way of being that gave him his first job as an actor. When he was only seven years old, he entered a theater with some friends to do a prank. Once inside they were caught by a lady who offered them a script and $20 in exchange for going after school to rehearse. And it was how he began his acting career that he later continued in the New York acting scene.

At the age of 17, he took advantage of his imposing physique to work as a nightclub bouncer, a way of getting extra money. It was at this time, which lasted nine years, that his new name was born: Vin Diesel. He combined work as an actor and doorman with his English language studies, which he abandoned after three years to go to Hollywood. But Vin had no luck and had to go back to New York. It was perhaps one of the worst moments in his life, but then his mother gave him a peculiar book: Making Movies at the Price of Used Cars . And although it is hard to believe, it became the door to success. In three days, and with a budget of $3,000, Diesel directed and starred in the short film that he had written himself: Multi-Facial .(1994). An autobiographical work that recounts his beginnings as an actor and that was presented, with a good reception, at the Cannes Film Festival.

Back in Los Angeles he worked as a salesman and used the money he earned to finance his first feature film, Strays (1997). Although he was not very successful, Vin was already on the road and it was a matter of time before Steven Spielberg proposed a role in Saving Private Ryan (1998). But his big break came in 2000 when he starred in Pitch Black , a sci-fi B-movie that became an unexpected blockbuster as well as a household name. Up to two more times Diesel starred in unexpectedly successful films: Full throttle (2001) and xXx(2002). So much so that Vin simultaneously received offers to make sequels to all three films. “I had to decide. It was impossible to do them all at once.” And that’s how Diesel continued the Pitch Black saga with The Chronicles of Riddick (2004).

Vin had climbed a new level: she had become a star. Status that allowed him to star in films like Settling scores (2001) or Diablo (2003), and reject others like Operation Reindeer (2000). His muscular body was serving as a costume for his characters, but Diesel didn’t want to fall into the pigeonhole. So he gained 30 pounds and set out to star in Find Me Guilty .(2006) by Sydney Lumet. A courtroom tape in which there are no tattoos, no exploding cars, no high concentration of muscles per square meter, no cameras that record like authentic Formula 1s. Vin, with hair and the body of a nightclub doorman, transforms into the mobster Jackie Dee who defended himself in a criminal proceeding held against the mafia in the United States. Despite the fact that Diesel had previously had roles related to the underworld, this film marks a radical change in his acting career towards what some would call more serious cinema.

Among his future projects is a film about Hannibal, in which Vin will direct and give life to the mythical Carthaginian general, preserving, Mel Gibson style , the languages ​​of the time. And let’s not forget that after Strays was released in 1997, he wrote the script for its follow-up: Doormen . A film that he could not start due to lack of time and accumulation of work. So, who knows, maybe the time has come for the production company that he has with George Zakk (One Race Productions) to get going and recover this youth project. But meanwhile he can’t lose sight of Tigon Studios, the company he founded in 2002 to develop video games based on his films.

It is evident that time does not spare. That’s why she doesn’t even think about children, despite the fact that she confessed that she loved them after filming  A super tough kangaroo  (2005). Although she has had room to have separate romances with two colleagues: Summer Altice and Michelle Rodríguez .