Vin Diesel born Mark Sinclair Vincent; July 18, 1967 is an American actor, writer, director and producer. He became known in the early 2000s, appearing in several successful Hollywood films, including The Fast and the Furious and xXx. He founded the production companies One Race Films, Tigon Studios and Racetrack Records.
Diesel's first film role was an uncredited appearance in the 1990 film Awakenings. He then produced, directed, and starred in the 1994 short film Multi-Facial, a short semi-autobiographical film which follows a struggling actor stuck in the audition process, because he is regarded as either "too black" or "too white", or not black or white enough. He made his first feature-length film, 1997's Strays, an urban drama in which he was self-cast as a gang boss whose love for a woman inspires him to try to change his ways. Written, directed and produced by Diesel, the film was selected for competition at the 1997 Sundance Festival, leading to an MTV deal to turn it into a series.
He was then cast in Steven Spielberg's 1998 Oscar-winning film Saving Private Ryan on the poignancy of his performance in Multi-Facial. He earned critical acclaim for voice work as the title character in the animation film The Iron Giant 1999. He followed it up with a major role in Boiler Room 2000 and then got his breakthrough role as the anti-hero Riddick in Pitch Black 2000. He attained action hero super stardom with the box office hits The Fast and the Furious 2001 starring opposite Paul Walker, and xXx 2002.
In 2004, he reprised his role as Pitch Black's Riddick in The Chronicles of Riddick which did moderately well at the box office. In 2005 he played a lighthearted role in the comedy film The Pacifier, a surprise box office success. In 2006 he chose a dramatic role playing real-life mobster Jack DiNorscio in Find Me Guilty. Although he received critical acclaim for his performance, the film did poorly at the box office. Later that year he made a cameo appearance in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, reprising his role from The Fast and The Furious. Diesel was originally offered the lead in 2 Fast 2 Furious but turned it down. He was also offered the chance to reprise his role from xXx in xXx: State of the Union but turned it down as well. In March 2006, Diesel stated that he was working on a sequel to The Chronicles of Riddick.
In 2007, he was set to produce and star as Agent 47 in the film adaptation of the video game Hitman, but eventually pulled back and served as executive producer on the film instead. In 2008 he starred in the science-fiction action thriller Babylon A.D..
He again played Dominic Toretto in the fourth film of The Fast and The Furious series, titled Fast & Furious and released in April, 2009.
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