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Biography
Every new generation demands its own
action heroes. The Seventies had Burt Reynolds and Clint
Eastwood: the
Eighties brought Harrison
Ford and Mel
Gibson: the Nineties gave us Costner
and Cruise.
Then came the Noughties, complete with computer-generated super-SFX and
anti-establishment, skateboard-slacker attitudes.
A new kind of hero was called for, a man
with the physique for the new extremes of stunt-filled action. He must
have a true heart but have his morals warped and emotions hammered by
the soul-destroying deceit of what passes for civilization today. And he
must, in a Western society gradually driving racism to the peripheries,
be multi-ethnic. Step forward Vin Diesel: muscle-man thespian of no
distinct ethnic origin- the first new cinematic superstar of the new
Millennium.
He was born Mark Vincent on the 18th of July, 1967, in New York City.
Never knowing his biological father, he was told by his astrologer
mother Delora (holder of a master's degree in psychology) that he had
many different cultural roots - African-American, Italian and possibly
Cuban, amongst others. "I've always had less information than I
would like to have had", he said later. Matters of identity were
further confused by his twin brother, Paul, now a film editor, being
blonde with blue eyes.
Young Mark was raised, along with Paul and two younger siblings, in the
Westbeth project in Greenwich Village, a government-funded block peopled
only by artists. Here he received a major grounding in the imaginative
arts, not least from his adoptive father, Irving, an actor and drama
teacher.
The kids would go swimming down at the Carmine Street pool, and play
hide and seek on the broken-down piers on the Hudson River. And they'd
get involved in the project's various projects. Mark made his starring
debut onstage when only 5. He wasn't supposed to be the star, he was
supposed to be a horse in a kids' production of Cinderella. But Paul,
cast as Prince Charming, suffered stage fright after the first act and
Mark, never slow in coming forward, stepped into the lead role.
Financially, times were usually hard.
"Nobody had money", recalls Vin "so there was this
underlying resentment towards money". Consequently, people would
make their own entertainment. At 12, Mark became involved in a Sunday
night game of Dungeons & Dragons organized by a friend's mother. He
became heavily involved in the game and was still buying paraphernalia
over 20 years later, when role-playing had become his career as well as
his hobby.
At school, Mark was troubled by an ongoing identity crisis, not fitting
into any particular group. He'd find some relief, by fluke, at age 7.
With friends, he'd broken into Manhattan's Theatre for the New City,
intent upon vandalism and a few laughs. After busting and scrawling a
little, they were messing around in the mezzanine when, suddenly, a
heavyset woman appeared onstage, under a spotlight. Convinced she'd call
the cops, the kids froze in horror. But, instead, she handed each of
them a script and some money, with the words "If you guys want to
play here, come every day at 4 o'clock. Here's $20 a week. Know your
lines".
The woman was Crystal Field, artistic director of the theatre, and
dedicated to developing artists from low income groups and minority
communities. It was she who'd be directly responsible for Mark's future
development. He did turn up every day at 4, and took to stage-life with
glee. "That was the first time I was ever able to make a whole
audience laugh", he later recalled "without getting sent to
the Dean's office". Perhaps more importantly, he enjoyed slipping
into character. "I found there was something refreshing about
having my identity be crystal clear".
In the meantime, Mark picked up a penchant for extreme sports that would
also serve him well later. Along with the other kids, he'd strap on his
rollerblades and hang on to the fenders of the city's notorious
taxi-cabs, often achieving speeds of over 50mph.
Like many men with a confused sense of self, Mark looked for confidence
in body-building. Up until the age of 15, he was just a tall kid with a
big Afro and a bigger mouth, seeking attention wherever he could find
it. At 15, though, he began lifting weights and hanging with an older
crew. "I've worked out for years", he explained later
"For a long time it was my only sense of gratification".
He began to go out clubbing, attending
Studio 54 and, later, the Danceteria. And it was clubbing that gave him
the connections to get his first job - at 17, as a bouncer. This would
provide cash while he acted with Irving's repertory company and in
off-Off-Broadway productions. It would also give him his stage name. It
was traditional for bouncers to choose rock-hard monikers for
themselves. Vin Diesel was as good as any.
Hoping to make his acting education
official, Vin now applied for an elite drama course at the State
University of New York at New Paltz, north of the metropolis, near
Poughkeepsie (the town immortalised by Gene Hackman's feet-picking line
in The French Connection). He was turned down, the first of many
set-backs. Instead, he enrolled at Hunter College in New York City,
majoring in English, but he wouldn't see out the full course, preferring
to spend his days acting on stage and on local TV, and his nights
bouncing at the hip likes of Mars and The Tunnel.
By the late Eighties, though, times had
changed on the door. Gangsta culture had sprung up and now it was
necessary for bouncers to wear bullet-proof vests. Where before his
peers had been college guys, keen and able to talk art and philosophy,
now Vin's bouncer-brothers were less intellectually inclined. After 9
years on the job, having seen one friend shot and another have his
throat cut with a razor (he survived, thankfully), Vin would jack it in
for good.
Ever ambitious, he decided that his future lay in Hollywood, so he took
off for LA, telling everyone he'd return a star. It wouldn't be that
easy. For a start, he later explained, his years as a bouncer had given
him a measured confidence that worked against him at interviews and
auditions. Physically intimidating, focused and intense, he
inadvertently gave people the impression that, if he didn't get the
part, someone was going to get hurt. No one reacted well to THAT.
Beyond this, that question of race was raised again. Vin was deemed too
black to play Italian, too white to be a homeboy. Supporting himself by
using his natural charm to sell light-bulbs and gardening implements
over the phone, he struggled on for a while. But it proved to be no
good. He returned to New York, not a star at all.
Back home, he lived with his mum and dad, building himself what he
called "a hobbit hole" on the landing between the first and
second floors. Realising that he would have launch himself, rather than
rely on some lucky break, he spent his days immersing himself in cinema,
studying the work of Clark Gable (he loves It Happened One Night),
Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier. He devoured all the new art movies,
all the independents, too, gaining new confidence all the while.
"If a Henry Jaglom film doesn't make you feel confident enough to
make films", he joked later "I don't know what will".
Eventually, his mother stepped in with a little common-sense help.
Presenting him with a copy of Rick Schmidt's book Feature Films At Used
Car Prices, she set him on the path to self-help. With an idea for a
short screenplay, he bought a word processor, wrote the piece inside 30
days, and took the WP back to the shop, it still being within the
guaranteed return period. On a budget of $3000, Multi-Facial was shot in
3 days. In it, Vin starred as, well, as himself, really, playing a
multi-ethnic actor who, deemed suitable for neither black nor white
roles, tries a different ethnicity for each audition and fails every
time.
Released in 1994, Multi-Facial was shown
the next year at the Cannes Film Festival, causing something of a stir.
On the strength of this, Vin returned to LA and, telemarketing once
more, managed to raise $50,000 for his next effort, a study in misogyny
called Strays, once more starring and directed by Vin himself. The movie
was accepted by and shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997, but did
not sell well. Vin returned to New York once more, wondering what the
hell he had to do to make it.
Then, out of the blue, a call came through, a dream call from Steven
Spielberg. Spielberg, impressed by a viewing of Multi-Facial, said he
was writing a part for Vin in his next epic, to be titled Saving Private
Ryan. Thus 1998 saw Vin employed in Tom
Hanks' band of brothers (alongside fellow newcomers Barry Pepper and
Giovanni Ribisi) as they crossed war-torn France in search of Matt
Damon. It was a brief part, Private Adrian Caparzo being the first
of the platoon to die, but it was an absurdly impressive big feature
debut.
Vin's second major role, too, was
Multi-Facial-inspired. Director Brad Bird was also taken by Vin's
performance and had him provide the voice for the titular monster in The
Iron Giant, an animation based on a story by Poet Laureate Ted Hughes,
co-starring Jennifer
Aniston.
And it wasn't just Multi-Facial that was catching the eye of the
industry's prime movers. Strays, too, had had an effect. Producer Ted
Field had seen the movie at Sundance and made contact with Vin. He was
particularly keen on Vin writing a screenplay based on his experiences
as a bouncer. Vin, in turn, was interested in a movie Field was
developing, a sci-fi thriller called Pitch Black. He hounded Field till
allowed to audition - and thus won the part that would make his name.
Having been turned down by Joel Schumacher for the part of Robert
De Niro's transvestite voice coach in Flawless due to his physique
(as he said himself: "I have obviously spent my life celebrating
masculinity"), having turned down a villain-role in Shaft, and
having walked off the Ben
Affleck-starring Reindeer Games due to his part not being enlarged
as promised, Pitch Black more than made up for the disappointment.
Here he was Richard B. Riddick, a
condemned murderer being transported between planets and jails.
Unfortunately, the space-craft is hit by a meteor storm and forced to
crash-land on a planet previously colonized, but where all the
inhabitants mysteriously disappeared during an eclipse. Another eclipse
is coming and, being as they last for years, things are not looking
good, especially when the survivors realize there are creatures here
that live and feed in the dark.
It was a superior thriller, interesting
in that it deliberately blurred the edges between good and evil, with
none of the characters being obviously likeable. And Vin stood out, so
much so that the script, which originally had him die in the finale, was
changed to allow Riddick to appear in a sequel. This made all the pain
of the shoot worthwhile.
With Riddick having had his eyes polished
and lasered in jail, Vin had to wear contact lenses that gave off a
weird metallic glow. After the first day's shoot, lasting 14 hours, the
lenses fused to his eyes, forcing the producers to fly in a specialist
from a town three hours away - the shoot taking place in the Australian
outback, where Mad Max had been filmed two decades before.
Despite the Reindeer Games fiasco, Vin now found himself starring
alongside Ben
Affleck (and Ribisi) in Boiler Room. Here Ribisi played a young
hustler who gets drawn into a shady world of illegal brokers, led by
Affleck, who's playing much the same character as Alec Baldwin in
Glengarry Glenn Ross. Diesel shone once more as one of the young stars
of the firm. Drunk, violent and a bad, bad lad, he's nevertheless the
only one with any honor. A complicated character, as all Diesel's
characters would henceforth be.
Pitch Black and Boiler Room were released on the same day in 2000,
immediately marking Vin as one to watch. Critic Roger Ebert noted his
potential in his review of Boiler Room, saying "Diesel is
interesting. Something will come of him".
How right he was. For a start, New Line, noticing the inroads made by
Vin and by his Private Ryan co-star Barry Pepper with We Were Soldiers,
released Knockaround Guys, a movie completed in 1999 and then shelved.
Here several sons of Brooklyn mafia bosses attempt to recover a bag of
money lost in a small Montana town. Vin put in another unusual
performance. Though a tough guy and a fighter, his Taylor Reese also
possesses a "wise sadness about human nature".
Knockaround Guys wasn't a hit, but it didn't need to be. By the time New
Line released it, Vin had already carried his first mega-hit, The Fast
And The Furious. Here Paul Walker played an undercover cop who
infiltrates a street gang prone to stealing and racing flash cars at
improbable speeds, trying to out-do rival gangs. Vin was Dominic Toretto,
gang leader, who befriends Walker, thinking him to be a new kid on the
block. Packed with super-stunts and concerning love and loyalty, it was
like Point Break with cool motors.
And it was a monster. Taking $41 million
in its first weekend, surpassing its $38 million budget immediately, it
crushed the challenge of Dr Dolittle 2 to take the US Number One spot.
Director Rob Cohen was quick to praise Diesel's input, telling the
Toronto Sun: "He has the power and physicality but what I didn't
know, when I cast him in The Fast And The Furious, (was) how deep he
could take things and how a kind of charm emerges.
In the past, action heroes have basically
been killing machines who can make a joke. Vinny, on the other hand, has
the courage to be overwhelmed and uncertain and sometimes to be almost
nakedly needy". High praise for a guy who wasn't even in the lead
role.
Now Vin was in the big league, and he knew it. Approached to play the
lead in another SFX-fest, he went on holiday, telling his agents not to
call him unless the producers offered $10 million. They did, and so he
came to star in xXx. Here he was Xander Cage, a charismatic extreme
sports obsessive who sells videos of himself performing outrageous
stunts - one being where he steals a Corvette from a right-wing senator,
and drives it off a cliff, making his escape by parachute.
Recruited by government agent Samuel
L. Jackson (who he might earlier have encountered in Shaft), he's
ordered to gather information on a nihilist cell possibly plotting the
downfall of everything. Of course, he hates the government, but loves
the danger, and rather fancies his boss's girlfriend, played by the
excellent Asia Argento. Again, he was a hero far more complicated than
the norm.
It was a rough shoot, made rougher by the death of stunt-man Harry
O'Connor, killed when he hit the pillar of a bridge in Prague. But xXx
was another major hit and, with his name first above the credits for the
first time, Diesel was made, his reputation boosted still further when
xXx sold 5 million DVDs in its first week alone.
He followed it with A Man Apart where he
played a DEA agent who, having busted a cartel kingpin, finds his home
attacked and his beloved wife killed, forcing him into a personal
mission of revenge. It was mostly action, but the plotline did allow
Diesel to exhibit grief for his lost spouse, an ooportunity he took with
some aplomb, much as Mel
Gibson had in Lethal Weapon.
As long suspected, his excellent performance in Pitch Black now led to a
spin-off franchise, beginning with The Chronicles Of Riddick. Here he
reprised his character - still cynical, still ambiguously heroic - now
being chased by interstellar bounty hunters and battling undead cult the
Necromongers on the scorched planet Crematoria. Delivering an ongoing
explanation of the action would be Judi Dench, Diesel having seen her
onstage in The Breath Of Life and demanded the producers secure her
services.
After this, Diesel would attempt to widen his appeal with The Pacifier,
an action comedy where he played a former Navy SEAL who fails to protect
an endangered government scientist and tries to redeem himself by
looking after the dead geek's kids.
The long-mooted xXx 2 would earn him $20
million plus a percentage of gross, shooting him up there next to Mel
Gibson and Harrison
Ford. Yet it wouldn't just be action, not for a guy this smart.
After The Pacifier, Diesel would also plan to star beside Nicole
Kidman in the musical Guys And Dolls, while his production company,
the pointedly titled One Race, would develop a script from Ross Leckie's
book, Hannibal.
Having spent years suffering professionally due to his multi-ethnic
background, Diesel now found it a natural advantage. He could play
Italian, black, even the great general of Carthage. Stats proved that
his audience came from across the cultures - a very rare feat. Life was
good in all areas.
He was romantically connected with Fast
And The Furious co-star Michelle
Rodriguez, 18-year-old Czech model Pavla Hrbkova, and Playboy
Playmate Summer Attice. Oddly, there was also Entertainment Tonight
reporter Maria Menounos. Diesel had been quoted as saying that Xander
Cage would be a James Bond for the next generation, and then met
Menounos at an ET interview, just as Bond-star Pierce Brosnan had met
his partner, Keely Shaye Smith.
Incredibly, he was even a hero in real life. In 2002, he pulled his
motorbike over on Hollywood's highway 101 when he saw a car turn over
and catch fire. He pulled the kids out from the back seat and managed to
get the panicking driver to crawl out through the passenger side, saving
them all from fiery death.
In 2004, he reprised his role as Pitch Black's Riddick in The Chronicles of Riddick. In 2005 he played a lighthearted role in the comedy film The Pacifier which was a box office success. In 2006 he attempted a dramatic role when he played real-life mobster Jack DiNorscio in Find Me Guilty. Although he was critically acclaimed for his performance, the film bombed at the box office. In 2006 he made a cameo appearance in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, reprising his role from The Fast and The Furious.
In 2007 he was to produce and star as Agent 47 in the video game adaptation of Hitman but eventually left the project. In 2008 his upcoming film release is the science-fiction action thriller Babylon A.D..
He is also currently rumored to be the new T-800 in the new Terminator movie, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. He has announced his intention to direct Hannibal the
Conqueror, and star as the legendary Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps by elephant to attack Rome.
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 also turned it down. On March 8, 2006, Diesel revealed that he was working on a sequel to The Chronicles of Riddick which as of 2008 is still in production.
The Pitch Black and xXx franchises will keep Vin Diesel on top well into
the 2000s. But expect the unexpected, too, from this most unusual of
superstars.~ Dominic Wills.
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