8-9-2002
By Fred Topel
After the success of The Fast and the Furious and the high anticipation for XXX, Vin Diesel is being touted as the new action hero. But Diesel hopes that his versatility will show in upcoming projects, including the drama Knockaround Guys and Hannibal, in which he’ll play the ancient general.
“I hope the fact that I do films like Knockaround Guys ensures that I won’t get pigeonholed,†Diesel said. “It’s not the worst thing in the world, you know. I'm flattered because the whole action-hero term is such a new term. Sidney Poitier, Kirk Douglas, they weren't considered action. Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind is probably the most action you were going to get in 1939 but he wasn't considered an action hero. But if that is the term they want to use, I am flattered that they think that many people would enjoy my work. What you do with that power or that positioning is up to the artist. I don't know if I could ever get Hannibal greenlit if I didn’t have the box office response that I’ve gotten from The Fast and the Furious, or that we hope that we’ll get from XXX.â€
In XXX, Diesel plays Xander Cage, an extreme athlete who videotapes stunts like driving cars off bridges and parachuting to safety. The NSA recruits him to be secret agent XXX, so he puts his skills to the test in spy missions, snowboarding down an avalanche and jumping motorcycles through barbed wire. Diesel did as many of the stunts as the producers would allow him to do himself.
“All the stunts were difficult for their own reasons,†Diesel recalled. “What I found particularly difficult was on Ahab, [a missile-equipped speedboat], I was standing up on Ahab, in the river in Prague. That was very, very difficult because if I would’ve slipped off, I would have died of hypothermia in 10 minutes.â€
For those stunts he could not do, Diesel appreciated the prowess of his stunt men. “There’s only a few guys that shave their head [like me] and can be responsible for putting all that together. I love my stunt guys because I couldn’t do everything. I push the envelope as much as I can. I push it to the point of having the studio come down and say, ‘Hold back, Vin. You’re pushing too much. You’re putting the film in jeopardy.’ I couldn’t do it without the stunt team.â€
Diesel relishes in the success he’s had because it was such a tumultuous journey to get here. He got his first acting job through vandalizing a New York theater, but just deciding to use his charismatic powers for good wasn’t enough. He didn’t just magically get discovered. He got himself discovered.
“I chased this. I chased performing and I chased acting. I wanted everything that I am right now. I planned, I worked hard, it’s been an arduous road and I’ve done everything as dedicated as someone can be. When I came out to L.A. when I was 21 years old and tried to be a star, I failed after a year and went back to New York with my tail between my legs, but I didn’t give up then. I still found another way to do it and I made a short film. I spent $3,000 of my money at a time when $3,000 dollars was a lot of money. When I could have done things with that, I applied it to a film. I invested it in a film. And I came and worked on the phone telemarketing. A lot of the Boiler Room character comes from me telemarketing selling tools over the phone. So, a buddy of mine and I saved $47,000 and we went to New York and made a film again, when someone else might’ve bought a new car. So, I always invested in film and I chased it because in my mind, this is always who I was. I did chase it and I love what I do. I love more than anything being able to make a movie that takes you out of your reality for two hours.â€
Even if he had never achieved success, Diesel said he would never have stopped acting because he simply could not stop. “This may sound hooky or full of sh*t, but I act because I have to act. The happiness that I derive from acting is a coincidence, a by-product. I have acted all my life, when the chops were down, because it's something I have to do. I don't really know why. Maybe because its therapeutic, maybe because its like a fighter in me that has to fight because it just comes out of them, I don’t know. I just do it because I have to. Part of it could be attributed to my upbringing, but I don't think so. We are born like dogs, in a certain way, with a ranking in the pact.â€
Yet if Diesel’s upbringing was not integral to his need to act, it was vital to his developing love of film. “My father didn’t take us to baseball games or basketball games. We didn’t have the money to do all that so our father and son experience was he’d take us to movies and at the end of the movie we’d go get a dollar fifty plate of chicken lo mein on 42nd street and rap about the movie. He would have us see musicals. We’d be talking about My Fair Lady or Guys and Dolls on one level and then a Sidney Poitier directed movie like Uptown Saturday Night. Just everything.â€
Along with movie stardom has come sex symbol status, which surprised Diesel the most. “The funniest thing I read about me, someone wrote, ‘Is he attractive? No, not exactly.’ I was like, ‘Oh really, I'm not? I didn't know that!’ Like ‘He's so ugly I kind of like him.’ I never thought of myself as a sex symbol, so it's kind of weird. It actually makes me blush because it's so bizarre.â€
And Diesel has now joined the $20-30 million club of actors whose marquee value is so strong, they almost have to be paid such extravagant fees. Yet Diesel hopes to balance the rules of Hollywood with his own values. “Money is an interesting topic because I think what happens is, and I have been learning this as I move along, the guys need the money to free the world they can exist in. It's bizarre. I mean, you think of these guys like Tom Cruise or whatever and they have their own private jets so that they canfly comfortably and it's like why the hell do you need a jet? Then you slowly start to imagine if you have Tom Cruise on a commercial flight and he starts picking his nose, he has trouble.â€
By Fred Topel
After the success of The Fast and the Furious and the high anticipation for XXX, Vin Diesel is being touted as the new action hero. But Diesel hopes that his versatility will show in upcoming projects, including the drama Knockaround Guys and Hannibal, in which he’ll play the ancient general.
“I hope the fact that I do films like Knockaround Guys ensures that I won’t get pigeonholed,†Diesel said. “It’s not the worst thing in the world, you know. I'm flattered because the whole action-hero term is such a new term. Sidney Poitier, Kirk Douglas, they weren't considered action. Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind is probably the most action you were going to get in 1939 but he wasn't considered an action hero. But if that is the term they want to use, I am flattered that they think that many people would enjoy my work. What you do with that power or that positioning is up to the artist. I don't know if I could ever get Hannibal greenlit if I didn’t have the box office response that I’ve gotten from The Fast and the Furious, or that we hope that we’ll get from XXX.â€
In XXX, Diesel plays Xander Cage, an extreme athlete who videotapes stunts like driving cars off bridges and parachuting to safety. The NSA recruits him to be secret agent XXX, so he puts his skills to the test in spy missions, snowboarding down an avalanche and jumping motorcycles through barbed wire. Diesel did as many of the stunts as the producers would allow him to do himself.
“All the stunts were difficult for their own reasons,†Diesel recalled. “What I found particularly difficult was on Ahab, [a missile-equipped speedboat], I was standing up on Ahab, in the river in Prague. That was very, very difficult because if I would’ve slipped off, I would have died of hypothermia in 10 minutes.â€
For those stunts he could not do, Diesel appreciated the prowess of his stunt men. “There’s only a few guys that shave their head [like me] and can be responsible for putting all that together. I love my stunt guys because I couldn’t do everything. I push the envelope as much as I can. I push it to the point of having the studio come down and say, ‘Hold back, Vin. You’re pushing too much. You’re putting the film in jeopardy.’ I couldn’t do it without the stunt team.â€
Diesel relishes in the success he’s had because it was such a tumultuous journey to get here. He got his first acting job through vandalizing a New York theater, but just deciding to use his charismatic powers for good wasn’t enough. He didn’t just magically get discovered. He got himself discovered.
“I chased this. I chased performing and I chased acting. I wanted everything that I am right now. I planned, I worked hard, it’s been an arduous road and I’ve done everything as dedicated as someone can be. When I came out to L.A. when I was 21 years old and tried to be a star, I failed after a year and went back to New York with my tail between my legs, but I didn’t give up then. I still found another way to do it and I made a short film. I spent $3,000 of my money at a time when $3,000 dollars was a lot of money. When I could have done things with that, I applied it to a film. I invested it in a film. And I came and worked on the phone telemarketing. A lot of the Boiler Room character comes from me telemarketing selling tools over the phone. So, a buddy of mine and I saved $47,000 and we went to New York and made a film again, when someone else might’ve bought a new car. So, I always invested in film and I chased it because in my mind, this is always who I was. I did chase it and I love what I do. I love more than anything being able to make a movie that takes you out of your reality for two hours.â€
Even if he had never achieved success, Diesel said he would never have stopped acting because he simply could not stop. “This may sound hooky or full of sh*t, but I act because I have to act. The happiness that I derive from acting is a coincidence, a by-product. I have acted all my life, when the chops were down, because it's something I have to do. I don't really know why. Maybe because its therapeutic, maybe because its like a fighter in me that has to fight because it just comes out of them, I don’t know. I just do it because I have to. Part of it could be attributed to my upbringing, but I don't think so. We are born like dogs, in a certain way, with a ranking in the pact.â€
Yet if Diesel’s upbringing was not integral to his need to act, it was vital to his developing love of film. “My father didn’t take us to baseball games or basketball games. We didn’t have the money to do all that so our father and son experience was he’d take us to movies and at the end of the movie we’d go get a dollar fifty plate of chicken lo mein on 42nd street and rap about the movie. He would have us see musicals. We’d be talking about My Fair Lady or Guys and Dolls on one level and then a Sidney Poitier directed movie like Uptown Saturday Night. Just everything.â€
Along with movie stardom has come sex symbol status, which surprised Diesel the most. “The funniest thing I read about me, someone wrote, ‘Is he attractive? No, not exactly.’ I was like, ‘Oh really, I'm not? I didn't know that!’ Like ‘He's so ugly I kind of like him.’ I never thought of myself as a sex symbol, so it's kind of weird. It actually makes me blush because it's so bizarre.â€
And Diesel has now joined the $20-30 million club of actors whose marquee value is so strong, they almost have to be paid such extravagant fees. Yet Diesel hopes to balance the rules of Hollywood with his own values. “Money is an interesting topic because I think what happens is, and I have been learning this as I move along, the guys need the money to free the world they can exist in. It's bizarre. I mean, you think of these guys like Tom Cruise or whatever and they have their own private jets so that they canfly comfortably and it's like why the hell do you need a jet? Then you slowly start to imagine if you have Tom Cruise on a commercial flight and he starts picking his nose, he has trouble.â€
