Name: Vin Diesel
Born: July 18, 1967
Eyes: Dark Brown
Hair: Black (if it wasn't shaved)
Height: 6'1
Marital Status: Single
Ethnicity: Multicultural. Said by a One Race staff member to be Irish, Italian, German, Dominican, Mexican and a lot of other things. (Ted Casablanca of E!online)
Siblings: A fraternal twin brother, Paul Vincent, and two sisters
Parents: Raised by his mother (an astrologer and psychologist) and stepfather (an actor and drama professor).
Hobbies/Other Interests: Yoga, Snow boarding, Playstation, Dungeons and Dragons, Comic books/Heavy Metal Magazine, Classic Movies, Italian cooking
Previous Jobs: Telemarketer and Bouncer (9 years)
Education: Attended Hunter College in New York for two years with a major in English (to prepare for screenwriting)
Vin Admires: Mel Gibson and Morgan Freeman
About: Vin grew up in a government-funded building in New York's Greenwich Village. The building, Vin estimates, housed hundreds of families when he was there. Vin describes his family as "poor but artistic".** Vin started acting at the young of 7 at a Manhattan theater, where he received $20 a week. He then spent the formative years of his life trying to make a name for himself on off-off-off Broadway stages while going to school.
At the age of 26, his film Multi-facial (a short film he wrote, directed, produced and starred in) premiered at the Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan in front of 200 people. The film later went on to the Sundance Film Festival. "That night changed my life completely," he says. "I still went through a few more years of sleeping on couches and struggling and taking odd jobs outside film. But I knew my life had changed."** After Multi-facial he went on to make Strays, a 1997 Sundance Film Festival entry. And that's when it all began. Apparently Steven Spielberg like Vin's movie so much that he contacted Vin, telling him that he had written a part specifically for him in Saving Private Ryan (1998) as Private Adrian Caparzo. Later, in 1999 he would provide his voice to the animated film The Iron Giant as the Iron Giant.
And that's just the beginning. For a complete list of movies, please see the FILM section.
Vin Diesel has been hailed a real-life hero by a lucky dad after the XXX star stopped to save a family from a car inferno. The action man pulled his motorcycle to the side of Hollywood's 101 freeway after a vehicle in front of him toppled over and burst into flames. Quick-thinking Diesel yanked the kids out of the backseat and then urged their dad to crawl out of the passenger door, while trying to keep the panicking driver calm. The whole family managed to escape the flaming vehicle before it was engulfed by flames.
Biography of Vin Diesel
by Jonathan L Bowen
Vin Diesel is an extremely gifted actor, but he also is a beginning director and a talented writer. Born in New York on July 18, 1967, Vin Diesel began his acting career at the age of seven at the Theater for the New City in Greenwich Village. He admits that Vincent is his real last name, although he does not usually discuss his early life. He majored in English at Hunter College, which gave him the skills necessary to write screenplays, but he dropped out to make a short film called Multi-Facial. The film played at Cannes in 1995 and attracted the attention of Steven Spielberg, who cast him as Private Adrian Caparzo in his 1998 masterpiece, Saving Private Ryan.
In 1999, Vin Diesel offered his voice for the robot in The Iron Giant, a critically praised family movie that failed to attract moviegoers at theaters. Nevertheless, it continued his first several intelligent moves in widely released Hollywood movies. It is always important to gain recognition, but that takes time and typically several good movies. The roles do not need to be starring roles in high grossing movies, but a starring role in a small movie or a small role in a massively popular movie can accomplish a lot. For instance, Sandra Bullock received her first major recognition for playing a bus driver in Speed. Vin Diesel got his biggest boost with two smaller movies in 2000.
Vin Diesel delivered a strong one-two punch in theaters in the opening months of 2000, appearing in Boiler Room and Pitch Black on February 18. In Boiler Room, Vin Diesel plays Chris, a stock salesman for a shady brokerage house. His character is somewhat sympathetic to Seth, the movie's main character who begins having doubts about his job after he finds out how everyone at the brokerage house earned their riches. Budgeted at only $9 million, Boiler Room took in $17 million, which is respectable, but rather meager.
Pitch Black gave Vin Diesel the opportunity to make a name for himself and display his talent as an actor. Diesel plays a former murderer named Riddick, who has specially enhanced eyes that allow him to see well at night. He is aboard a spacecraft en route to a populated planet when it is struck by meteorites and crashes down on a totally uninhabited and desolate planet. After several conflicts at the beginning of the movie, he must attempt to escape the planet with the surviving passengers and crew. The starring performance allowed him to display his talent, which had gone unnoticed for far too long. He is a likeable bad guy that commands the attention of moviegoers and even begins to show his more human side. Pitch Black became a surprise success at the box office, grossing almost $40 million in a weak season at the box office on a budget of only $20 million.
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