Vin Diesel is something to look at – those piercing eyes, that gigantic stubbled head, the Incredible Hulk physique which ensures that any other man in the room, however confident he may be in his masculinity, will instantly feel like Charles Hawtrey. But more than that, Diesel is something to listen to. As with the most resonant voices – James Mason, vintage Brando – you feel that you can hear his before he even opens his mouth.
I'm waiting for Vin Diesel in his hotel suite when I hear the distant rumble out in the corridor, growing nearer. Then suddenly the 34-year-old actor is in the room, filling the room, in fact, prowling over to a table that is decorated with crudités, and making a show of how ridiculous it looks for a man this big to be holding a sliver of carrot between the tips of his thick fingers. He looks dapper in black suit trousers and white shirt. A dainty silver watch, on which the hands have stopped dead, clings to his wrist. His scalp looks freshly buffed, but the eyes are sleepy from jet-lag: he's been in Philadelphia researching his new action movie, XXX.
"I play a nihilist," he purrs. "He's a former extreme games champion who gets recruited by the CIA." For XXX, he will be paid a reported $10m (£6.8m) – enough to buy a new watch. This salary owes a great deal to the unexpected US success of Diesel's last picture, The Fast and the Furious, in which he stars as Dominic Toretto, a mechanic who moonlights as a racing driver on the illegal LA street-racing circuit. In his spare time, Dominic also executes spectacular and foolhardy high-speed heists on articulated lorries. He is not, as far as I can ascertain, a nihilist. But he is one of those bad-guys-who-are-really-good that have become Diesel's speciality: think of Boiler Room (1999), the junior Wall Street in which he played a hard-nut salesman with a heart; or the splendid science-fiction horror Pitch Black (2000), where Diesel's unnervingly tranquil psychopath graduated to hero status; or even the animated feature The Iron Giant (1999), for which Diesel lent his 24-carat vocal chords to the misunderstood monster of the title.
Certainly, The Fast and the Furious is a better car movie than Gone in 60 Seconds, but then you could say that about Driving Miss Daisy. What really distinguishes The Fast and the Furious is its rabble-rousing B-movie spirit. Yes, the female characters exist solely to allay suspicions that what the men are really interested in is tinkering with each other's engines. But the movie has an undiluted trashiness that's hard to resist. Diesel is called upon to parade around in a succession of skimpy vests whilst delivering lines like "You're lucky that double case of NOS didn't melt the welds on your intake." Did he really know what he was saying?
"No," he admits. "It's not really my world. But I knew something about speed. Back in college I'd do 150mph." Speeding aside, he was a model citizen. Didn't smoke until he discovered the stress of making independent movies at the age of 26. Didn't drink because he was "somewhat puritanical". If you're looking for rough stuff, there was his time as a bouncer, getting into scraps for $100 (£68) a night ("a ridiculous way to make a living"). I can't imagine he gets much trouble any more. Even if someone thought they could get away with spilling his mineral water, they would have his girlfriend to contend with – Michelle Rodriguez, star of Girlfight, whom Diesel met on The Fast and the Furious set. What a couple. Just imagine them in the ring with Brad and Jennifer.
I don't ask about Rodriguez. Going in to meet Vin Diesel, there are a few things you know to steer clear of. He won't reveal his real name, though the numerous websites devoted to him list it as Mark Vincent. He'll skim over his youth. The silences are apparently calculated to conceal what has been described as his "complicated" ethnic background (it's significant that his production company is called One Race, but he will say only that "race and identity are interesting to me").
He was raised in an artists' housing project in Greenwich Village by his astrologer mother and his adoptive father, a theatre teacher who eventually had to abandon his dream to pay the rent. Diesel himself broke into theatre by breaking into a theatre. "It wasn't with wire-cutters or anything," he laughs. "My friends and I were about seven years old and we were fooling around in this theatre. And this woman says, 'If you wanna come here, do it at 4pm every day,' and she hands us a script."
His entry into professional acting was not quite as smooth. When I refer to "some hard years", he shoots me a look. "Some hard years?" he says. "Make that most of my years. But I remember not playing the lottery because I didn't wanna win a million bucks. I thought: Let a plumber win it. I'm gonna make it anyway."
When Diesel did finally get within touching distance of his dream, it was through sheer stamina and perseverance. In 1994, he cobbled together $3,000 (£2,00) and made a 20-minute short, Multi-Facial, about a struggling actor. He had written it on a word processor that he bought from a particular store because it guaranteed refunds within 30 days. Multi-Facial played at the Cannes Film Festival, and came to the attention of Steven Spielberg, who cast Diesel in Saving Private Ryan. The years of hard work that led to Spielberg's phone call now mean everything to Diesel, and I think he still looks for those roles which will force him to prove himself all over again. On The Fast and the Furious, he toiled away at stunt-driving school. For XXX he will research the world of extreme sports, and doubtless be found skinny-dipping with piranhas or dangling from the end of a bungee rope near you soon.
"If there's anything I'm proud of, it's the fact that I made it happen." He rises to his feet and starts pacing. "I made it after being rejected for 20 years. No: after being buried. I had 20 years of hitting my head against the wall. You follow me? It was like betting on something and always failing, failing, failing..." He punches the palm of his hand with each "failing". "But it's forced me to have huge respect for the craft. I'll give lines to other actors, I'll cast people who I know will steal scenes from me. It's really about the fact that I could die at any moment and if that's the last film I make... well, it had better be good."
'The Fast and the Furious' is released on 14 Sept