But the Diesel I meet is calm and tall (1.93m) in a crisp white shirt, a grey
Hugo Boss suit and an accent like he's spent years as a spear carrier in the
Royal Shakespeare Company.
We meet at the American Film Festival in Deauville, France. He's there for
The Fast and the Furious, a jaw-droppingly fast-and-furious film based on a Vibe
magazine article about LA gangs who illegally race retooled Japanese sports
cars.
Diesel stars as a leader of one of the street teams. His real-life squeeze,
Michelle Rodriguez (Girlfight), is the lone female speed driver, and Paul Walker
(Pleasantville) is an undercover cop who infiltrates a team as a driver.
"There was no original script. It began when an executive read an
article about a street gang," Diesel tells me in his deep gravelly
voice, clinking ice around a glass of apple juice. "When I met director
Rob Cohen (Dragonheart) and he explained how he was going to shoot the race
scene 'through' my body and into the car, 'through' the car's engine and out of
the exhaust pipe, to capture speed in a way it had not been done before, I
committed instantly."
He says that when he saw the racing scene, it reminded him of being a child
watching Harrison Ford navigate through meteors in Star Wars.
"I have been known as a bit of a daredevil, although I'm less of one
now. As a teenager I would wear roller-blades and hold on to the back of a cab
going 90km up Madison Avenue. I used to own a motorcycle, which I would take up
to 259km and do stuff like jump down on the tracks in New York. Retarded shit,
stupid urban-kid stuff. Now I wouldn't dream of doing that - I have much more at
stake."
So what is at stake for Diesel, now he's a bit of a star, an action hero?
There's a snatch of big movies in the pipeline - Knockaround Guys alongside John
Malkovich and Dennis Hopper; Diablo which he co-produced; and the title role in
the comedy Daredevil. His own production company, One Race Productions, has a
deal with a studio and he's developing a script based on his time as a bouncer.
"Being on top is cool in any aspect, right," Diesel says.
"I am normally attracted to the anti-hero role as there is some underdog
aspect that I like and hook into. I do not think that people identify with
white-washed heroes. When I look at a hero who is too perfect, like Batman, I am
completely turned off. But when I look at a flawed hero or character, I can
immediately identify with him.
"I am flattered ultimately by anyone saying I am the next anything,
let alone the next action hero. What I do with that remains to be seen. I
started out as an auteur so I don't think I could ever be classified only as an
action hero. The great thing is there are other things, because I try to
diversify. I am an actor first and don't worry about just being classified as
that action guy. There are 20 years of theatrical training on record, and that
is all part of my existence.
"I did not start off in Hollywood, though I love action films and was
empowered by those Slys and Arnolds. I loved those films. Although other actors
fascinated me, there is also something to be learned from Arnold that should not
be overlooked. Anthony Hopkins could not say 'hasta la vista, baby' and make it
work. Actors who understand that, like Mel Gibson, incorporate it into their
craft."
Diesel, real name Mark Vincent the "Diesel" bit, he jokes, comes from being
born in a gas station (untrue) - has a background that is mainly classical. He
grew up in an intellectual household. One of four (he has a non-identical twin
brother, Paul, a film editor), his father was a theatre manager/drama teacher
and his mother practised astrology and psychology.
The family lived in heavily subsidised apartments in Greenwich Village, New
York, for non-profitmaking artists, and he started acting when he was seven.
"As a kid some buddies and I vandalised this old theatre in the
Village. This lady caught us, shoved a script in my face and said: 'If you want
to play here, come every day after school. I'll pay you $20 a week.' I went to
her experimental theatre every day after that. I became ambitious very early. I
was an extrovert, the one in the family who was always pushing. I wanted to be
everybody.
"My English accent? Well, I've always loved the English and English
films. My father and I used to have these long conversations about the British
approach to acting and the American approach to acting. He was always giving me
lessons on the various approaches you can take on the way to becoming a
character.
"Ultimately that led me to feel confident enough to come up with an
approach that worked for me. I used to love working off-off Broadway in some
experimental English play, doing the accent, playing the role."
Apart from off-off Broadway, there was also a decade as a bouncer in New York
clubs and a degree at Hunter University, where he concentrated on creative
writing and wrote screenplays. A short film he wrote, directed, produced and
financed, Multi-Facial, took him to the Cannes Film Festival in 1995. His first
feature, Strays, took him to the Sundance Film Festival two years later. But it
was Multi-Facial that caught Steven Spielberg's eye after somebody sent him a
tape. He invited Diesel, 34 (he says he's 31), to meet him on the set of Amistad
and created the role of Private Carpazo for Diesel in Saving Private Ryan. Next
came the stock-trading drama Boiler Room, a sci-fi thriller, Pitch Black, and
voicing the lead role in the animated adaptation of the Ted Hughes poem The Iron
Giant.
"The main reason I did The Iron Giant is because my brother Paul has
a family and two beautiful kids," Diesel says. "He is so far
ahead of me that anything I do pales in comparison. I so wanted a five- or
six-year-old kid of my own who could go to school and tell friends, 'my dad is
the Iron Giant'."
But ask him about Michelle and he replies that some questions are best
answered with a smile of delight.
"You can write what you think and I don't doubt you would be
accurate," he says with a smile of delight. "I have been lucky
in that I was unemployed for a while, 20 years actually, sleeping on couches and
having to keep the tags on clothes I bought in case I had to take them back to
get money to eat, and that I had to be proactive and become an independent
filmmaker. I was lucky I was Spielberg-approved and introduced to Hollywood by
him.
"In the earlier part of my career nobody knew what to do with me, but
now I find I can do so many things because I come from origins that are a little
ambiguous. I think I represent a certain future but I've learned to take one
thing at a time."