We talk with the giant star of The Fast and the Furious.
by Steven Horn
2001-06-23
As silly as it seems now, I was a little bit nervous about meeting Vin Diesel. I mean, I was about to sit inches from probably the baddest mofo working in Hollywood today. Of course, my initial estimation of Diesel was based solely on Pitch Black's Riddick character - easily one of the best and hardest sci-fi characters to roll down the pike in years. After spending part of a beautiful, sunny SoCal afternoon with Diesel though, my earlier nervousness seems laughable. Not only is the guy funny as hell, he
’s also very bright, engaging, courteous and extremely relaxed. Plus, he's built Tonka tough.Diesel's road to Hollywood (which includes such perks as talking to IGN) didn't begin with Boiler Room or Pitch Black or even Saving Private Ryan. Vin was a student at Hunter College studying English and dropped out to pursue his dream of making a film. He cobbled together around $3,000 and wrote, directed, and starred in Multi-Facial. The film eventually went on to play at the Cannes Film Festival and received a HUGE response.
Emboldened by his success with Multi-Facial, Diesel came to LA and partly through telemarketing raised enough cash for his second film, Strays. Strays was accepted to the Sundance Film Festival but didn't get bought. BUT, it did catch the attention of one Steven Spielberg who called Diesel from the set of Amistad talking about his new project Saving Private Ryan. Vin was eventually cast in the film.
From there, Vin popped into a vocal role as the Iron Giant in Brad Bird's film of the same name. But it was his role as big-gunned Riddick in Pitch Black that got him the respect he deserves.
Now, Diesel is appearing as Dom in the first film to intelligently and respectfully feature full barrel street-racing: The Fast and the Furious. Opening this weekend, The Fast and the Furious further cements Vin's Hollywood cred and will hopefully enable him to make more of the stuff he digs.
Surrounded by the actual cars from the flick and at the end of a very long day, Diesel and I had a nice little chat...
IGN: Hey Vin, how's it going.
DIESEL: I feel great.
IGN: How did you get involved in The Fast and The Furious?
DIESEL: I had a conversation with [Director Rob Cohen]. He described that first racing scene and I was hooked.
IGN: Have you seen the film all the way through?
DIESEL: Yeah, I spent most of the time stomping my feet and clapping my hands!
IGN: One of the things you said in the roundtable was that acting is a therapeutic experience for you. How about writing? I know there are a lot of people who find writing to be therapeutic, but also maddening in a sense. Since you have training in both, I was wondering which do you get more pleasure from: writing or acting?
DIESEL: Pleasure? Ooo, I don
’t know...IGN: OK, maybe not pleasure. But what do you look forward to the most?
DIESEL: Definitely not writing. I write more out of necessity. I'm not disciplined enough to be a writer consistently. I write when I have to. I usually help out a little with the writing of the script if I have to. I'm a perfectionist. I'm very critical, especially artistically. When I'm writing, I'm locking myself in a room. I'm the worst critic in the world. I write something and then I beat myself up. I'm like "Vin, you
’re retarded, that makes no sense."IGN: Whereas acting you just show up...
DIESEL: No, acting you don
’t just show up...IGN: I know. (please don't beat me up) You had some pretty explosive scenes in The Fast and the Furious where you just went off. Where does that come from? I try to get mad just driving around in traffic but it doesn't work. Where do you get that? Where do you get that fury?
DIESEL: That's a good question. That's in line with the therapy thing. Where it comes from, I'm not sure. I just know I have a large reserve to pull from. Maybe it's from internalizing some stuff, I don't know. I DO know that I can pull on it easily because I have a great reserve
of extreme emotions.IGN: Does it swing the other way too?
DIESEL: Of course, I don't act in an extreme fashion in my day to day life. I don't think any of us live do. I think we all have that reserve somewhere and we pull upon it when we need it.
IGN: One of the things that Rob Cohen has said about being a director and getting involved in a subculture like the one represented in The Fast and the Furious or his martial arts film Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is the fact that - when the film is over - you have to leave that world behind. Door shut. This [street racing] subculture though seems so vibrant and colorful and young, wouldn't you still want to be a part of it, hanging out and stuff?
DIESEL: If I was at a place in my life were I could take on a new subculture or adopt a hobby readily ... but I went directly from The Fast and the Furious to Diablo. I had to cleanse myself of the dominant character and start preparing for the Sean Vetter character. So, for me, it was exactly like what Rob said. I literally left The Fast and the Furious and the day after started working on Diablo.
IGN: I understand you're a comic book fan.
Diesel: Big comic book fan. Grew up as an avid comic book reader and collector. I had all the plastic bagged comics and would spend the weekends re-organizing my collection.
IGN: Some people I've talked to want to know if you're going to be in Hellboy.
DIESEL: I love the Hellboy project, I'm a fan of the Hellboy comic but I don't know how far along they are. I haven't read a script yet. I've got to read a script before I would commit to anything.
IGN: Don't you think your interest would get it moving along?
DIESEL: Yes. Do you think I should do Hellboy?
IGN: Yeah. Dude with the hand. Join the Bureau.
DIESEL: I don't want this hand to get excited but if it does ... should I do Hellboy?
IGN: I think so. Comic book and videogame movies are so ... if they're done right. They're talking about [Guillermo] Del Toro.
DIESEL: For what?
IGN: For Hellboy.
DIESEL: I don't know.
IGN: When they are done right, like Batman, before they get turned into a ride ...
[Editor's Note: here Steven just kind of stumbles around like an idiot, talking smack about bad comic book films. It's painful.]
DIESEL: Hey man, I'm a fan of all that high-tech sci-fi stuff and if there's a way to put it into film I'm into it. Like I told you, I am a fan of that world. If someone were to come up with the right script, I'd be into it.
IGN: Other than Pitch Black you haven't done a hard sci-fi film before.
DIESEL: Just waiting for the sequel.
IGN: Is it going to be a sequel or a prequel?
DIESEL: A sequel - The Chronicles of Riddick.
IGN: What a great character though. I mean, quoting T.S. Eliot! Is Twohy going to do the sequel?
DIESEL: I don't know what's going to happen with it. Universal has it now and I'm waiting on a script. But they really want to make it this year. Triple the budget, go to town.
IGN: I was talking with a friend about the importance of a director's knowledge of effects right after The Mummy. There wasn't a shot that wasn't somehow washed through a computer. As a Director, how important is it to have a knowledge of special effects?
DIESEL: Nowadays, very important. Especially if you're directing a film of this nature or a sci-fi film or even films like Charlie's Angels which use some of The Matrix-style effects. Even the classic kung fu movie [genre] gets the treatment like with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
IGN: Or a car chase film...
DIESEL: I think to compete in this arena, yeah. Unless you
’re doing Jerry Maguire ... even Forrest Gump has CGI. That's something you need to do when doing these types of films unless you're doing some non-linear stuff like Tarantino or Guy Ritchie, those other kind of cool movies ... character-based, edgy. That's what I love about doing a film like this with a Rob Cohen because you can be so involved in the story, in the character, and then know that there's going to be a calvary that comes in later to help you win the war. That's cool. It makes the movie-going experience fun for me. When I saw The Fast and the Furious, I was excited because there was so much art to it that I had no part in.IGN: That brings up an interesting point too...
DIESEL: It's the same as on Pitch Black too. I mean when you see me going backwards on the muddy slope, I'm in heaven! So much of that movie, I'm like "God, that guy Riddick is such a bad motherf***er! Who the f*** is he?"
IGN: Nice. So you want to get back behind the camera anytime soon?
DIESEL: Eventually. I'm having fun right now, learning a great deal. I don't know s*** about the CGI stuff, special effects stuff, and I now have access to it, learning about it.
IGN: Would you ever do one of those Redford style things were you write, direct, produce, and star in a film? Would that be too much work?
DIESEL: I did do that. Under harsher conditions and with no money. Would I love to do it again? Absolutely! Braveheart is a model I'd love to follow. That's what this is all about getting the bankability to do that. Let's say that Hellboy was my pet project that I always wanted to get made ... provided one has enough bankability, they can get those movies made.
IGN: Strike while the iron is hot...
DIESEL: You gotta keep it moving. You've got to keep working. You can't get lazy. But there's a flip-side to that. You can't saturate the market. I believe in paying special attention to every project that you do and supporting the projects you do. If you believe in the project, you have to support it. I love this film. At the end of the day, I love this film. It's a lot of fun.
IGN: It's a blast.
DIESEL: And why not support that and let other people know they'll be happy that they went to see this film, don't you think?
IGN: I'll be honest, I love action flicks. It's what I'm all about. But I couldn't really get riled up with this one until I saw it. My ass was in the seat the whole time. When I first walked in I was thinking it was going to be yet another car chase movie but man, it got me going. I'd definitely go see it again. It rocked.