Dateline: 7/28/01
If Vin Diesel was a rising star after the cult success of Pitch Black, the blockbuster status of The Fast and the Furious solidified his reputation as an action star. However, Diesel himself takes that term with genuine modesty.
"I'm flattered because the whole action-hero term is such a new term," Diesel said. "Steve McQueen and Sidney Poitier and Kirk Douglas, they weren't considered action. Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind, which is probably the most action you were going to get in 1939, but they weren't considered action heroes. But if that is the term they want to use, I am flattered that they think that many people would enjoy my work. I will tell you that I don't approach any genre a different way than I may approach another one. I treat every role I do like a role worthy of applying whatever kind of tactic, process and talent I have. If you take my performance or my understanding of the role and my appreciation for story and then dress it in CGI, that I guess becomes an action film."
Diesel demonstrated the self-deprecating wit of an action here when talking about stunt work and bodybuilding. "I try to do as much of my own stunts and then my stunt performers come in and emasculate me and do the impossible. What's funny as hell is the only time I really work out is when I'm not working. So, if I look big, I'm unemployed."
For The Fast and the Furious, Diesel had to learn about cars, something that was new to him. "I'm not that car orientated, like I couldn't build an engine. I grew up in New York City, so I guess I am more familiar with subways."
As for the jargon of the film's mechanics, Diesel said, "I learned it. I didn't know it before I got the script. I didn't know granny shifting or double clutching or any of that sh*t."
The connection Diesel felt to the film was in the character, Dominic, although Diesel wouldn't call him an anti-hero. "I love anti-heroes and I've explored anti-heroes and I have played anti-heroes. I don't necessarily know if this is an anti-hero. Or maybe I don't necessarily know if I understand what an anti-hero is. This is a guy who lives by his own code. There is no changing point for Dominic. He is the same guy in the beginning as he is in the end, which is unlike the Riddick character in Pitch Black which is unlike the Chris Varick role in Boiler Room. There's something very consistent about Dominic. He lives outside of the law but he has his own moral code which consists of many favorable and admirable attributes. He's honest, he's loyal and he's a caretaker. Because of that consistency throughout the picture from beginning to end I don't know if he fits the conventional anti-hero type. It's not like the Marlon Brando character in The Wild One where he changes a little bit in the end. This guy is who he is and he always has the conventional epiphany that an anti-hero would have in the last act, he always has with him from the moment you're introduced to him. There's not necessarily a huge character arc. He's constantly juggling these different aspects."
In preparing for The Fast and the Furious, Diesel worked with his costars on the backstory of their characters. "The background relationship with all the characters was important except for obviously the Paul Walker character which was something that needed to be discovered and was discovered. But Jordana [Brewster] and I had to kind of synchronize being brother and sister and to do it right. We had to kind of synchronize our personalities and our understandings. She actually reminds me very much of my sister. But that also was an important aspect to my relationship with Michelle. That was my first Hollywood love interest is Michelle Rodriguez, so that had to be created in an organic way and a new way and a contemporary way, that kind of rough, rugged love. The idea of two people so formidable because of whatever society put on them or for whatever reason, yet these two formidable people bring out one another's sensitivity and innocence."
Having succeeded in action movies, Diesel is aware of the tendency for media to typecast actors in certain genres. "[That's] always a concern because I don't want to be limited in any way, but I'm concerned about everything all the time. That's my nature. But yeah, I don't want someone to think that that's all I can do and then I can't have a career after 50, which is why I try to speckle my career with choices like Boiler Room and Knockaround Guys, less explosive-orientated [films]. But what motivates me is something different because good or bad I would do it. Good or bad I have to do it. This may sound bizarre, it may sound weird, it may sound hokey and full of sh*t, but I act because I have to act. The happiness that I derive from acting is a byproduct. It's a coincidence. I act because I have to act. I've done it all my life, when the chips were down, I've done it because it's something that I have to do and that's the bottom line. I don't really know why, maybe it's because it's therapeutic, maybe because it's so in me like a fighter in me that has to fight because it just comes out of them, I don't know But I just do it because I have to do it."
The son of a theater professor father and astrologer mother, Diesel said it took him a while to learn how to make business decisions that would support his love of the arts. "A lot of years I was worried about the craft and never worried about the strategy or never thought about the business. I come from this bohemian setting in New York and I ignored the relevance of the business and the relevance of understanding the industry. I was just this guy in New York that's thinking about how to get that moment alive and how to do it and how to be truthful. I spent twenty years trying to be truthful and unemployed. I'm not motivated by money, and the money has been tempting. I have turned down money. I've turned down a lot of things, I've made big sacrifices because the role didn't seem right or something didn't feel right. I want to be critically acclaimed by the audience, by the people and the critics. I want to affect people. I want people to understand what I'm doing and what I'm saying. I want people to hear me in my work. I want people to relate to me in my work. The scary thing is when you receive accolades from critics, you empower them to ultimately hurt you later. You're letting them in, you're creating a romance. It's like falling in love. That person can potentially hurt you later. That's scary because I'm sensitive."
Now Diesel finds himself facing the label of "sex symbol," to which he is modest. "I never thought of myself as a sex symbol. It's always kind of weird and it's the one claim that kind of makes me blush. It feels so bizarre because I've always worked as an extrovert. I've always worked to get the attention. I've always had to work for my admiration. So, it's bizarre to be charged with these things without having to work for it, but it's very, very flattering."
Diesel also tries to make time for writing and the possibility of going back to directing after his short film Multi-Facial and feature Strays. "The writing/directing thing is more challenging. I also like to be challenged. That's something I will always pay attention to and always want to go back to, and eventually go back to, maybe sooner than later. But the opportunity to tell a story, a story that may be important to me is incredibly fascinating."
Shooting has wrapped for Diesel on the film Diablo, which he also executive produced and will hit theaters in early 2002. "Diablo is done. Diablo is a code name for this lethal drug cartel and I play a DEA agent who loses his wife. It's probably one of the most serious films I've ever done because it's a psychoanalytical breakdown of a DEA agent. It's very trying and lot of dark moments in the film, a lot of dark places."
Diesel concluded with two anecdotes about his experiences with critics. "I was watching Roger Ebert on TV and he talked about Pitch Black and he said something so wonderful about the fact that 'There's a guy in Pitch Black and on the same day it opened, Boiler Room opened and I didn't know it was the same guy.' I was so flattered and its shameless how happy that made me. 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!"