Vin Diesel

Vin Diesel (born July 18, 1967, Alameda county, California, U.S.) is an American actor and producer who was best known for his action films, most notably the Fast and Furious series.

Sinclair grew up in New York City with his mother, fraternal twin brother, and African American stepfather, Irving Vincent, a theatre manager who provided him with some of his first stage roles. While still in his teens, he worked as a club bouncer and took the name Vin Diesel. He attended Hunter College but dropped out to pursue an acting career in Los Angeles.

After finding little success in Hollywood—his only notable work was an uncredited role in Awakenings (1990)—Diesel returned to New York in 1995. His mother gave him a copy of Rick Schmidt’s book Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices (1988), which inspired him to make a semiautobiographical short, Multi-Facial (1995), about a biracial actor struggling to get roles. He worked as a telemarketer to raise the money for his first feature film, Strays (1997). Diesel got his big break when director Steven Spielberg, who had seen Multi-Facial, cast him in the award-winning Saving Private Ryan (1998). With his appealing screen presence—shaved head, muscular physique, raspy voice, and rough-hewn charm—Diesel was soon working regularly. He played escaped criminal Richard Riddick in the science-fiction film Pitch Black (2000) and reprised the character in two more films, The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) and Riddick (2013).

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The Fast and the Furious (2001) established Diesel in his most-famous role, as the charismatic street racer–thief Dominic Toretto. The over-the-top action film cost $38 million to make but was an unexpected hit, grossing nearly $145 million in the United States. Diesel followed with another action movie, xXx (2002), playing extreme athlete turned secret agent Xander Cage, and the crime drama A Man Apart (2003). He turned to more humorous fare with The Pacifier (2005) and Sidney Lumet’s mob comedy Find Me Guilty (2006).

Diesel skipped appearing in 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) and had only a cameo in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006). However, he returned to the franchise, both a star and a producer, for Fast & Furious (2009), Fast Five (2011), Fast & Furious 6 (2013), and Furious 7 (2015). The latter was especially successful, earning more than $1.5 billion to become among the highest-grossing films of all time. The franchise continued to do well with The Fate of the Furious (2017) and F9: The Fast Saga (2021). Diesel also tried his hand at other genres, such as the fantasy thriller The Last Witch Hunter (2015). He then rejoined the xXx series in xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017) after passing on the 2005 sequel. He took a break from franchise movies with the sci-fi feature Bloodshot (2020).

Behind the cameras, Diesel used his distinctive voice as the title character in the animated The Iron Giant (1999). Later he provided the voice for the treelike superhero Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), its sequel (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019).