Born: Vin Diesel (born July 18, 1967) is an American actor, writer, director and producer. He became known in the early 2000s, appearing in several successful Hollywood films, including The Fast and the Furious and xXx. He founded the production companies One Race Films, Tigon Studios, and Racetrack Records.
Vin Diesel was born Mark Sinclair Vincent in New York City, the son of Delora, a psychiatrist and astrologer. Diesel is biracial and has Italian and black ancestry. He has described himself as "definitely a person of color" and stated that he is "of ambiguous ethnicity - Italian and a lot of other stuff".
Career: Diesel's first film role was an uncredited appearance in the 1990 film Awakenings.
He was then cast in Steven Spielberg's 1998 Oscar-winning film Saving Private Ryan on the poignancy of his performance in Multi-Facial. He then earned critical acclaim for voice work as the title character in the animation film The Iron Giant (1999). He followed it up with a major role in Boiler Room (2000) and then got his breakthrough role as the anti-hero Riddick in Pitch Black (2000). He then attained action hero super stardom with the box office hits The Fast and the Furious (2001) and xXx (2002).
Personal life: Diesel is noted for his recognizable deep voice, he has said that his voice broke naturally at around age 15, giving him a mature sounding voice on the telephone.
Vin Diesel has a daughter, Hania Riley, born April 2, 2008, with his girlfriend, model Paloma Jimenez. Speaking to An tEolas, an Irish newspaper, Diesel spoke of how he has been seen as a hard man, but is in touch with his soft side as a proud father.
In 2004, he reprised his role as Pitch Black's Riddick in The Chronicles of Riddick which did only moderately well at the box office. In 2005 he played a lighthearted role in the comedy film The Pacifier which was a surprise box office success. In 2006 he attempted a dramatic role when he played real-life mobster Jack DiNorscio in Find Me Guilty. Although he was critically acclaimed for his performance, the film bombed at the box office. Later that year he made a cameo appearance in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, reprising his role from The Fast and The Furious. Diesel was originally offered the lead in 2 Fast 2 Furious but turned it down. He was also offered the chance to reprise his role from xXx in xXx: State of the Union but also turned it down. In March 2006, Diesel stated that he was working on a sequel to The Chronicles of Riddick, which as of 2008 is still in pre-production stages.
In 2007, he was set to produce and star as Agent 47 in the film adaptation of the video game Hitman, but eventually pulled out from the role and served as executive producer on the film instead. In 2008 he stars in the science-fiction action thriller Babylon A.D..
After seven years, he reprised his role as Dominic Toretto in the fourth film of The Fast and The Furious series, titled Fast & Furious and released in April, 2009.
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