Mark Vincent (born July 18, 1967, in New York City), better known by his stage name of Vin Diesel, is an American actor. Diesel is multi-racial of Irish, Dominican, Mexican, African-American, Scottish, and Italian descent, a fact upon which he based his well-received 1994 short film Multi-Facial, about a battling entertainer who is dismissed for the part after part since he doesn’t look “dark/white/Jewish” enough.
He attended Hunter College in New York City. He’s quoted as saying his mother is descended from the Sinclairs of Scotland. He is distinguished by his bald head, muscular physique, and deep gravelly baritone voice.
Table of Contents
Career
Paul Walker and Vin Diesel in The Fast and the Furious. Diesel was cast in 1998’s Saving Private Ryan on the strength of Multi-Facial and followed it up with Boiler Room (2000). He broke through to mainstream audiences with the 2001 film The Fast and the Furious and the 2002 film xXx. In 2004 he reprised his role as Pitch Black’s Riddick in The Chronicles of Riddick and afterward took on the titular role in Hannibal, as the Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps by elephant to attack Rome.
Diesel has his own film creation organization, One Race Productions, with a long time delivering accomplice, George Zakk. In 2002, he established Tigon Studios, a computer game creation organization; it is named after the tigon, the crossbreed posterity of a male tiger and a female lion.
During his teens, he performed breakdancing in an instructional video on the subject. Diesel is also a long time fan and player of Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games, a fact that he proudly states in various interviews. He once in a while puts references to D&D in his movies, for example, in XXX where one of the tattoos on Xander Cage (Diesel’s character) read “Melkor,” the name of one of Diesel’s old player characters.
(Melkor is also the original name of the Satan-like character in The Silmarillion and other Tolkien stories.) He has also written the foreword to the commemorative book 30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of D&D, which chronicles the history of D&D through various stories and essays written by various authors and developers.
Diesel is currently dating British model Lucy Clarkson and has commented that he will concentrate on his career until the age of 40; at that point, he will consider marriage and family life. In the meantime, he owns a mastiff by the name of Roman.
Filmography
2007 Hitman Agent 47 Announced
2006 Rockfish voiceover Announced; animated
2006 Hannibal Hannibal Barca Announced
2005 Find Me Guilty Jack DiNorscio Post-Production
2005 The Pacifier Shane Wolfe
2004 The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury Richard B. Riddick
2004 The Chronicles of Riddick Richard B. Riddick
2003 A Man Apart Sean Vetter
2002 XXX Xander Cage
2001 Knockaround Guys Taylor Reese
2001 The Fast and the Furious Dominic Toretto
2000 Pitch Black Richard B. Riddick
2000 Boiler Room Chris Varick
1999 The Iron Giant The Iron Giant Voice
1998 Saving Private Ryan Private Caparzo
1997 Strays Rick
1994 Multi-Facial Mike
1990 Awakenings Hospital Orderly
