He also can’t sit still. Diesel has chosen a chair in the back corner of a Manhattan hotel restaurant (in part, he confesses, so he can survey the area and take note of any attractive women who might enter the room), and during our 60-minute interview, he will explore every possible way to sit in this chair. Arms splayed out against wall. Right arm cradling large, bald head against wall. One leg up, braced by wall. Leg crossed over knee. Leaning forward, elbow resting on knee. Repeat.
All of this is a long way of explaining that Vin Diesel, the muscular star of the summer’s first true sleeper hit, “The Fast and the Furious,” which rang up $42 million in its opening weekend, is not your garden-variety action hero. He even appears at times to kind of, in a way, sort of resemble, well, a quirky actor. He’s been at it since he was 7, at one point writing and directing his own short films when no one else would give him work. (That period lasted a good while; Diesel is 34.) At a film festival, Steven Spielberg caught one of Diesel’s movies and cast the actor in “Saving Private Ryan.” Since then he’s played the voice of “The Iron Giant,” a killer in the sleeper sci-fi hit “Pitch Black” and a smooth stockbroker in “Boiler Room.” Now he’s being touted as the heir to the Arnold Schwarzenegger legacy. Literally. Diesel is already in talks to star in “Terminator 3,” playing the robot-killer role that Ah-nuld invented.
“The Fast and the Furious,” it should be stated, is not Diesel’s finest hour as an actor. He’s been asked to put honest-to-goodness feeling into lines like “I live my life a quarter-mile at a time.” Not surprisingly, he fails. But even with a half-baked script, it’s hard to take your eyes off of him. Or your ears. His voice is absurdly deep, the coolest to come along since James Earl Jones. NEWSWEEK’s Devin Gordon had the distinct pleasure of listening to it for an hour. Didn’t even matter what he said. (But here’s what he said.)
NEWSWEEK: So what’s your real name?
Vin Diesel: Ah, you do have to ask, right? And I have to say: Any other questions? [laughs]
It’s just too perfect, that’s all.
Well, sometimes life works itself out that way.
I’ve heard that the entire cast went to driving school to prepare for the movie. How was that?
We did it in Las Vegas, probably a bad place to do a 6 a.m. class of any kind. At 5:35 in the morning, I was still rolling. [pause] The dice. Rolling the dice. At the craps table. [He flicks his hand, like he’s shooting dice.]
Don’t worry, Vin, I’m following you.
You better put the hand gesture in your story. [laughs] Cuz “rolling” in Vegas could be many, many other things. But driving school was great. What it really does is make you more confident about driving at high speeds, which is probably bad.
Were you a big car buff before this film?
No, not really. Cuz I’m from New York. I could only race subways. People from Manhattan don’t generally get into cars at an early age. I had a sports bike, like a motorcycle, so I would ride from home downtown to college every day. And then I’d open it up to 100 on the Jersey Turnpike and do all these crazy things that kids do. I would speed the second I got out of the city.
What other jobs have you had? I’m guessing that you were a bouncer at some point.
Nine years. Great way to keep your days free. I got to a point with acting where I had to sink or swim. I had be proactive. More so than actors generally are. I had to write my own stuff because no one was hiring me. I had to become the director to hire me. You know, if you’re a musician, you can make music. If you’re a painter, you can paint. But as an actor, you are at the mercy of a screenwriter, a director, someone who will provide you with that canvas to be artistic. So in order to a professional actor, I knew I had to create something.
Are people surprised to find out you’ve always been an actor and not some guy who got spotted in a gym?
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. It’s only when they see my work-hopefully-that they realize I’m serious about this. But most people’s first impression is that I’m, let’s say, a guy with a limited appreciation for the true craft.
Are you worried about getting pigeonholed into action roles? I don’t think you’ll be getting too many auditions with Merchant-Ivory.
You never know! [laughs] But sure, I do things like “Boiler Room” to protect me from being stereotyped. Because, whether it’s wrong or not, I enjoy playing action roles. I enjoy those larger-than-life characters. But not at the cost of respecting the true craft. I’m an actor first. And then the physique comes into play. You know, Marlon Brando was accused of having a dominating physical presence when he began.
Why did you want to be an actor?
Maybe because I have an ambiguous identity. Acting has always been therapeutic to me. I always wanted to be recognized and validated as a kid. When you’re acting-truly assuming a character-you know exactly who you are, and that’s liberating. In the same way therapy is liberating.
Why was your identity ambiguous?
Who knows. Maybe because … who knows.
OK, tell me about your family.
[Laughs] Any reason why my identity would be ambiguous, I would keep to myself. That’s just the way I am.
Fair enough. Tell me about your family.
[Laughs] I have a great family. I was lucky. Everyone in my family has a strong character. The content of their character is rich. My mother is an astrologist-
Really?
-with a masters in psychology, yeah. She kind of combines the two. One of the reasons I respect my father so much is that he taught theater before I arrived, and then had to abandon his dreams to raise a family. He had to get a real job, something that paid enough at least to feed us.
Did you have fun growing up?
I did. I had a magical time. My childhood was magical. Magical! I grew up in artist housing in downtown Manhattan. It was like a C.S. Lewis novel. There’d be a mother, 150 pounds overweight, sitting on a stoop, just watching all the kids on the street. At 6 years old, I was hustling, going into restaurants and asking if they’d let me wash dishes for a free order of fries. And free french fries was this huge deal! Free fries! I learned how to swim in the Carmine Street pool. I was the kid where the teacher would always say, “He’s so talented but he doesn’t apply himself. He’s distracted.”
You probably would’ve been diagnosed with ADD today.
You know what? That’s exactly what they would’ve done. It was pre-ADD, thank God. Pre-Ritalin. Pre-bulls-t remedies. But definitely, definitely, definitely, I would’ve been diagnosed with ADD. And rightfully so.
Are you still like that? Short attention span?
Oh, yeah. If a beautiful girl walks in this room, you will lose me momentarily. But I don’t know if that’s ADD. [laughs]
In the past year, you’ve become something of a celebrity. How has it changed you?
I used to be a lot more extroverted. I think with the transition of going from somebody who had to work for attention to someone who gets it uninvitedly now-that’s changed me. It’s made me, to some degree, more of a recluse.
Is that OK with you? I don’t know that I have any say in the matter.
But you get to have an opinion about it.
Yeah, that’s true. It’s surreal. The idea that people care about things that are so unimportant, that are so trivial…. It’s a weird reality for sure.
Last question. Can you still use your name at hotels?
I had to change it. Just recently. And I didn’t want to! I didn’t want to! I resisted. Deliberately resisted. But now, it’s just smarter. I’m looking forward to picking better names. Socrates. Freud. Albert Camus-and I’ll pronounce it “kay-muss,” just to throw people off.
