42 interesting facts about Vin Diesel: has two children, wrote and directed two movies

Vin Diesel is an actor known for his high-energy action movies, such as The Fast and the Furious franchise.

1. Despite having one of the coolest names in showbiz, it is not his real name. His birth name is Mark Sinclair Vincent.

2. Diesel was born on July 18, 1967, in New York City.

3. He has a fraternal twin brother named Paul. He also has a younger brother, Tim, and a sister, Samantha.

4. His mother, Delora Sherleen (Sinclair) Vincent, is an astrologer.

5. His mother's background includes Scottish, English, and German. He has never met his biological father, and has stated that "all I know from my mother is that I have connections to many different cultures". He identifies himself as a person of color.

6. Diesel was raised by his Caucasian mother and African-American stepfather, Irving H. Vincent, an acting instructor and theater manager.

7. He grew up in an artist's housing project in New York's Greenwich Village.

8. He made his stage debut at age seven when he appeared in the children's play Dinosaur Door, written by Barbara Garson. The play was produced at the Theater for the New City in New York's Greenwich Village.

9. It's an interesting story how he came to be involved in the play in the first place. Disel, his brother and some friends broke into the theater with intentions to vandalize it. They were confronted by the theater's artistic director, Crystal Field, who, instead of calling the police, handed them scripts and offered them parts in the upcoming show.

   
   

10. He is a huge fan of "Dungeons & Dragons" and has been playing the game since he was 12 years old. He even wrote the foreword in "30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons".

11. Diesel is noted for his recognizable deep voice; he has said that his voice broke at around age 15, giving him a mature sounding voice on the telephone.

12. As a teen he appeared in an instructional breakdancing video called "Breakin' in the USA." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RinjI461pNU

13. At the age of 17, he began working as a bouncer at a nightclub in New York called the Tunnel, where he got the name Vin Diesel. The name "Vin" is simply a shortened version of "Vincent". He received the nickname "Diesel" from his friends, who said he ran off diesel fuel, referring to his non-stop energy.

14. Diesel attended Hunter College, where his creative writing studies led him to begin screenwriting. However, he never got to finish his degree. He dropped out and headed to Hollywood.

15. Unfortunately, his theater background failed to impress Hollywood studios so he returned to New York City.

16. His mother then gave him a book called "Feature Films at used Car Prices" by Rick Schmidt. The book showed him that he could take control of his career and make his own movies.

    
    

17. Diesel's first film role was a brief uncredited appearance in the film Awakenings (1990).

18. The first movie in which he wrote, directed, starred and produced was Multi-Facial. He was only 26 years old when he did such a changeling job. This film was released in 1994 and it screened a year later on Cannes Film Festival. The movie was shot in less than three days at a cost of $3,000.

19. While first pursuing acting he worked in telemarketing, a skill that later helped him raise nearly $50,000 to fund his first full length feature movie, Strays.

20. He made Strays in 1997 which is an urban drama in which he played a gang leader whose love for a woman inspires him to try to change his ways. The film was selected for competition at the 1997 Sundance Festival, leading to an MTV deal to turn it into a series.

21. He was cast in Steven Spielberg's 1998 Oscar-winning film Saving Private Ryan after Spielberg saw his work in Multi-facial.

22. He was the voice of the main character in the animated movie The Iron Giant.

23. Diesel had a major role in the business drama Boiler Room (2000) in which he starred as a stockbroker.

24. He then got his breakthrough role as the anti-hero Riddick in the science-fiction film Pitch Black (2000).

25. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he said he had to leverage his house to get his new movie, "Riddick," the latest installment in a franchise that began with 2000's "Pitch Black," made. "If we didn't finish the film, I would be homeless," he told the magazine.

26. Diesel attained action hero stardom with two box office hits: the street racing action film The Fast and the Furious (2001), and the action thriller xXx (2002).

27. Diesel started the video game company Tigon Studios in 2002. They in turn worked on the movie based game The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (2004). Tigon Studios is now working on more next gen games as well as having a hand in all Vin Diesel-based games.

28. In the 30th anniversary issue of Dragon magazine, it was revealed that Diesel had a fake tattoo of his character's name, Melkor, on his stomach while filming xXx.

29. While on the set of The Fast and the Furious, he began dating co-star Michelle Rodriguez.

    
    

30. In 2005, he played a lighthearted role in the comedy film The Pacifier, which became a box office success.

    
    

31. Vin Diesel gained 35 pounds so he could portray Fat Jackie in Find Me Guilty (2006). Although he received critical acclaim for his performance, the film did poorly at the box office.

32. In 2007, Diesel was set to produce and star as Agent 47 in the film adaptation of the video game Hitman, but eventually pulled back and served as executive producer on the film instead.

33. He is 5' 11¾" (1.82 m) tall.

34. Diesel weighs around 225 lbs (102 kg).

    
    

35. Vin Diesel was offered the role of Matt Murdock/Daredevil in the 2003 action movie Daredevil that ended up going to Ben Affleck.

36. Diesel is a father and has two children. He has a daughter, Hania Riley (born 2008), and a son Vincent (2010) with his girlfriend, Mexican model Paloma Jimenez.

37. He prefers to maintain his privacy regarding his personal life: "I'm not gonna put it out there on a magazine cover like some other actors. I come from the Harrison Ford, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino code of silence."

38. In August 2013, Diesel received an honorary star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame .His girlfriend and children made a rare appearance.

39. He holds the title of actor with the second highest number of Facebook fans (46,616,128 to be exact). Will Smith is beating him by a cool 4 million.

40. Vin Diesel's net worth is $75 million.

41. Vin has his own production company called One Race and he convinced film studio Universal to instead give him full rights to the character Riddick.

42. Diesel is the cousin of rapper/producer Kwame "The Boy Genius". Kwame says if you watch his old videos, you'll see Vin in a few of them.