Vin Diesel

Diesel, who was cast in 1998's Saving Private Ryan on the strength of Multi-Facial, 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 will thereafter take on the titular role in Hannibal, as the Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps by elephant to attack Rome.

Diesel has his own film production company, One Race Productions, with long time producing partner George Zakk. In 2002, he founded Tigon Studios, a video game production company; it is named after the tigon, the hybrid offspring of a male tiger and a female lion.

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 occasionally places references to D&D in his films, such as 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.

Internet Meme

Recently, Diesel has become central to an Internet phenomenon, starting on the Something Awful discussion forms. A thread titled "Facts About Vin Diesel" was started by forum goon ScootsMagoo, where other goons could contribute various absurd "facts" on Diesel, such as "He owns the world's largest collection of empty soup cans, which he stores in a subterranean warehouse in southeastern Nebraska." or "Vin Diesel once had a bolt-throwing contest against Zeus. It ended in a tie." After over 700 such "facts" were posted in the thread, a webpage was created that would randomly display one of the many "facts" collected from the thread and was also set up to allow readers to submit their own.

• Random Vin Diesel Fact Generator

Filmography

External links

• Vin Diesel at the Internet Movie Database
• Tigon Studios