Tough guy Diesel up for any role
By JOHAN FERNANDEZThe first question action hero Vin Diesel was asked when he walked into the press conference at The Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills, California, promoting his latest movie The Pacifier was: “Have you ever changed diapers in real life?”
Now, that’s not your regular action hero-type question, but Vin Diesel is ready for anything.
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DON’T DANGLE ME!: Vin Diesel had his hands full on the set of The Pacifier with tiny co-stars. Here he faces off with one of the Vink twins. |
The question was not completely shocking, however, as Diesel plays Shane Wolfe, a Navy SEAL turned nanny to a bunch of unruly kids, including a little bitty baby in the new movie. It is, no doubt, a far cry from any movie that Diesel has done in the past but it does feature a softer and gentler side to the actor. Diesel is now famous for his action hero roles – 2002’s XXX, an undercover DEA agent in A Man Apart, the unlikely hero in Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick.
Following The Pacifier, Diesel will star in the true story Find Me Guilty, a courtroom drama about a mob family on trial and one brave member who defends himself for three years in court and gets off. In this movie, Diesel plays 47-year-old Italian mobster, Jackie DiNorscio.
Given his physique, mannerisms and more importantly his early life as a bouncer, Diesel seems best suited to these types of roles. But how does one get a name like Vin Diesel?
”I started bouncing in New York to keep my days free for auditions? unfruitful auditions. And while you are bouncing in New York City you don’t want to get into altercations and then have everybody know who you are and where to find you.
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GET SET, JUMP: Before he went on diaper duty, Diesel was well known for his action hero roles like Xander Cage in XXX. |
Diesel said he learned and saw a lot as a bouncer. When he first started out it was all about fighting but the novelty soon started to wear off when people got seriously hurt.His worst experience was when one of his buddies got attacked at an entertainment centre in the meatpacking district in New York City.
“Rudolph was the name of my buddy. This guy came up to the front and he said ‘Man are you not going to let me in?’ and slapped my friend in the neck.
“It just seemed like a slap but when we looked two seconds later his whole neck was opened up. That guy had a razor between his two fingers,” Diesel said, adding that although Rudolph survived the ordeal, he had to spend two weeks in hospital.
Raised in Greenwich Village in New York, Diesel gave his first stage performance at the age of seven at the Theatre for the New City and continued to work in theatre throughout his childhood.
After high school, he enrolled in Hunter College where he majored in English with emphasis on creative writing.
Diesel said that the first time he came to Los Angeles, he failed terribly.
“I’d been acting for so many years and I thought doors would open and I would floor everybody. I was a New York actor and I thought I would get agents, managers, and jobs... Nothing. A year-and-a-half later I didn’t even have an agent and I had to go back to New York with a US$20,000 debt because I guessed wrong.
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STAR-STUDDED CAST: (From left) Faith Ford, Vin Diesel, Lauren Graham and Brad Garrett. |
Diesel said he really trains for his roles, and has even done stints with the military.
I train continuously and adjust training to meet the needs the character demands.
“So if I’m doing something like having to be proficient in fighting with knives and blades, I abandon the weight training and do something called ‘Kali’, learning how to do these very specific choreographed movements,” he said.
Despite criticism of his role in The Pacifier, Diesel says he had immense satisfaction making the movie.
He said he has nephews and nieces who have wanted to see a Vin Diesel film and he felt a Disney family comedy was the best way to make this happen. “I’m a bit of a workaholic but when you do a film working with babies you can’t help but feel that everything that you do is insignificant in the eyes of a child.
“This was the most fun I had ever had shooting a movie. Not because (director) Adam Shankman was so incredible and so funny or because of the cast (and all the kids were amazing), but the infant – the nine month old baby – allowed me to do anything.
“When you are talking to a nine-month-old co-star nothing you do is silly enough?”
He said The Pacifier was a great relief for him “because I did not have to kill anybody!”
“It was a unique and fun experience. I wasn’t putting my life on the line for anything, for starters, so it wasn’t as physically challenging as the previous action films.“In this film, all I had to do was baby sit and that’s it. I only had to make the baby smile and laugh.”
The Pacifier opens in Malaysian cinemas on April 14.
Related Story:
The nanny story of The Pacifier
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