An Interview With Vin Diesel

A stars longevity in the movie industry is based on one thing. How much money can he or she pull in to the box office? With film budgets rising higher and higher, it’s important that the next big blockbuster be attached to the next “big thing.” Vin Diesel has had his share of box office disappointments, but he has also proven that when given the chance and the marketing power, he is a star that can draw in $100 million plus for the suits. Despite a couple of flops in A Man Apart and Knockaround Guys, Vin Diesel has a chance to show the world that once again, you can’t keep an action star down. The muscleman strikes again in The Chronicles of Riddick opening up June 11^th, I had a chance to find out what’s new in the world of Riddick, and that a little game called Dungeons & Dragons was part of the inspiration for the film.

I guess the first thing to get out of the way was to find out if the rumors are true. Is Vin Diesel really a D&D nut? “No. I never play D&D. For some reason, they thought that I played D&D for 20 years. They thought that I spent years playing Barbarians & Witch hunters. They thought I still played D&D back in the '70s when it's just the basic D&D set. They thought I continued to play D&D when it became Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. They thought I played D&D when there was only three books - the Player's Handbook, the Monsters Manual and the DM's Guide. They thought I played D&D as it continued onto the Arcanum, Oriental Adventures, Sea Adventures, Wilderness Adventures. They thought I played D&D at the time when Deities and Demigods was the brand new book.” [Mouths: "I'm into D&D a lot."]

A huge action star spends his nights playing Dungeons & Dragons? So did the D&D world help to influence the world of Riddick? “I see it like going back to the D&D, this wasn't like creating a movie. This was like creating a universe. The idea that I was able to do this from nothing is- - I mean, I was literally playing Dungeons and Dragons with Judi Dench and Karl Urban at nights after shooting. I will tell you that I was showing her Dungeons and Dragons books and showing her the different properties of elementals. Call me crazy. Of course the attributes have been augmented a little bit for Dame Judi Dench, but the concept of elementals came from Dungeons and Dragons. The concept of creating a world of neutrality.”

This brings to light another curious career aspect of Vin Diesel. With seemingly three different franchises that he could embark in (XXX, Fast & The Furious & Pitch Black), why choose Pitch Black’s Riddick? “I never do sequels in a reactionary way. I don't mean that to be holier than thou. I had to do Chronicles of Riddick. I waited a year to do it. I didn't do anything for a year, just to make sure everything was right with The Chronicles of Riddick and just make sure that the cast was right. The script was right. The mythology was right. When I was done doing the first XXX, at the end of production, when I would brush my teeth at times, I would see these two blue eyes staring back at me in the mirror, which was an indication it was time to revisit The Chronicles of Riddick. I wanted to, again, I didn't have the rights to the wonderful Tolkeinn books that inspired us all to play D&D. I didn't have the rights to comic book characters. I wanted to create a modern day futuristic mythology, so I dedicated everything to The Chronicles of Riddick.”

So what does Vin think personally about the character of Riddick? “He's the coolest fucking character I've ever come across. He's an antihero. He's the quintessential antihero. We all know how much I love antiheroes. He's the quintessential antihero. It takes you 45 minutes in the movie just for Riddick to understand the word heroism. Let alone for anyone to hope that he can be heroic. That's cool. That's real. You can invest in this guy's spiritual growth. He's a guy that embraces that indifference and doesn't care what anybody thinks about it, who wants to be left alone. He's a guy that thinks that anything that happens with the universe has nothing to do with him and he doesn't care. That's kind of cool.”

If there’s one rule in an action flick, it’s that the hero (or in this case, anti-hero) knows how to take care of himself. So how does someone who’s already built like he can bench press cars, prepare for a role in which he takes on universal bad guys? “I was training with a UFC guy, Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter. I got up there two months early and started training in a fighting style called Kali which originated in Spain and was then brought to the Philippines by Spanish traders. It's a fighting style that's just now beginning to catch wind. It's a fighting style that calls for ambidextrous two handed fighting. And that's what we studied. I went up two months early to learn this fighting style.”

Being able to kick butt on screen doesn’t seem to be enough for Vin. A self confessed workaholic, he also has his hands dipped into the booming video game industry. An entertainment medium that Hollywood has started to take advantage of. “I created a company called Tigon Studios. Which created the video game where I was able to add 25 minutes of story, so you see what he's been doing on the snow covered planet for five years. You witness the point in his life where his eyes are transformed and how that happens. Have you played it yet? These are sold out. They're all sold out. They sold out in the first day. That's why I'm really freaking, because somebody wanted this.”

With so much going on, does fame still make him nervous? “It's a double edged sword. The more successful your film is, the more famous you become. And we all think of fame as being oh, great, wonderful. The wonderful thing about fame is the bank ability that comes with it and the ability to do things like The Chronicles of Riddick. And to tell somebody, "Hey, man, there's this cool idea, The Chronicles of Riddick that can incorporate all these fantasy elements and these sci-fi elements." The tricky part is that your private life is that much more threatened.”

So, with having passed on XXX2, would he ever consider doing Fast & The Furious 3? “It would be unfair for me to say that I would rule something out without seeing the script.”

And of the break dancing video when he was younger that is circulating on the internet? “You know, I was a street performer. I used to be a street performer in New York. I swear to you. When Flashdance was out, I was doing it in the streets.”

Doesn’t really sound like your typical action hero, does it? Well, how many action heroes today can beat up intergalactic baddies on the screen, challenge your reflexes in his new first person shooter video game, get the lucky roll in a 20 sided die playing Dungeons & Dragons, and if the need arises, make sure you get served in break dancing? Not many. Clearly, Vin Diesel seems to have always kept himself and everyone around him, as entertained as humanly possible.