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If You're The Type Of Person Who Has To Fulfill Your Dreams, You've Gotta Be Resourceful To Make Sure You Can Do It. I Came Out To California When I Was 21, Thinking My New York Credentials Would Take Me All The Way. I Came Back Home A Year Later All Dejected And A Failure.

-Vin Diesel

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If You're The Type

Vin Diesel

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If You're The Type Of Person Who Has To Fulfill Your Dreams, You've Gotta Be Resourceful To Make Sure You Can Do It. I Came Out To California When I Was 21, Thinking My New York Credentials Would Take Me All The Way. I Came Back Home A Year Later All Dejected And A Failure.

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I Was The Oldest Of The Children In My Family. I Had To Do A Lot Of Diaper-changing And Lunch-making. I Was Taking My Little Sister To Ballet, Picking Up My Brother, Sort Of Being A Super-nanny.

When I Was A Child Actor, I Had The Fear That I Was Going To Be Cast As The Tree.

You Get A Timeless Cool Card In New York.

A Transvestite Spends Her Entire Life Trying To Look As Feminine As Possible And I Have Clearly Spent Mine Celebrating My Masculinity.

If You Think About My Filmography, I Have Never Done A Movie That A Kid Could Go See, Except For Iron Giant, And I'm Not Even On The Screen.

I've Turned Down Twentysomething Million Dollars For Movies.

Million Dollars

I Started Acting At Seven Years Old. It Took Me 20 Years To Understand That If I Was Going To Make My Dreams A Reality, I Had To Take The Reigns. I Had To Learn Something About Being Productive And Being Self What's The Word I'm Looking For? Self-sufficient, But I Had To Be Productive At All Costs And I Had To Make Product.

I Live My Life A Quarter Mile At A Time. Nothing Else Matters: Not The Mortgage, Not The Store, Not My Team And All Their Bullshit. For Those Ten Seconds Or Less, I'm Free.

When I First Did 'the Fast And The Furious', I Didn't Want There To Be A Sequel On The First One. I Thought, 'why Would You Rush To Do A Sequel - Just Because Your First Film Is Successful?'

If I'm On Set And I'm In Character, I'm Not Thinking Like A Producer. If I'm On Set And I'm Not In Character, Wardrobe And Make-up, And I'm Just Coming On Set For The Moments That I'm Not Shooting, Then I'm Able To Be The Producer.

Nothing Comes Easy When I'm In Character, Because Everything I Do In Character, I Take Seriously.

I'm Not Disciplined Enough To Be A Writer Consistently. I Write When I Have To.

I Always Have Issues. I'm A New Yorker. I Always Have Issues With Trust - You Adopt It From Being A New Yorker. I Think Trust Is Something That Comes From The Gut. I Don't Think It's Anything Specific. I Don't Think It's Anything Tangible.

In Hollywood, I Think I Get A Bad Rap For Being A Perfectionist. It's Something That's Not Always Welcomed In Hollywood, Because You're Always Pushing People And You're Pushing Yourself To Be The Best That You Can Be.

Vin Diesel Had To Hire A Babysitter.

The Most Important Thing In Life Will Always Be Family. The People Right Here, Right Now.

I Was A Bouncer For Ten Years In New York City.

Fight Sequence To Me Isn't Just About The Athleticism. It So Often Is About What The Emotion That Is Behind It And How Willing You Are To Really, Really Challenge That Emotion Or Really Take That Emotion To That Place So You're Feeling A Certain Intensity For The Whole Time When You're Shooting The Actual Physical Scenes.

I Used To Do Fight Sequences, And I Started To Get Self-conscious About Fight Sequences, Because Invariably The Other Person Would Get Hurt, And You Never Want Anyone To Be Hurt On A Film, Let Alone You Being Responsible. The Great Thing About Working With Guys Who Have Spent Their Life Choreographing Fights For Wrestling Is That That's What They Do. That's Their Specialty. Their Specialty Is Selling Taking Hits. Their Specialty Is Selling Explosive Hits Without Making A Contact Or Doing Too Much Damage.

I Can't Go White, Indian, Asian, Latin. For Me, In My Existence, If I'm Anything, I'm Inclusive Of Everyone, And We Are Just One, And I Hope That Global Harmony Is In All Of Us.

I Could Care Less About Being An Action Actor Like Stallone Or Schwarzenegger.

I Started Acting When I Was Seven-years-old. By The Time I Was 17 I Would Say: "if I'm Not A Star By The Time I'm 18, I'll Get Out Of The Business."

What Was Bizarre, When I Was Younger, I Never Watched Tv. I Would Rather Watch A Movie 100 Times Than To Watch A Tv Show, Just To Find Another Nuance. I Can't Tell You How Many Times I've Watched 'on The Waterfront', Just To Find A Flaw So That I Can Learn And Try To Improve My Thing.

If You Had Asked Me Back In Grade School What I Wanted To Be When I Grew Up, I Would Have Said My First Choice Was An Actor, But If I Couldn't Be That, I'd Want To Be A Superhero.

It's Like You Have A Child And You Think, 'everything That I've Done Up Until This Point Is Insignificant In Comparison To Being A Father.' It's A Beautiful, Beautiful Thing.

If Clark Gable Had A Facebook Page, There Would Have Been A Gone With The Wind 2.

When You Go To The Movies With Your Whole Family, It's A Different Experience. For Some Reason, It's Something That You're All Doing Together And You Take Away Something Special In That.

Different Experiences

The Only Way Anyone Knows Which Girl I'm With Is If A One-night Stand Goes On 'howard Stern.'

The Whole Year I Was In La I Got Into Telemarketing And Learned How To Make Money. Five Years Later That Skill Helped Me Make My First Film.

I'm An Actor. I Can Do Whatever I Want. As An Actor, Not Everything Has To Be The Most Obvious Choice. And Sometimes, The Best Thing You Can Do Is To Defy Expectations.

It Don't Matter If You Win By An Inch Or A Milewinning Is Winning!!

I Grew Up The Son Of An Acting Teacher But I've Never Been Really Good At Articulating What That Process Is. It Was Always A Bit More Internal.

I Grew Up With All Kinds Of People.

We All Deal With Being Unfairly Judged.

You Live These Three Months In This Reality, In This Dark Reality, You Don't Want To Do Those Films Every Year Because They're Taxing. I Started Smoking A Lot Of Cigarettes.

You Break Her Heart, I'll Break Your Neck.

Find Your Confidence, Lead With Love... The Rest Will Follow.

The Thing That Stood Out Above And Beyond All The Experiences Was This Relationship With The Nine-month-old Baby. On Weekends, I'd Be Thinking About Going Back To Set On Monday Just To See The Baby.

With Age, You Get To A Place Where You Don't Want To Knock People Out. You Just Want To Give People A Hug.

I Think There's Something We All Relate To About...wanting To Get To Our Most Primal Self.

It's Insecurity That Is Always Chasing You And Standing In The Way Of Your Dreams.

It Would Be Flattering To Call It A Modern Dirty Harry, But I Think This Film Deals More With The Loss Of His Wife Than The Traditional Revenge Vigilante Films.

If You're The Type Of Person Who Has To Fulfill Your Dreams, You've Gotta Be Resourceful To Make Sure You Can Do It. I Came Out To California When I Was 21, Thinking My New York Credentials Would Take Me All The Way. I Came Back Home A Year Later All Dejected And A Failure.

The Films That I Do Are Deep, Introspective, Brooding Roles That You're In This Heavy Headspace All The Time.

I'm Not Really Afraid Of The Dark, Except If I'm Walking. The Thing That Scares Me The Most Is The Possibility Of Walking Into A Wall And Busting My Lip.

Deal-making Goes On With Any Job.

Most Of My Confidence Came From Being With Ladies, Because I Certainly Wasn't Getting Any Acting Jobs.

It's Very Rewarding To See The Movie, And It's Very Rewarding To Make The Movie, But Playing The Character [riddick] Is Sometimes A Lot More Difficult Than Other Characters Because It Takes So Much Preparation To Get Into That Character.

When I Got On The Set Of 'saving Private Ryan,' I Discovered, To My Amazement, That Steven Spielberg Is A Gamer.

Saving Private Ryan

I've Been Auditioning Since I Was 7 Years Old.

I Enjoy Playing A Quintessential Antihero. There's Something Therapeutic About Playing Such Characters. I Know It Sounds Corny But I Feel Like I Learn About Myself When I Play That Characters.

I Never Think Of People's Nationality Too Much. I Always Look At Everybody The Same. It's Impossible For Me To Just Say One Group Of People Over Separate Groups Of People. Maybe It's Because I Was Raised In New York City Which Is This Melting Pot. Everybody Was Always The Same And The Whole Point Of My Whole Film Existence Was To Say That We're Just One Race.

I'm A Fantasy Guy. So I Brought The Fantasy Element To The Riddick, David Twohy Brought The Sci-fi, And It Came Together.you See That In Every Aspect Of The Film.

I Haven't Had That Many Weird Encounters With Fans, Thank God.

To Have A Director That Loves His Actors Is Something That You Can See In The Film And In The Fruits Of That Labor. You Can See That Translated In The Film. When You Watch This Movie, You Can See A Director Who Loves His Actors, And It Shines Through The Movie, In My Eyes.

When I'm Writing, I'm Locking Myself In A Room. I'm The Worst Critic In The World. I Write Something And Then I Beat Myself Up. I'm Like "vin, You're Retarded, That Makes No Sense."

I Don't Know When The Last Time Was That Steven Spielberg Or George Lucas Made A Movie With Universal, But I Can Tell You That Universal Is Leading The Charge. They're Looking At Film Differently. They're Planning Ahead In A Way That I've Never Seen A Studio Do Before. They're Believing In A Relationship Between Fan And Film Franchise, In A New Way. They're More Receptive To An Audience, In Part Because Of Social Media, In A Way We've Never Been Allowed.

My Mom Used To Say That I Became A Fighter And A Scrapper And A Tough Guy To Protect Who I Am At My Core.

When You Come Onto The Set, Everything Should Be Focused Around Your Character And You Should Stay In The Pocket, As Much As Possible. Every Actor Has Their Own Process. For Me, I Really Need To Stay In The Pocket.

We've Come A Long Way, From Where We've Been. I'll Tell You All About It When I See You Again.

Any Film That You See Is Never Just The Director. If It's A Film That You Love, It's Not So Easy To Say, "oh It's Directed By This Person - That Means Everything That Person Directs Is Going Be Wonderful."

If You Believe In The Project, You Have To Support It.

My Mother Gave Me This Book Called Feature Films At Used Car Prices By A Guy Named Rick Schmidt. I Gotta Credit The Guy, Cuz He Gave Me The Most Practical Advice. It Empowers You.

Unfortunately, In Hollywood, There Are Those Directors That Have Some Contempt For Actors. We've All Experienced That, In One Way Or Another.

They Say The Open Road Helps You Think. About Where You've Been And Where You're Going.

Video Games Are One Step Before A Whole Other Virtual Universe.

I Love Thinking About The Film, The Project And Committing Myself As Much As Possible.

Of Course, I Don't Act In An Extreme Fashion In My Day To Day Life. I Don't Think Any Of Us Live Do. I Think We All Have That Reserve Somewhere And We Pull Upon It When We Need It.

If You Take My Performance Or My Understanding Of The Role And My Appreciation For Story And Then Dress It In Cgi, That I Guess Becomes An Action Film.

You Know When Something Feels So Good But You're Afraid To Feel Good About It? So You Kinda Hold Back? Everyone Says, Congratulations, You Must Be So Happy. And You Say Something Stupid Like, I'm Just Doing What Little I Can With What Little I Have.

Congratulations

It's Remarkable How A Soundtrack Can Be So Important To The Storytelling And The Experience. I Think The Music Is Going To Make People See The Movie A Lot. The Music Is Going To Make You Want To Go See It Again. You Have So Much Fun In The Movie, And It's Music That You Want To Share With Your Kids, Anyway.

The Idea Of Exploring Character Relations And Their Development Over A Decade Has To Be Appealing For Any Actor Who Cherishes His Craft.

If It's An Amazing Role, I'll Do Anything.

I Don't Think A Lot Of Actors Talk About It, But There's Usually A Process Where You Essentially Purge Yourself Of The Character That You Played Prior To The Movie.

Rated R Movies Are Few And Far Between, Nowadays. We're All Seeing Less And Less Rated R Movies, And Less And Less Of Them Are Being Made.

I Love Women More Than Anything.

I Used To Say I Live My Life A Quarter Mile At A Time And I Think That's Why We Were Brothers- Because You Did, Too. No Matter Where You Are, Whether It's A Quarter Mile Away Or Half Way Across The World. The Most Important Thing In Life, Will Always Be The People In This Room. Salute Mi Familia. You'll Always Be With Me... And You'll Always Be My Brother.

I Approach Every Film I Do In The Same Way, Whether It's An Action Film Or Not An Action Film. I Guess If A Certain Physicality Lends Itself To Action, But I Started Acting Before I Reached Puberty. I Was 7 Years Old When I Started Acting. It Wasn't Until I Became A Bouncer In New York.

When People Believe In You, You Can Do Miraculous Things.

Filmmaking Is Such A Collaborative Piece Of Art That You Can't Look To One Person - You Couldn't Look To Me, You Couldn't Say, 'because Vin's In It, It's This Or That...' It's Really All Of Us Coming Together For That Period Of Time To Try And Make Magic.

I'm A Perfectionist. I'm Very Critical, Especially Artistically.

I Used To Feel Guilty About Owning A Console.

I'm Going To Do My Best To Channel The Character On A Spiritual Level.

It Was Interesting To Do A Completely Fictional Piece. You Know, Saving Private Ryan Was Not A Fictional Piece! So The Challenge Was: How Do You Incorporate Real Emotions? How Do You Incorporate Aspects That People Are Going To Be Able To Identify With?

My Gut Feeling About Sequels Is That They Should Be Premeditated: You Should Try To Write A Trilogy First Or At Least Sketch Out A Trilogy If You Have Any Faith In Your Film.

Show Me How You Drive And I'll Show You Who You Are.

Riddick Is An Antihero. He's The Quintessential Antihero. We All Know How Much I Love Antiheroes. 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.

The Majority Of The Filmmaking Process Is In Pre-production. The More You've Planned Out The More Freedom There Is On Set To Find New Stuff, To Play Around, Find New Jokes And Let The Actors Kind Of Breathe - But It Needs To Come From A Place Where It's Completely Structured.

I Believe In Paying Special Attention To Every Project That You Do And Supporting The Projects You Do.

I Shaved My Head About 15 Years Ago And The First Time I Shaved It, I Started Running My Hand Through My Hair And It Was Very Therapeutic.

I Was Raised In New York City And Raised In The New York City Theater World. My Father Was A Theater Director And An Acting Teacher, And It Was Not Uncommon For Me To Have Long Discussions About The Method And What The Various Different Processes Were To Finding A Character And Exploring Character And Realizing That Character.

Being Male Is A Matter Of Birth. Being A Man Is A Matter Of Age. But Being A Gentleman Is A Matter Of Choice.

A Person In My Position Has To Restrain Himself.

I Grew Up In An Artists Community In New York, In A Building That Was Government-subsidised For Artists. No One Made Any Money, But They Made Art For The Sake Of Art.

Hollywood Is More Concerned About Its Male Actors Being In Shape Than Its Female Actors.

Film Is My Hobby, So I Will Work Well Through The Night To Develop Films, Whatever Film I'm Doing Or Dream Projects I Have.

Career Diversification Ain't A Bad Thing.

Diversification

You Make Movies For The People. If Critics Happen To Like Them Too, Well, That's A Home Run.

It's Really Bizarre Because No One Knows This, But Elephants Have Killed More Animal Trainers Than Any Other Animal.

I Would Love To Do More Science Fiction. I Always Envisioned The Riddick Franchise As A Continuing Mythology, So I Always Imagined That There Would Be Many Other Films To Follow.

I Am Definitely A Person Of Color.

I Always Want Another Actor To Shine In My Scene Because It Makes The Film Stronger. I Would Encourage People To Scene Steal, Because Filmmaking Is A Collaborative Effort.

It Wasn't Until I Went To College And I Got My First Motorcycle That I Understood The Thrill Of Speed.

I Have Dangerous Bones In My Body.

I'm A Boy Who Appreciates A Good Body, Regardless Of The Make.

I'm A New Yorker. I Always Have Issues With Trust - You Adopt It From Being A New Yorker.

I Do Practice Martial Arts, More As A Recreational Thing, But A Lot Of My Friends Have Been Heavyweight Champions The In Mixed Martial Arts World.

I Am Flattered That They Think That Many People Would Enjoy My Work. I Don't Approach Any Genre A Different Way Than I May Approach Another One. I Treat Every Role I Do Like A Role Worthy Of Applying Whatever Kind Of Tactic, Process And Talent I Have.

Choosing The Car You Drive Is Like Choosing Your Wardrobe, Maybe Even More Important.

I've Directed Independent Film.

Independent Film

When Lucas Was Doing Star Wars, He Didn't Have A 50 Million Person Facebook Following Where He Could Just Sift Through Feedback To Try To Get An Idea For What He Was Going To Do Next. It's A Luxury We Have Today.

Well, Love Motivates Me In Everything I Do.

My Mother Is The Most Supportive Mother In The World, She's Magical.

That's What I Love. I Love Thinking About The Film, The Project And Committing Myself As Much As Possible.

The Video Game Culture Was An Important Thing To Keep Alive In The Film Because We're In A New Era Right Now. The Idea That Kids Can Play Video Games Like Grand Theft Auto Or Any Video Game Is Amazing. The Video Games Are One Step Before A Whole Other Virtual Universe.

I Envision The Future Sunny And With Love, Harmony And Oneness. I Think Hollywood Is Changing.

The First Thing That Happens Is The Cleansing Of The Former Character. I Don't Think A Lot Of Actors Talk About It, But There Is Usually A Process Where You Essentially Purge Yourself Of The Character Played Prior To The Movie. Then You Want To Think About What The Character Represents, And You Write Down All Of The Elements About This Character And Then Take The Time To Find Some Synchronicity And Start Breathing The Character.

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