That's right, all is not lost.  Vin Diesel is a very cool guy who speaks very softly but very intensely about acting, the biz, and his mom.  You know him from Saving Private Ryan, he was the voice of The Iron Giant, and he has roles in both of the upcoming films Boiler Room and Pitch Black.  He is writing and starring in Doormen, which he talks about below.  Though we were catching him on a Pitch Black P.A. tour, we got him going about the story of how he got to where he is today.  Pretty cool stuff.  For those of you filmmakers out there, hear this: his short films were what got him written into Ryan.  So it can happen.

    Q:  We gotta ask.  Is Vin Diesel your real name?

    A:  "[in a weird, rambling voice]  Born in a gas station.  There was no bathwater.  They said, 'Well, what the hell do you have accessible?'  'Well, take him down to the gas station, shit, there's no bathwater to wash him here.'  [pause, back to normal]  [It's] not on the birth certificate."

    Q:  Okay, Pitch Black.  What's up with your eyes?  Were you guys doing contacts or was that CGI'd in?

    A:  "A little bit of both.  Certain shots in the film, like if [my character] Riddick...turned a certain way, they would accent a moment in that sequence and punch up the effect a little bit--add a little light in the eyes.  For the most part, it was just contacts.  The contacts were prototypes, they had never been tested or worn before.  So it felt like--imagine going to your father's 1960 Plymouth, taking the hubcaps off, painting them blue and sticking them in your eyes.  They had to fly out an optometrist from three hours away on the first day because they couldn't get 'em out.  And they were like, 'What the--?'  And at the end of that, I had to go to the hospital.  They were like, 'We should take you to the hospital.'  I was like, 'Why?  What are you--?'  'Because there's a little scratch, we have to make sure everything's okay, we have to go to the hospital.'  It was a grueling experience having to wear those contacts.  Because as an actor, you rely so heavily on your eyes.  Your eyes are a great sort of resource for communication of thoughts and emotion, and you're stripped of that, you have to use other things you haven't used before.  You develop mannerisms, and you really rely on creating that inner emotion and hoping that comes through.  And the contacts did that, the goggles did that.  I think a large decision was made in creating this character in terms of the process and that was to rely on not showing his emotion and hoping that somehow showed his emotions, that that would somehow give you an idea of what's going on."

    Q:  You campaigned pretty hard to get the lead role in Iron Giant.  It was a great film, it was praised by critics, and people stayed away in droves.  What's your opinion on why Warner Brothers seemed to just fall flat on their face with this?

    A:  "You know what?  Warner Brothers had The Quest for Camelot come out right before that...probably not that successful.  [They were] very intimidated by Walt Disney.  There's a certain way that you market these animation films, it's so specific.  You can't just put out an animation film.  We as the public are accustomed to seeing an animated film come out or promoted to us in a certain way: tie-ins at McDonald's and Burger King and Pepsi.  This didn't have any of that, primarily because they didn't know the release date and they didn't know what they had.  They were producing this film and these films, you know, take a very long time.  It's not like they started the film six months ago, and within that six months, you know, we're committed to opening the film.  We started the film four years ago and we're already committed to opening the film.  Quest for Camelot comes out, they are discouraged and they stop supporting the release of [Iron Giant] before they even see the film.  They see the film, the critics see the film, everyone loves this film--I mean, of all the films [Warner Brothers has] done...people love The Iron Giant, there's not one person that said they hated The Iron Giant.  [Warner Brothers] sees the film and by that time it's too late.  The way in which it's going to be distributed is already set in motion.  And I think Warner Brothers was, you know, slightly embarrassed by the whole thing.  And then, you know, did their best to make up for it on the video end of it, the DVD end.  It's unfortunate because, you know, it's a good film. South Park and all those films are great but this is a really, really good film.  And it's a film that you hear how grateful people are, parents are that it was made.  It speaks to us and it speaks to children in a very positive way, all the messages are very positive without being didactic, without hitting you over the head with morality.  It's a really, really great film.  When I was done, and when my mother went to see the film.  I flew my mother out for my birthday in London, where I was the man of honor.  Twelve people around the room, you know, Steven [Spielberg] and Kate Capshaw and Tom [Hanks] and Rita Wilson and that's what we had...[my mother's] been exposed to some really...you know, Tom Hanks creates these invites that say 'Happy Birthday, Vin Diesel from Tom and Rita' and this whole thing...she's been exposed to some pretty fantastic [things].  She said, 'If you never do anything again, your involvement, whatever you did, no matter so small, whatever you did in The Iron Giant, will always make me proud of you.'  That's...that's a huge, a big thing, a huge accolade."

    Q:  So what role would make your life complete?  What do you really want to play?

    A:  "I wanted to play Aragorn, son of Arathorn.  'If by life or death, I can save I will...'  AH.  God, I GOT BURNED ON THAT ONE.  THEY...SHALL...PAY.  Ideal role, that's a good question.  Cause I've been thinking of that myself.  I hate to cop out like this, but I've been looking and thinking about it...do you know any ideal roles?  Help me!  Conan would be fine.  I love that sci-fi stuff.  You know, I've done the process, the dramatic stuff all my life.  And I love it all to death.  There are roles that I would love to play, but I don't think...but films that I don't think should be remade.  I'd love to play a Terry Malloy-like character...On the Waterfront.  I'd love to play...I love films like Gone With the Wind, I'd love a...modern-day something like that.  I wouldn't mind playing Darth Vader.  I'd like to play Darth Vader, lots of people are pointing out the fact that Darth Vader has to have this voice.  [deep gravely voice]  HEY.  That's a no-brainer.  [But] Aragorn is the role.  Did you ever read a writer called Michael Moorcock?  I'd love to play in another [of his] series, The Chronicles of Corum."

    Q:  You've been a producer, writer, actor, director--which occupation do you like best?

    A:  "Acting for me is probably more therapeutic.  I probably act--I've been an actor since I was seven years old.  It wasn't like being a childhood actor [like] you're so familiar with.  I wasn't TV movies or even commercials.  A group of friends and I were terrorizing the neighborhood in the Village in New York City on our bikes.  There was this seedy hotel called The James Street Hotel [and] at the bottom of the hotel is a theater.  We go into the theater, we start terrorizing the place, vandalizing the props.  Woman comes out of the darkness into the spotlight and summons us--we're nervous.  She shoves a script in our faces and says, 'If you want to play here, be here everyday at four pm.'  That was the first time I was ever able to make an audience laugh without being sent to the Dean's office.  And you know, throughout my childhood, I always developed the craft--working off-off-off-Broadway plays.  The plays were always a luxury, but I was so far removed from Hollywood.

    "I remember being eighteen and saying to myself, 'If I don't make it by the time I'm twenty-one, I'm getting out of the business.'  Al Pacino says there are overnight successes--ten years in the making.  Closer to twenty...that's always the crazy, wonderful thing about acting or being the film business...the problem with being in anything is you work really hard, you plug away, plug away and plug away and plug away and all of a sudden...the second it happens...you're so overwhelmed by it happening--you forget about the twenty years of plugging away.  It just hits you like a ton of bricks and then you're there and you forget about all the years, especially if you never resented the years.  Especially if you were always in motion.  I used to talk to other people and they'd say, 'Enjoy the process.'  Anyway, so that was my mentality: 'If I don't blow up by the time I'm twenty-one, I'm getting out of the business.'  Me as an eighteen-year-old.

    "I became an English major at Hunter College, writing concentration.  The reason being...if the right role wasn't going to expose itself to me, if any film role wasn't going to expose itself to me, I was going to make sure that I could at least create one.  This was the beginning, in my college years, that was the beginning of me looking at this whole business in a way that would call for a more proactive approach.  Acting's different than, you know,  music, being an artist, a painter, a sculptor.  You can't just really create on your own.  You're at the mercy of others to perform, to, you know, do your art.  That was the idea, I was trying to come up with a way that I could write my own...to be that much more proactive.  So I write these samples, and I go out to L.A., I come out to California.  I'm about twenty-two, I go out there like a bigshot.  'I'm going to really tear this town down, I'm a New York actor, got tons of New York credit.  They won't know what hit 'em.'  I get out to L.A., two weeks later I realize I'm still ten thousand dollars in debt and I gotta get a job.  Anyway, I get a job telemarketing which kinda somehow later affects my life.  I start telemarketing and I start getting really good, one of the few things I'm really good at.  And I, you know, I win these awards, and after six months I'm making tons of money--I quit.  Too comfortable.  I go back to New York with my tail between in my legs.  A FAILURE.  But all that time I was developing the writing at night secretly.  I come back to New York.

    "My mother gives me this book called Feature [Filmmaking] at Used Car Prices.  Make your film for eleven thousand dollars or less.  By a guy named Rick Schmidt.  Don't know how practical it is, how technical and how accurate it is.  But what it is...is empowering.  It empowered me.  Now it's very interesting, all my life up until that point, I made money somewhat but I wasn't a moneymaker...until I went out to L.A.  When I went out to L.A. to be this huge actor, I failed but somehow was exposed to how easy it was to make money.  I learned how easy it was to make money.  Took that knowledge with me back to New York, and then all of sudden my mom out of nowhere gives me a book, you know, I've been getting all these presents and stuff...she gives me this stupid little insignificant book, like 'Why did you give me this book?  How did you even know I was thinking of this?'  And I can't stop reading this book, back and forth, back and forth.  And what it said is, 'You can, especially you, Vin, who is an artist, who comes from an artist household, who comes from an environment where people do art for the sake of art, you can now create your art.  It's just a matter of a couple of bucks.  You can scrounge together eleven thousand dollars.  He super-empowered me.  I start my new script, I start writing Strays.  A year goes by, I don't get it made, you know, I've done some casting and stuff but I'm not able to get it going.  A lot of successful people will say, if you can't do anything, or all, do what you can.  Standard rule of all types of successful people.  So I did what I could, a short film.  And so many people came up to me and said, 'Don't do the short one...it's not as lucrative, get a little more money, do your feature film.'  I did the short film, in five days I wrote a film about identity.

    "So I do this film about identity called Multi-facial.  I go to Cannes with it, the pinnacle, the apex of my career, the turning point.  After that, there's Life Before the Film and there's Life After the Film.  I go to Cannes, then I come back out to L.A.  I get back on the phone--and it's still not easy--I get back on the phone with a buddy of mine...and I earn forty-seven thousand dollars on the phone in eight months.  We go to New York and we go into production on Strays.  Six months later or so, it gets accepted into the dramatic competition for Sundance out of a thousand films.  That acceptance gets us the money we need to [go into] post-production.  So now we're at Sundance with this film.  At Sundance, I met Ted Fields.  Ted Fields is the executive producer of Pitch Black and the executive producer for Doormen.  Doormen actually being the first thing we met on, he wanted me to do a film about nightlife, specifically my years as a bouncer.  So I was actually writing Doormen at night in London while I was shooting Saving Private Ryan.  Steven Spielberg got the days and I was moonlighting at night."

    [At this point, we were told to wrap it up--which sucks, because I was enjoying the story myself.]

    "I love acting.  Acting is much more therapeutic, I love acting, I will always act.  Directing is an opportunity to make a statement, a statement that I create--that's what directing is about.  Telling a story."

    Q:  You've done the supporting acting deal and now you've moved up to leading man.  How's it feel?  Feel okay so far?

    A:  "It's great.  Shit yeah, it is good, boy I wish I could try to explain this one.  I'm happier than a cat on a hot tin roof, I'm happier than a pig covered in...It's wonderful.  That's what I came into the film business to do.  There's a lot of actors who say they came into the film business to do character roles and stuff like that.  No.  You can see by the films I directed what I want to do.  My idols are the Mel Gibson's, the guys who have leading roles.  That's when you have the power to create.  Had I had that Mel Gibson-like power, I would be the one doing Lord of the Rings, not Peter Jackson.  My point being is my dream always in life was to do my own variation of Lord of the Rings.  Had I had that box office appeal, the kind of appeal that allows a guy to go make a film about a Scottish folk hero, run around scream with a skirt for three hours, you know, and get it made and make it brilliantly.  If I had that--so.  I love the transition, I'm very very grateful.  It adds a lot of responsibility.  In making that transition, [you] better marketing, [you] better understand the more business aspect of filmmaking because it is that much more present.  The pressure's on."

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