Vin Diesel

A native of New York City, Vin Diesel has become one of Hollywood's most sought-after film stars. In addition to his huge box-office success, Diesel is a prominent producer and filmmaker. Most recently, he headlined and produced the upcoming third chapter in The Chronicles of Riddick franchise titled Riddick. Diesel was seen in Fast Five, the fifth installment of the blockbuster The Fast and the Furious series, as well as Fast & Furious. He wore multiple hats on both projects as he reprised his role as Dominic Toretto and produced the films, along with Neal H. Moritz. He also wrote and directed the original short film Los Bandoleros. The short, which was showcased on the Fast &Furious DVD, tells the intriguing backstory of the characters and events leading up to the explosive oil-truck heist in the film. Another endeavor in Diesel's entrepreneurial rise was the creation of his successful video game company, Tigon Studios, which created and produced 2004's top-selling Xbox game, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay.

Diesel previously starred alongside Michelle Yeoh in 20th Century Fox's Babylon A.D., for director Mathieu Kassovitz. In this thriller, Diesel played a veteran-turned-mercenary who takes the high-risk job of escorting a woman from Russia to China. He is unaware that she is carrying an organism that a cult wants to harvest to produce a genetically modified messiah. Diesel was also seen in the courtroom drama Find Me Guilty, directed by renowned filmmaker Sidney Lumet. Set in the '80s, the film documents the famous three-year trial of 20 members of a mob family. Diesel earned critical acclaim for his portrayal of Jackie DiNorscio, the one mobster who chose to forgo his rights to an attorney and defended himself. To play this role, Diesel transformed himself into the 47-year-old Italian mobster by putting on 20 pounds.

Diesel starred in his first comedy feature for Disney, The Pacifier, opposite Faith Ford, Brad Garrett, Lauren Graham and Brittany Snow. The 2005 film, directed by Adam Shankman, followed an undercover agent who, after failing to protect an important government scientist, learns that the scientist's family is in danger. In an effort to redeem himself, he agrees to take care of the man's children—only to discover that child care is his toughest mission yet. The Pacifier was a huge box-office success. In the highly-anticipated science-fiction feature The Chronicles of Riddick, Diesel reprised the title role of Richard B. Riddick. Produced by One Race Films, it was the follow-up to the cult favorite Pitch Black. Diesel previously starred in the action-thriller A Man Apart, which he also produced.

Topping Diesel's list of credits is his star turn in 2001's The Fast and the Furious, for which he won an MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Team, along with co-star Paul Walker, and was nominated for Best Male Performance. He starred in the blockbuster XXX, which he also executive produced. Diesel appeared in Saving Private Ryan, for which he was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the film's ensemble cast. His other credits include roles in Boiler Room and Knockaround Guys, and, he voiced the title character in The Iron Giant, which won an Annie Award for Best Animated Feature.

Diesel wrote, produced, directed and starred in the independent short Multi-Facial, which explored the issue of being multiracial in today's society. The film follows Diesel, whose biological mother is Caucasian and biological father is African-American, on several auditions in which he is told he is either "too black" or "too white" for the part. It was after seeing this short at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival that director Steven Spielberg created the role of Private Adrian Caparzo in Saving Private Ryan specifically for Diesel. Diesel wrote, produced, directed and starred in the full-length feature Strays, which he described as a "multicultural Saturday Night Fever." The drama was selected to compete at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival.

Universal Pictures