Vin Diesel, jaw clenched and brow knitted, was pacing the commissary patio of NBC's Burbank studios in a state of coiled discontent. He had taken issue with a notion about him that has been floating around Hollywood for the last few years. Namely, that the actor's ego is even more outsized and buffed up than his muscle-bound physique. And that Diesel had turned his back on sequels to "The Fast and the Furious" -- the cinematic thrill ride that made him a household name -- out of some overly inflated sense of self.
"If somebody wanted to say my ego prevented the second one from being a real sequel, that's cool," said Diesel, wearing wrap-around sunglasses and a T-shirt that emphasized his grapefruit-sized biceps. "I turned down $25 million for my ego? If my ego is healthy enough to say, 'I'm not going to do a . . . rehash of the same film just because you want me to do it quickly' " -- he slapped his palm with the back of his hand impatiently -- "that's my ego! My ego is that big!"
In 2001, the chrome-domed actor cruised onto the A-list as the star of "The Fast and the Furious," which followed a multiculti band of Angeleno street racers (and the women who love them). The movie was a surprise hit and surpassed all expectations, grossing $207 million worldwide. But then, Diesel declined to re-up for its sequel "2 Fast 2 Furious" (2003) and seemingly bailed on the franchise except for an unpublicized cameo in 2006's "The Fast and Furious 3: Tokyo Drift." The intervening films found some success at the box office, but no true sequel reuniting all of the original cast members (Jordana Brewster, Paul Walker and Michelle Rodriguez) has reached the screen until now, with Diesel headlining the economically titled fourth installment, "Fast & Furious," which reaches theaters tomorrow.
Diesel had just appeared on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," but the actor -- who broke character type by working with director Sidney Lumet on 2006's modestly budgeted "Find Me Guilty" -- was only getting started on the E-word.
"If someone defines my ego as being the last arbiter on quality on a script, then so be it. My ego is so big that I'm going to say, 'Whoa, kemosabe!' My ego is big enough that I'm going to say: 'Not interested. I'd rather not have this wonderful opportunity. I'd rather not have the money and work for free with Sidney Lumet.' Because of my damn ego."
--
Toretto's back
And yet here is Diesel reprising his role of Dominic Toretto -- a wheelman with a heavy right foot and antifreeze in his veins -- whose motto in the first "Fast" film is: "I live my life one quarter mile at a time." In "Fast & Furious" his character, now an international fugitive, returns to Los Angeles after being wronged by a ruthless drug cartel. Abetted by the undercover cop (Walker) who nearly brought him down in "The Fast and the Furious," Toretto infiltrates a cadre of drug runners -- who race the product in from Mexico in the trunks of souped-up hot rods -- in order to exact his revenge on their kingpin.
The actor says his decision to pass on the second "Fast" film -- not to mention turning down "xXx2," the sequel to his 2002 hit "xXx" -- was dictated by the quality of the material as well as a fear of getting stuck in a certain character type.
"I always get afraid of being pigeonholed," Diesel said. "Which is why it takes me so long to return to characters. Probably longer than most people would like. But the real reason why I didn't return to the characters is the scripts hadn't been right. The characters haven't been right. It's not like I ever said I wouldn't be there."
To wit: When the director of "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," Justin Lin, approached Diesel about making a cameo appearance in that film, the actor ignored his representatives' advice. "All my reps, including my agent, said, 'Don't do it,' " Diesel recalled. "They felt it could be me misleading the audience and was too risky. They said, 'You could run the risk of having your audience feel you were part of a bait-and-switch.' "
Ultimately, however, that cameo brought him back into the fold. It opened negotiations that led to Universal, the studio distributing "Fast & Furious," making Diesel an offer he couldn't refuse. "We started talking to him about developing a Dominic Toretto movie," said Neil Moritz, who produced all four "Fast and the Furious" movies. "We were calling it 'Toretto.' It wasn't going to bring the whole cast back. But that was the jumping-off point for the new movie."
