Vin Diesel (born July 18, 1967) is an American actor, writer, director and producer. He was then cast in Steven Spielberg's 1998 Oscar-winning film Saving Private Ryan on the poignancy of his performance in Multi-Facial. He earned critical acclaim for voice work as the title character in the animation film The Iron Giant (1999). He followed it up with a major role in Boiler Room (2000) and then got his breakthrough role as the anti-hero Riddick in Pitch Black (2000). He attained action hero super stardom with the box office hits The Fast and the Furious (2001) and xXx (2002).

He founded the production companies One Race Films, Tigon Studios, and Racetrack Records.Diesel has played Dungeons & Dragons for over twenty years and wrote the foreword for the commemorative book 30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons. In the 30th Anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons issue of Dragon Magazine, they examine the fact that Diesel played Dungeons & Dragons, and reveal that he had a fake tattoo of his character's name, "Melkor," on his stomach while filming xXx. Vin Diesel has a daughter, Hania Riley, born April 2, 2008, with his girlfriend, model Paloma Jimenez. Speaking to An tEolas, an Irish newspaper, Diesel spoke of how he has been seen as a hard man, but is in touch with his soft side as a proud father.