HOLLYWOOD -- Vin Diesel has always thought of himself as "multifacial.''

He's ecstatic that Hollywood views him the same way.

In Saving Private Ryan, the young actor played an Italian-American soldier. In the science-fiction thriller, Pitch Black, that opens Friday, his character is African-American and in the commodities drama, Boiler Room, also opening next Friday, the ethnicity of Diesel's character is never discussed.

In the upcoming contemporary drama, Knockaround Guys, he plays a Jewish gangster.

"I am truly multiracial,'' declared Diesel, who created the award-winning short film Multi-Racial to explain his dilemma, in a recent interview. "I never knew my biological father. I've always had less information that I would have liked to have had. All I know from my mother is that I have connections to many different cultures. That film is my tribute to my background.

"The man who raised me is black. Culturally he made me who I am. He was a theatre director so he also guided me artistically."

"When people view me they don't necessarily see a black man. For that reason a film like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner or Driving Miss Daisy could never work with me in it."

This ambiguity was a source of great frustration for Diesel when he was growing up, but not any longer.

"My drawback is now my biggest selling feature. Since Private Ryan, I've been feeling some heat around me as an actor and acting is the one time I am sure about my identity.

"It's very therapeutic because it's there on paper who I am."

In Boiler Room, Diesel is a hot-shot commodities broker in New York who is willing to sell phoney stocks but not his soul. In Pitch Black, he's Riddick, a condemned murderer who has a chance to redeem himself when a spacecraft crashes on a deserted planet.

The survivors discover that the planet was once colonized but the inhabitants vanished mysteriously. When the planet is plunged into a total eclipse, Diesel and his motley band discover the horrifying truth of that other fateful black night.

Pitch Black was filmed last year in a remote mining town in the Australian Outback.

"During the summer months it is so hot in that town that people couldn't possibly live in regular houses. All the homes are built into the mountains, as was our hotel."

Diesel said the rooms had literally been scooped out with a steam shovel. "It looked like some prehistoric beast had clawed the walls and to make it even eerier they were painted red. It certainly helped keep me in character during the night."

The mining town became available for Pitch Black because the film company agreed to shoot during the winter months when the mine closes.

"As hot as it is in the summer, is how cold it becomes in the winter months. All the crew members were wearing these big insulated parkas and there I was in my tank top. Worse still, they had to continuously spray me with water to simulate sweat. Being ornery on camera came very natural very quickly."

Because Riddick had his eyes polished and lasered in his futuristic prison, Diesel had to wear special contact lenses that give off a metallic glow.

"At the end of our first 14-hour shooting day, we discovered that the lenses had bonded to my eyes. They had to fly an ophthalmologist in from a city three hours away to remove them.

"After that I took them out at regular intervals."

Diesel never personally worked in a secretive boiler room but he met people who did.

For nine years, Diesel worked as a bouncer.

"I could work by night and audition and study acting by day. I met lots of guys who worked in those illegal chop shop boiler rooms all over New York.

"They made tons of money but were always broke because they spent it all on the latest toys, women and parties."

Diesel is currently working on a screenplay about his years as a bouncer called Doorman.

Last year, Diesel was heard but not seen as the voice of the extraterrestrial metal man in the animated feature The Iron Giant.

"I had a stint working as a telemarketer selling screwdrivers.

"I would try different voices and attitudes with different potential customers. It paid off when I auditioned for The Iron Giant."


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