Vin Diesel changed the path of his career for a man named Richard B. Riddick.

In 2001 and 2002, Diesel had back-to-back box-office hits with The Fast and the Furious and XXX.

It seemed like a dream come true.

The New York actor had struggled for seven years to build a film career and suddenly studios were begging him to do sequels to both The Fast and the Furious and XXX.

Diesel turned both projects down in favour of reviving his character from the 2000 sci-fi feature, Pitch Black.

While 2 Fast 2 Furious was rushed into production and XXX2: State of the Union was reimagined without him, Diesel worked with David Twohy, who had written and directed Pitch Black, on The Chronicles of Riddick.

Diesel chose to inhabit the dark soul of Riddick instead of car enthusiast Dominic Toretto or thrill-seeking special agent Xander Cage.

According to Diesel, there were no sleepless nights, no daytime angst.

Riddick won out over Toretto and Cage because "Riddick is the coolest (expletive deleted) hero I've ever come across. He's not just an anti-hero; he's the quintessential anti-hero."

Diesel says Riddick is "a guy who embraces indifference. He doesn't care what anyone thinks about him and he wants to be left alone."

Wait a minute.

Is Diesel describing himself or the futuristic villain-turned-saviour he plays in The Chronicles of Riddick, which opens tomorrow.

"I definitely relate to his defiance. I have a problem with authority. That's no secret," admits Diesel, referring to his numerous battles with directors, producers, writers and studio heads.

In 1999, he had a highly publicized dispute with director John Frankenheimer just weeks into the filming of the Ben Affleck thriller Reindeer Games.

Diesel insisted on rewriting much of his dialogue, routinely criticized Ehren Kruger's screenplay and eventually left the project.

He has managed to keep his private life an enigma, especially his relationships.

He never attends the premieres of his films with anyone.

"If it were up to me, no one would even see me at the premieres of my films. I'd like to enter the theatre unnoticed because I want people to buy into the characters I play as much as possible.

"I don't want to drag along any of my personal stuff and cloud people's minds before they sit down and get into the film."

It's his recent history Diesel refuses to discuss.

He will talk about what he calls his ancient history.

Diesel, 36, was raised in New York's Greenwich Village. His mother was a psychiatrist and his adoptive father a theatre director.

"I started acting when I was seven.

"It took me 20 years to understand that if I was going to make my dreams a reality, I had to take the reins."

For Diesel, that meant writing and directing a highly personal short film called Multi-Facial.

On the strength of that film, Steven Spielberg cast Diesel in Saving Private Ryan, which lead to Boiler Room and Pitch Black.

"By choosing The Chronicles of Riddick over some of the other projects I was offered, I was doing the same thing. I was taking control of my career."

Part of the thrill for Diesel in making The Chronicles of Riddick was "not just creating a movie, but creating a universe. I was able to do this movie from nothing.

"I'm producing. I fed ideas into the screenplay and the designs. I chose the cast.

"No matter what happens (at the box office) with this movie, I've already won."

Diesel also helped create the videogame The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury.

"In this game, we've added 25 minutes of story so people can see what Riddick has been doing on the snow-covered UV planet for the past five years.

"You get to witness the point in his life where his eyes are transformed and how that happens."

Though he is excited about tomorrow's release of The Chronicles of Riddick, Diesel is even more pumped about the DVD, which is in pre-production.

"Thank heavens for DVD. The theatrical release is dictated by so many elements. If it had been up to me, Chronicles would be a four-hour movie.

"So much of that will be on the DVD."

Diesel is also confident there will be a Chronicles 2 and Chronicles 3 and insists such speculation is not idle chatter.

"I have been talking about The Chronicles of Riddick in every interview I did the past five years.

"I was talking to critics about Chronicles long before I talked to Universal Studios about it and I've always said I conceived them as a trilogy."

Diesel is currently in Toronto filming the comedy The Pacifier and is talking up another of his pet projects, Hannibal, in which he will play the third-century Carthaginian warrior who led an army on elephants across the Alps to wage war on the Roman Empire.


More Artists