Last weekend John Travolta may have been super cool, but it was Vin Diesel who was hotter than hot.
With a whopping $30 million US three-day gross, Diesel's family comedy The Pacifier easily trounced Travolta's Be Cool, which took in just over $23 million.
Last year, Diesel left industry insiders in states of shock and disbelief when he passed on the sequel to his 2002 action blockbuster XXX in favour of The Pacifier, in which he plays a Navy S.E.A.L. assigned to babysit a slain scientist's children.
"I don't want to say anything disparaging about the XXX sequel, but it needed to be even rougher than the first one and that's not the way it was reading for me," says Diesel.
That's just part of the reason he opted for The Pacifier and not the most important one.
"I have nieces and nephews and god-children. Whatever I am to the public, I'm much more to those children. I'm Uncle Vin and I've never done a family film," he explains.
"When I was their age, I would go to movies with my family and it was such a big experience when I was a kid. I wanted to make a film my nieces, nephews and god-children could see with their families."
According to the man who has built his reputation as much on the size of his biceps as the versatility of his acting chops, Disney's The Pacifier was a perfect cross-over vehicle.
"The Pacifier plays on people's preconceptions of me and the films that made me a box-office star. I could use The Pacifier to turn that image on its ear."
Doing a slapstick comedy in which he has to ward off an attack duck, change diapers and teach karate to a girl guide troupe proved much easier than Diesel imagined.
"The whole experience was extremely fun and lighthearted. I'm used to playing roles that require me to be very deep and introspective.
"It's harder for me to break out of those emotional places than it was to stop being the babysitter."
Immediately after finishing The Pacifier, Diesel went to work for Sidney Lumet on the courtroom thriller Find Me Guilty, in which he plays a convicted lawyer who gets to fight his own appeal.
By his own admission, Diesel hadn't quite left his Pacifier character behind.
"When I was waiting for the crew to set up a shot I'd be on the sidelines rocking back and forth ...
"I realized that's what I had to do when we were setting up shots for The Pacifier. I had the babies on my back and I was rocking them so they wouldn't cry."
Diesel knows with The Pacifier he's inheriting the mantle of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, who took on comedy roles to try to change their macho action star images.
"It's extremely flattering for the knucklehead guy from New York to be compared to these action stars we all grew up with.
"Arnold and Sly are the guys who defined and helped create the blockbuster. That's really cool, but it's also not who I am.
"I didn't leave New York for Los Angeles with the idea of becoming an action star. I wanted to be a serious dramatic actor, which is what I was in New York back in 1995 when I made the decision to move to L.A."
Diesel recalls he got a rude awakening when he first tried to break into film in Hollywood.
"There was absolutely no support for me in L.A. that first time I came out. I was this cocky New York stage actor who couldn't get an agent, let alone into any auditions.
"I had to go back to New York with my tail between my legs, and at age 25 that really stings."
Diesel says it's those difficult times that help keep him grounded.
"I didn't make enough money to qualify for health benefits until I was 30.
"For the first month and a half of filming Saving Private Ryan my health insurance was paid for by the Writers Guild not the Actors Guild because I'd written the movie Multi-Facial.
"If I didn't have writing credits I could never have been allowed on the set of Saving Private Ryan because of all the explosions and rugged action the film required."
Diesel has not signed onto a new project in hopes he can get a studio to back his pet project on Hannibal Barca.
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