Vin Diesel: I’m an ‘old-school Hollywood guy’
Vin Diesel is an "old-school Hollywood guy".
The ‘xXx: Return of Xander Cage’ star has likened himself to Harrison Ford and George Clooney because he is keen to keep an air of mystery about himself despite the "social media age" we live in.
He said: "It’s a social media age and I want to be smart about connecting with my fans, my people. But the truth is I’m an old-school Hollywood guy – like Harrison Ford or George Clooney or even (Marlon) Brando – who doesn’t want my private life out there in certain ways. I think it’s better when people go to see my movies and that there’s some sense of mystery about who I am. Maybe there’s a contradiction there – I’m still figuring it out."
And the 49-year-old actor – who has Hania, eight, Vincent, six, and 20-month-old Pauline with his partner Paloma Jiménez – also opened up about how he feels his former job as a bouncer affected his first foray into acting.
He added to Men’s Health magazine: "It just didn’t happen that first time, and that difficulty helped shape me, too.
"Back then, I think I was trying to overcompensate for being so big and for having this darkness from being a bouncer – things that were probably getting in the way of me making it as an actor at the time – and I think that pushed me toward writing and directing."
Meanwhile, Vin previously revealed it was his late friend Paul Walker who inspired him to have children.
He said: "He must’ve been God-sent because he put me on the right path. He set me up. And when we did the first ‘Fast & Furious’, I was already 30 years old or something, but he was a father.
"When we were in the cars in between takes, he would tell me, ‘Hey, Vin, it’s not a scary thing to become a father’ [and] give me all the good advice. Next thing I know, I am a dad … [He] is why I named my daughter Pauline because of the credit that Paul Walker deserves in my personal life."
