Posted 10:49 AM by Blah blah

P.S. Things you probably don't know about Vin Diesel, the new action star of Hollywood in XXX:

1. He was bad at writing before. Then he became an English major at Hunter College (creative writing).
2. He was in a journalism class, writing a mock obituary of himself, when he realized he was heading in the wrong direction and needed to write his own stuff to get noticed.
3. He wrote, directed, produced, and financed two films, Multi-Facial and Strays, both of which were selected by major film festivals (Cannes for the first and Sundance for the second).
4. With lack of success in finding jobs in LA, he took a job as a telemarketer for a year and pooled some of this money with a buddy's money to raise about $47,000 to help make his film.
5. His big break came when Steven Spielberg called Diesel's agent, saying he had seen Multi-Facial at Cannes and liked it! That he was thinking of writing a role in Saving Private Ryan just for Diesel!
6. Although he focused purely on the craft of acting for several years, he did not start to get successful until he decided to learn about the BUSINESS side of the industry.

He is definitely no dummy. I discovered all these facts when I saw his interview on Charlie Rose last night, and he said that for years he has admired and followed those late night "cerebral" conversations on Rose's TV show. Both he and I are big fans! (I wrote about Charlie here.)

Did you know that when Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote Good Will Hunting, they wrote in a meaty psychiatrist role specifically to attract a big-name actor like Robin Williams to their project? This helped their movie get more publicity and funding. With only themselves as the main characters, it would have been harder to attract attention. That's an example of the business sense that works in Hollywood.