Born Mark Vincent on 18th July 1967, acting hunk Vin Diesel wrote, directed and starred in Multi-Facial and Strays and made his name at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. Steven Spielberg took notice and cast him in Saving Private Ryan (1998, with Tom Hanks), and the following year Diesel was the voice of The Iron Giant. He also appeared in the sci-fi thriller Pitch Black (2000) and in The Boiler Room (2000, with Ben Affleck). In 2001 he starred with Paul Walker in the car-chase summer flick The Fast and the Furious, with Diesel as the charismatic leader of a gang of car thieves. The next year Diesel established himself as a big-screen action hero in XXX, a secret-agent flick that co-starred Samuel L. Jackson. Diesel's other films include A Man Apart (2003), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), The Pacifier (2005) and Find Me Guilty (2006).