Vin Diesel Talks D & D

from SciFi Wire [May 26, 2004]

Vin Diesel, who reprises his most famous role in the upcoming SF epic film The Chronicles of Riddick, told SCI FI Wire that he personally lobbied to get Judi Dench to take a role in the movie, an unorthodox choice for her. "I flew out to London and I saw a stage performance that she did with another lovely actress named Maggie Smith," Diesel said in an interview. "And I started courting her. Just begged and pleaded and said, 'You know, this character was written for you, and you are this character. This is how we want to play.' And she was so into it."

Diesel, a fan of Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy stories, found a kindred spirit in the esteemed British actress. "In Vancouver [where Riddick was shot], we would have dinner together and, like two kids playing in this whole universe, [we'd] talk about different [things]," Diesel said. "I mean, she's just remarkable. No one would ever expect that [she] and I would have a conversation that is so fantasy-based. A conversation you might have had with a friend after watching Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, you know what I mean? ... Really, really, really cool."

Diesel, who also acts as a producer on Riddick, said that he went so far as to make the casting of Dench as the "air elemental" Aeron a top priority. "I mean, ... I couldn't imagine anyone [else] being [cast] until Judi Dench was," he said. "I kind of made that a point. It was very, very important to me to have Judi Dench play the role of Aeron." He added, "She is a fan of [SF&F]. ... I mean, she hasn't spent her life playing Dungeons & Dragons, but you know, theater is, at the core, mythology-based. We can go through the numerous Shakespeare [plays]. ... It just goes on forever, the mythological references thematically in many of the plays and stuff that she's been doing forever."

Diesel added that his only regret was that he wasn't able to get Dench involved in a game of his beloved D&D. "Like I said, she doesn't play Dungeons & Dragons, and she doesn't necessarily play video games. But she's intrigued." Did he try to get her to play? "Almost," he said. "If it was up to me, I would have." The Chronicles of Riddick, the follow-up movie to Pitch Black, opens June 11.


from USA Weekend [June 7, 2004]

The world is full of people who spent chunks of their childhoods playing Dungeons & Dragons, but hardly any played quite as cool a version as Vin Diesel did. The son of a theatre director, Diesel grew up in a Manhattan housing development reserved for actors, dancers and others in the arts. "The way we played was very theatrical," he says. "When we had maps, the maps were pieces of art, and when the [P]layers had to do something, they performed it. I was Melkor." Diesel jumps up and announces the name in a voice so deep it could jiggle bedrock. "When an arrow flew past your head in our game, it flew past your head!"

An imagination trained on D&D is on full display next weekend in the sci-fi extravaganza The Chronicles of Riddick.


from Dark Horizons [June 8, 2004]

Diesel is that rare breed of Hollywood star, one that tries not to take himself too seriously as a star, but as an actor, well that is a horse of an entirely different colour. This is a man who was brought up on a world of fantasy, and, like a grown-up child, sparkles at the very mention of one of his primary influences: Dungeons and Dragons. Or perhaps, one questions, it was just a rumour that Dungeons has spoken to the child within for some two decades. He rolls back on his chair and merely smiles. "I never play D&D," he begins with mock seriousness. "For some reason, they thought that I played D&D for 20 years. They thought that I spent years playing Barbarians, Witchunters the Arcanum. They thought I still played D&D back in the '70s when it's just the basic D&D set. They thought I continued to play D&D when it became Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. They thought I played D&D when there were only three books - the Player's Handbook, and the DM's Guide. They thought I played D&D as it continued onto the Unearthed Arcanum, Oriental Adventures, Sea Adventures, and Wilderness Adventures. They thought I played D&D at the time when Deities and Demigods was the brand new book. They thought I played D&D when I used to get up to a place called The Complete Strategist in New York." We get the point as he smilingly mouths: I'm into D&D a lot. "It was a training ground for a lot of my adventures."