Celebrity Poker: Vin Diesel

Vin Diesel has the obvious attributes that make women weak in the knees. With his box office movies, a great body, a manly voice and a poker shark! Celebrity poker player VinDiesel was once spotted at the 2nd Annual Dewar's 12 Texas Hold 'em Poker Tournament will be held in a prime, beachfront property located on the private island of Indian Creek Village, Florida. The upscale gathering will be about more than just poker, however; the night will also include a fashion show and jewelry exhibition. 

 

And to give the night an added Vegas feel, the poker party will have its fair share of showgirls and dancers. Ther proof of this is in the list of heavyweight names slated to attend A-Rod's forthcoming charity poker tournament, which will benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Miami. Among the over 300 players expected to compete in the tournament are Michael Jordan, Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, Lenny Kravitz, Vin Diesel, Gary Sheffield and, of course, Alex Rodriguez. Poker pro Phil Hellmuth will also be on hand to show the stars and other guests how the game is really played. 

 

About Vin Diesel: Vin Diesel's list of credits is still relatively short, but that is only due to the fact that he got his big break in acting well into his thirties. However, the very nature of his movies and the wide young audiences they attract, have caused him to have a huge following internationally. He is in fact more famous than his work justifies. At least movie studios have caught on to that little piece of information. He got $10 million to star in XXX, a comedy action movie The Pacifier,a sort of spy movie, after The Fast &; The Furious garnered $145 million in US domestic sales at a modest $38 million production budget. 

 

Before his name skyrocketed in the Hollywood scene, Vin Diesel's acting career occurred when he was 7. He and his friends had broken into a local theater, and rather than getting caught and reprimanded for trespassing, Vin Diesel and his buds were handed scripts and were offered $20 dollars per week, on the condition that they show up after school every day. This served as his first "real" paying job. 
 

However, his road to success wasn't paved with good luck and fortune. The closest he came to acting professionally was in a Theatre of the New City production, in addition to several very off Broadway plays. Vin Diesel had to take on jobs such as bouncer at several exclusive New York City nightclubs in order to finance his film dreams. He had taken matters into his own hands when he left Hunter College in New York in the midst of studying for an English degree, in order to get an earlier start in filmmaking.

When his mother brought home the book Feature Films at Used Car Prices in order to encourage Vin Diesel, it pushed him to take control of his destiny and create his own movies in which to star. He did, and his filmmaking, writing, producing, and starring role in the film short Multi-Facial (based on his experiences of trying to make it as an actor) screened at Cannes Film Festival in 1995. It received positive reviews, and the extremely low-budget film -- at a cost of $3,000 in a total of three days of shooting -- led to bigger things. 

 

Despite the lackluster success of his next independent feature, Strays, which was a Sundance entry in 1997, his performance in Multi-Facial was noticed by a certain important person in Hollywood. A well-known director and producer Steven Spielberg caught his performance in Mutli-Facial and created the role of Private 1st Class Adrian Caparzo in Saving Private Ryan for Vin Diesel. He also impressed the director of the animated film, The Iron Giant, and thanks to his guttural voice, he was cast as the voice of the title character in the 1999 film.

While it took a while for Vin Diesel to convince filmmakers to take him seriously, 2000 was a year of star-making roles for the actor. Two of his films opened on the same weekend -- the sci-fi Pitch Black and drama Boiler Room -- two roles that couldn't be more different in the acting range. Vin Diesel added yoga and pilates to his regular workout for his Pitch Black role as Riddick, while he saw his scummy role as Chris the telemarketer in Boiler Room as a way of redeeming himself for the job he once held as a telemarketer, selling overpriced tools. 
 

The Fast and Furious is the working title to an upcoming film in the The Fast and the Furious film series, the fourth produced but sequel to the first and second and prequel to the third. The film is currently in production and is scheduled for release in mid-2009. The plot connects with the original film of the series from which Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster are reprising their roles.

It was in the summer of 2001 that Vin Diesel proved he could draw in audiences as a leading man in the testosterone pumped The Fast and the Furious. With 4 sequels, the film was tops at the box office and took in millions, and served to prove Vin Diesel's star appeal even further. After a low-key role in 2001's Knockaround Guys, fans gathered to see Vin Diesel in XXX, costarring fellow intimidator Samuel L. Jackson, and The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, which was released in '04 and which Vin Diesel had a hand in writing.