Name at birth: Mark Vincent

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). But he really made his name co-starring with Paul Walker in the car-chase summer flick The Fast and the Furious in 2001, with Diesel as the charismatic leader of a gang of car thieves. The next year Diesel moved into action-hero territory with 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). He and Walker teamed up again for the sequel Fast & Furious in 2009, and again in Fast Five in 2011 (with Dwayne Johnson).