10 Movie Actors Who Were Discovered In Unusual Ways

2. Vin Diesel Was Discovered While Breaking Into A Theatre

Vin Diesel Fast an Furious
Universal Pictures

Vin Diesel is one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, most famous for playing the family-obsessed ex-con Dom Toretto in the Fast And Furious franchise.

Those who've seen Fast 9 will know that Toretto is basically a superhero at this point, able to win fights against dozens of armed thugs, perform crazy vehicular stunts, and survive literally any injury he sustains. It's wacky and over-the-top, a million miles away from Diesel's more humble beginnings as an actor.

As a kid, Diesel was a bit of a mischief-maker, and would often roam the streets of New York's Greenwich Village with his mates, intent on causing trouble. One day, the gang decided to break into a theatre with the sole aim of vandalizing it, but - not realizing that anyone was there - they were taken aback when the theatre's artistic director, Crystal Field, confronted them.

And this is when something quite special happened.

Rather than calling the police, Field decided it would be more constructive to offer Diesel a role in an upcoming play, which he accepted. This gave him the desire to pursue acting as a full-time gig, leading him to adopt the famous stage name that's been emblazoned across blockbuster movie posters for the last 20 years.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!