Vin Diesel is an actor who is perhaps best known for his role in the ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise, but does he also have a twin brother?
Vin Diesel, full name Mark Sinclair, has a twin brother named Paul. The two were raised by their mother, Delora, and step-father, Irving, in California.
Read more below about Vin Diesel, his family, and his career.
Family Life & Twin Brother
Vin Diesel was born in Alameda County, California, and although he uses Vin Diesel as his name in the entertainment industry, he was born Mark Sinclair. Delora, his mother, worked as an astrologer, while Irving, his step-father, was in the entertainment industry.
Irving was an acting teacher, director, and theater manager. Diesel did not have a relationship with his biological father and considers Irving to be his father.
In 2014, he shared a photo on social media with the caption “The Two Pauls.” The image depicted his twin brother Paul stood beside his late co-star Paul Walker.
Rumors swirled about Diesel’s twin brother the following year, however, with press outlets using pictures of the wrong man and labeling him as Diesel’s twin. The actor responded to the media mistake during a Facebook live stream and set the record straight.
“I’ve never met that guy in my life,” he said. “Stop torturing him. He’s not my twin brother.”
He then pointed fans towards the ‘Two Pauls’ image, where his real twin can be seen.
As a public figure, Diesel has been deliberately tight-lipped about his personal life. “I’m not gonna put it out there on a magazine cover like some other actors. I come from the Harrison Ford, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino code of silence,” he explains.
It is known, however, that the actor has been in a long term relationship with Paloma Jimenez since 2007, and the couple shares three children together.
Acting Career
For Vin Diesel, acting was a passion he found early in life. “I started acting when I was seven,” he told a New York Times interviewer.
“My father was a theater director,” he explains. As a child, however, he expected to be cast in drama movies, rather than in the action movies that he is best known for.
After school, Diesel worked as a bouncer before giving up his job to head to Hollywood in order to pursue an acting career. “I remember leaving my job and saying, ‘See you, suckers,’” he recalls.
His dream of acting proved difficult to reach, however, and the future star struggled to find roles or even get an agent. He was inspired by low budget filmmakers, and his mother bought him a book called ‘Feature Filmmaking at Used Car Prices.’
Diesel began experimenting in filmmaking, first making ‘Strays’ and then ‘Multi-Facial’, which was based around the difficulties he had faced in gaining acting roles. To help finance the projects, he rented equipment.
He says the two movies marked breakout moments in his career. ‘Strays,’ was recognized by the Sundance Festival in 1997. “About a month after, I got a call from Steven Spielberg and he wrote a brand-new role for me in ‘Saving Private Ryan,’” Diesel says.
He accepted Spielberg’s offer and starred in the movie. In 2001, he starred for the first time as Dominic Toretto in ‘The Fast and the Furious’ alongside Paul Walker.
The ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise now features six full-length movies, as well as one spin-off. The series has helped to create Diesel’s persona as a star of the action genre.
His other works include ‘Pitch Black’, ‘Boiler Room’, ‘Find Me Guilty’, and ‘The Last Witch Hunter’. He also provided the voice of Groot in the movies ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, and ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’.
Diesel’s acting work has been recognized by a number of high profile awards, including MTV Movie Awards and Hollywood Film Awards.