It almost seems like Vin Diesel has been in Hollywood forever, but what did he do before his big break?

When it comes to celebrities and privacy, Vin Diesel tops the list of super-secretive celebs. He doesn’t want to share much about his personal life with the tabloids (or fans), but the actor can only keep so much from the public.

With so many successful films under his belt, Vin’s rise looked almost effortless. After so many iterations of ‘Fast & Furious,’ it’s not surprising that Diesel is one of the world’s highest-grossing actors.

And yet, fans wonder, who is Vin, if that’s even his real name? What did he do before fame, and how did he get where he is today?

Of course, he only secured the role of Dominic Toretto by chance, so he really lucked out when it came to early projects. But before he became Dom, Vin Diesel was a kid named Mark Sinclair from California. He grew up in New York with a fraternal twin brother, his mom, and his stepdad.

But it’s his early career that most interests fans: Sinclair became a club bouncer as a teenager, says Britannica. Of course, he also had some on-stage roles thanks to his stepdad’s influence. However, rumor has it, Vin’s very first foray onto the stage came as a result of him and some friends breaking into a theater in New York.

The children, who were apparently around age seven at the time, were going to vandalize the theater, says author Nancy Krulik. But when the stage director caught the kids, they were offered roles in an upcoming play instead. Sounds just like a Vin Diesel film twist, right?

Imagining Vin Diesel on a theater stage is an amusing thought, but what’s more interesting is the way that the up-and-coming actor paved his own way.

Britannica points out that after Vin’s mom gave him a book about filmmaking on a budget, he dove head-first into creating his own production. He created a semiautobiographical short entitled ‘Multi-Facial,’ which caught Steven Spielberg’s attention, of all famous names!

That led to Vin earning a role in ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ and his good looks, intimidating physique, and ethnic ambiguity seem to have taken over from there. And though fans tend to dig at his acting chops, or maybe it’s just poor scripts, in the ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise, there’s no denying that Vin Diesel has some serious on-screen talent.

And yet, Diesel’s long run of stardom is now being threatened. As many fans already know, there’s something going on between Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson. While fans are unsure how things will turn out between the two powerhouse actors, it probably won’t be pretty.