Vin Diesel Was Not First Choice For Fast & Furious Tough Guy

Vin Diesel almost missed out on the lead in the Fast & Furious movies - Timothy Olyphant turned the role down.

Franchise producer Neil H. Moritz has revealed studio bosses wanted Olyphant to portray Dominic Toretto in the 2001 movie, but he wasn't interested.

"I had been working with Paul Walker on another movie, Skulls, and I gave him the script (for The Fast and the Furious)," Moritz said during an appearance on The Bill Simmons Podcast. "Rob Cohen, who I had made The Rat Pack with, we gave him the script. The two of them liked the idea. And then we had to look for Dom Toretto.

"The studio said, 'If you can get Timothy Olyphant to play that role, we will greenlight the movie...' The luckiest thing that ever happened to us is Tim Olyphant turned us down. He's a great actor. In fact, I'm curious to see what that movie would have been."

With him out the picture, Moritz began a search for his Dom and recalled meeting Diesel for dinner in Los Angeles.

"He wasn't a star yet, but the great thing about Vin is he always believed he was a star," Neil added. "I was going in there to think, 'He's coming to me to want the role and I'm the one there now having to convince him to do the role!' Lucky for both of us that happened. And then we started to make the movie."

Vin went on to play Dom in six of the seven Fast & Furious movies released to date. He reprises the role in the eighth film in the franchise, The Fate of the Furious.