Timothy Olyphant was the original choice to star in 'The Fast and The Furious' instead of Vin Diesel.
Vin Diesel
The filmmaker Neal H. Moritz has revealed the 49-year-old actor was not the first actor in line to play one of the lead roles as Dominic Toretto in the action film, and if the 'Hitman' star hadn't have rejected the acting job Diesel wouldn't have made the cut and starred in the following sequels.
Speaking about the casting choices on 'The Bill Simmons Podcast', the 57-year-old movie producer, who created six of the movies in the franchise, said: "I had been working with Paul Walker on another movie, 'Skulls', and I gave him the script [for 'The Fast and the Furious']. 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."
Although Moritz claims it was "lucky" Olyphant turned the production down and Diesel landed the job, he is "curious" as to how the movies would have turned out with him helming the blockbusters.
He added: "In fact, I'm curious to see what that movie would have been.
"The great thing about Vin is he always believed he was a star. And 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."
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