The Fate of the Furious producer Neil H. Moritz just revealed that Vin Diesel wasn’t the original choice to play the role of Dominic Toretto in The Fast and the Furious films!
Neil went on The Bill Simmons Podcast and spoke about how the studio originally tapped Justified‘s Timothy Olyphant for the role.
“I had been working with Paul Walker on another movie, Skulls, and I gave him the script [for The Fast and the Furious],” Neil said. “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.”
Later, Neil met with Vin at a restaurant after seeing some of his work.
“I went and met him at Kate Mantilini [restaurant] and he wasn’t a star yet, but the great thing about Vin is he always believed he was a star,” Neil continued. “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.”
Of course, Vin has famously played the role of Dom since the release of the 2001 movie!
