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Every once and a while in this world, we come across something that makes us question the nature of our reality. Are ghosts real? Are we living in some sort of virtual reality created by a more advanced civilization? What is the correct spelling of the Berenstein (Berenstain?) Bears? These phenomena make us question every tenet of science, everything our parents told us as children, and every so-called truth that we held self-evident. Vin Diesel with hair is one of these phenomena.
I have always assumed that while most children are born without hair and then develop hair later in life, Vin Diesel fits outside of this framework and has gone through the entirety of his life with a glistening bald head like a beacon of masculinity. However, I recently came across some rather disturbing pictures online that have ripped a seam in my universe and made me question everything that I thought I knew.
Unless this is all just a bad dream, it would appear that Vin Diesel did, in fact, have hair at one point. Furthermore, it seems that some film directors have had the hubristic impulse to actually cover up Vin Diesel’s majestic, mesmerizing dome with a wig in some of his past roles. These are things that I simply cannot wrap my head around.
The real Vin Diesel needs a bald head so that he can be more aerodynamic when he’s hitting triple-digit speeds in a Dodge Charger in the Fast & Furious movies. The real Vin Diesel needs a bald head so that he can slip easily out of the clutches of the Russian terrorists in XXX. The real Vin Diesel never wears sleeves. The real Vin Diesel says corny lines that sound badass simply by virtue of him being Vin Diesel. These are the things I can wrap my head around.
Have we unknowingly stepped into a parallel universe in which Vin Diesel with hair is a real thing? Or have I gone mad and started suffering from waking hallucinations? Let’s look at all the times Vin Diesel has had hair, and maybe you can help me decide.
The Early Years
Apparently, contrary to my prior beliefs, Vin Diesel did have hair in his younger years (although a part of me still wants to believe that this picture was photoshopped). It would appear that Vin wasn’t always the muscled-up beast that we know him as today, too, as he appears to be of fairly normal stature in his high school senior class photo. My mind is further blown.
In an even more disappointing turn of events, Vin Diesel was not born with the name Vin Diesel. Some things are too good to be true. Vin was born Mark Sinclair in Alameda County, California, on July 18, 1967. He’s also got a twin brother named Paul. Maybe every picture of Vin Diesel with hair is secretly Paul posing as his twin. It’s a working theory.
Anyway, Vin’s family later moved to New York City, and he graduated from Anglo-American High School in 1985. His first introduction to acting came when he, his brother, and some friends broke into the Theatre for the New City on Jane Street, intending to vandalize it. When they were caught by Crystal Field, the theatre’s artistic director, she decided to offer the boys roles in an upcoming play rather than call the police on them. From there on, Vin would stay involved in the theatre through his college years at New York City’s Hunter College, where he studied creative writing.
Years later, in 1994, in one of Vin’s first appearances on the silver screen, he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the short film Multi-Facial. The film was about a struggling multiracial actor that couldn’t ever get a role due to his racial ambiguity. Multi-Facial was selected to be screened at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. If you thought Vin Diesel was just a buff guy who starred in high-adrenaline action movies, think again.
The Chronicles of Riddick
The first on-screen appearance of Vin Diesel with hair was in his leading role in the 2004 film The Chronicles of Riddick, the sequel to Pitch Black, in which Vin also played Riddick. Don’t worry, he was bald for the entirety of Pitch Black and 99.9% of The Chronicles of Riddick. However, there was a scene where Riddick has been hiding on an Arctic planet of U.V., and he’s actually pictured with hair.
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It’s not just a little bit of hair, though. This is no peach fuzz. Vin has long locks of hair and a thick beard, all covered in ice and snow. It kind of looks like if you put our favorite Hawaiian-born actor Jason Momoa in the middle of Siberia. Maybe they actually had Jason Momoa stunt-double for Vin Diesel in that scene. Alright, now I’m grasping at straws.
For the first time that Vin Diesel was filmed wearing a wig, the costume director really went all-out. It’s more hair than anyone should have, much less bald-guy-icon Vin Diesel. I’ve seen The Chronicles of Riddick several times, and I didn’t remember that part. Perhaps I just willingly blocked it out of my mind. Luckily, once Riddick left the planet of U.V. to fight the Necromongers, he once again went bald, and all balance was restored to the universe.
Until…
Find Me Guilty
The 2006 film Find Me Guilty was an assault on all that is good and holy in the world. I’m kidding, it was actually a pretty solid flick. I can understand that the movie was based on the true story of the longest Mafia-related trial in American history, and to make it historically accurate, mob boss Jackie DiNorscio (Vin Diesel’s character) had to have receding hair and a little bit of a gut. But why did it have to be Vin Diesel?
Making Vin Diesel wear a wig with a receding hairline and a fat suit is the polar opposite of the phrase “putting lipstick on a pig.” It’s like scribbling in crayons on a Michelangelo painting. It’s like singing screamo lyrics over a Mozart composition. Why couldn’t they have just changed one little historical detail about Jackie DiNorscio and let that beautiful baldness shine proudly? I bet DiNorscio himself would have supported that decision.
After Find Me Guilty, we had nearly a decade of hairless Vin Diesel. That was the golden era. During that time, we got five installments of the Fast & Furious series, all of which featured Vin Diesel in all of his bald-and-badass glory. Then 2015 came around, and the world went dark once again.
The Last Witch Hunter
Out of the few movies where Vin Diesel has worn a wig, The Last Witch Hunter is the one I’m probably the least angry about. While covering up the twinkling bald head of Vin Diesel is akin to draping Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker in 2000s-era Abercrombie & Fitch, I must admit that he can kind of pull off the undercut and braided beard that he dons in The Last Witch Hunter. Kind of.
The film got unanimously bad critical reviews, with Tara Brady of The Irish Times calling the film “Harry Potter for Emo kids.” The Last Witch Hunter was largely criticized for being unguided and utterly ridiculous but still wasn’t declared the worst film in history. It received a disappointing 18% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, allegedly for the aforementioned reasons. However, I think we all know the real reason for the overwhelmingly negative reviews.
You don’t cover up Vin Diesel’s dome just like you don’t eat soup with a fork. You just don’t do it.
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