Michael Caine hails his “son” Vin Diesel: “He’s a real star”
Michael Caine has revealed his close bond with Fast and Furious star Vin Diesel, who he dubbed his “son” as soon as he met him.
Within the pages of his new memoir – the amusingly named Don’t Look Back, You’ll Trip Over – Caine revealed that he and Diesel first crossed paths many years before they finally worked together on 2015’s The Last Witch Hunter. Ever since then, they’ve been close pals and always make sure to meet up for dinner anytime they’re in the same place at the same time.
“Vin’s special,” Caine wrote. “I love Vin. We first met at a dinner party about 30 years ago. I just instinctively greeted him with a hug and announced to the whole room, ‘This is my son!'” According to the iconic Italian Job star, he instantly bonded with Diesel, even if he wasn’t entirely sure he could explain why. “Sometimes, you sense a connection,” he mused. “I just liked the guy immediately. He has a big heart.”
“It turned out he was going through some tough times back then,” Caine continued. “So, I think perhaps it made an impression upon him to be embraced and treated with love. Anyway, we’ve been great friends ever since.”
Caine revealed that he and his wife Shakira meet up with Diesel and his wife, Paloma Jimenez, any chance they get. “Whenever they’re in town, we have dinner together,” he wrote. “Or they come over to our flat for a catch-up.”
Diesel, for his part, has long been open about how much Caine has always meant to him and his family. In 2015, he told The Miami Herald, “I always loved Michael Caine. My grandmother was a huge Michael Caine fan, and I actually met Michael Caine maybe 12, 13 years ago. We became friends, and so if I went out to London, we’d have dinner; if he came here, we’d have dinner.”
Hilariously, though, Diesel revealed that when he contacted Caine about joining him in The Last Witch Hunter, the Dark Knight star was worried he would ask him to be in his most famous franchise. “We always wanted to do something together,” Diesel grinned.
He continued: “And when I finally got this project and called him, he thought I was calling him to be in Fast and Furious, and so his first response was, ‘I don’t even drive anymore! How are you gonna ask me to do Fast and Furious?'”
