Anna Daniels
Vin Diesel’s choice was the illustrious Dame Judi Dench. That might sound odd to the uninitiated, but Diesel already charmed her into appearing in another one of his movies, The Chronicles of Riddick, back in ye olde days of 2004. In 2017, Dench gave an interview to Entertainment Weekly reflecting on her career, and told a story about how Diesel convinced her to make time for his little sci-fi adventure. “I was doing a play at the Haymarket Theatre in London and I didn’t know that Vin Diesel, the one and only, was there,” she explained. “Vin sent me a bouquet of flowers that were so big they couldn’t fit up the stairs to my dressing room. They could not get them into the corridor. Then he asked if I would be in his film. And of course I said yes. Why ever not?”
Longtime fans of either actor may also know that the set of Chronicles of Riddick is apparently where Diesel taught Dench how to play Dungeons & Dragons, which she has since gone on to teach to her grandchildren. They’re not just erstwhile coworkers, they’re tight. Why not let her spin out Toretto’s gigantic Dodge Challenger? We’d buy twelve tickets.
Written by: Looper
