Vin Diesel has been growing and growing in my eyes since I saw his small film Strays (Filmstalker review), the film he wrote, directed and co-produced, and he just keeps going. Now it's revealed that he, and I'm sure producers and the studio were heavily involved too, has been involved in developing young film-makers from the Dominican Republic on the set of Fast and Furious.

Diesel and the President of the Dominican Republic set-up a film school there some three years ago and when he pushed for the production of Fast and Furious to film there he saw another opportunity.

Vin Diesel took film students from the school and signed them up to help on the set of Fast and Furious giving them real live practical experience on a major motion picture.

Speaking through WENN and IMDB Vin Diesel said:

“We take inner city kids and put them through a six-week course in filmmaking...We were able to take some of the students and have them work on this major film. It was incredible.”

Well that is pretty cool. You know the more I hear about Diesel behind the façade of the action star with some very poor choices to his film career, the more I'm starting to appreciate him as a person.

The work he did on Strays (Filmstalker review) is superb, and who knew he had such an upbringing in theatre and behind the scenes, and frankly I never realised he was so involved in bringing up young talent, particularly in such a location as the Dominican Republic.

I was a fan of the action star anyway, but I'm rapidly in danger of raising him up my favourite actor list and becoming more of a fan.