Steven Spielberg told Vin Diesel that it would be a “crime against cinema” if he did not continue directing.
In an interview with The National, Diesel said: “Speaking of Steven Spielberg, I saw him recently, and he had said to me, ‘When I wrote the role for you in Saving Private Ryan, I was obviously employing the actor, but I was also secretly championing the director in you, and you have not directed enough.’”
Diesel did return to the director’s chair in 2009, for Los Bandoleros, a short film set in the Fast and Furious universe.
After watching both, Spielberg specifically wrote a character for Diesel to play in his 1998 film Saving Private Ryan.