Vin Diesel is iconic as Fast & Furious’ Dominic Toretto, but the casting would never have happened if one actor turned down the role first.

Vin Diesel is the face of the Fast & Furious franchise, but he wasn’t the first choice for Dominic Toretto, and the series could have looked entirely different. While the original The Fast and the Furious sees Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) as the lead character, with the undercover cop tasked with infiltrating Dominic Toretto’s crime organization, the series later shifted gears by focusing on Dom and what makes him the way he is. By F9: The Fast Saga, the franchise details his upbringing and his strained relationship with his brother while Fast X even sees Dom’s son involved in the action.

Nobody saw the series going in this direction when the original movie was released in 2001. In fact, Universal went in several different directions before bringing Dom back in the fourth installment, Fast & Furious. Diesel didn’t return for 2 Fast 2 Furious, which saw Walker once again in the lead role, and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift was a relatively standalone movie. Diesel’s vision from 2009’s Fast & Furious onward led to where the franchise is today. However, Diesel wasn’t even Universal’s first choice to play Dom, and if the studio’s first choice hadn’t turned down the role, the franchise would have gone very differently.

Timothy Olyphant’s Dom Toretto Could’ve Been More Serious

Before Vin Diesel was offered the part of Dominic Toretto, Universal wanted Timothy Olyphant for the Fast & Furious role. Olyphant is now best known for playing Sheriff Bullock in Deadwood, Raylan Givens in Justified, and Agent 47 in Hitman. Before those 2000s roles, the actor had made a name for himself by playing cool, handsome, and very serious characters in popular movies such as Scream 2, Go, and Gone in 60 Seconds. Because of his charm and rising popularity, Universal understandably wanted to cast him in his own vehicle, but given his previous roles, it would’ve been much different from Diesel’s portrayal of the character in the 2001 original.

In The Fast and the Furious, there’s clearly a level of sincerity that Vin Diesel brings to the character, but the actor also leans into the campy machismo that makes the film so much fun. That wouldn’t have been the case if Olyphant had been cast in the role. While Olyphant would have lacked Dominic Toretto’s chauvinism, he would have brought way more gravitas, and as a result, the movie would have been much more of a crime drama than a fun action movie. While Diesel’s Dom is braggadocious and loud, Olyphant’s portrayal of the character would have been quieter and more contemplative, and perhaps more of a villain, too.

Fast & Furious’ Stunts Wouldn’t Get As Big Without Vin Diesel

To Vin Diesel’s credit, the actor has always been all-ears when it comes to fans’ demands about the series’ future. The Fast & Furious franchise going into space began as an internet joke until it actually happened in F9. For better or worse, Diesel is a producer on the franchise, and he insists on making each release more exciting than the last with much bigger and more ambitious stunts. Given that Olyphant is much less interested in spectacular effects, there’s no way he would have pushed for bigger stunts had he been cast in the first movie.

Paul Walker Would Be The Fast & Furious Movies’ Main Star

Paul Walker was the star of the Fast & Furious franchise for the first two movies. However, Vin Diesel had such a commanding onscreen presence in the first film that the following two installments weren’t the same without him. The actor was an immediately intrinsic part of the franchise, and the studio even gave Diesel the rights to Riddick in return for a cameo role in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Diesel then returned to the franchise fully in Fast & Furious and took over as its lead. If Timothy Olyphant had been cast in the Dominic Toretto role, Walker would likely have remained the franchise’s lead character.

While Olyphant has played the same characters for several years in TV series such as Deadwood, the actor isn’t exactly known for his willingness to participate in franchises. He starred in 2007’s Hitman, which was planned to be the start of a movie franchise, but even then, the casting was almost against his will. Olyphant only agreed to the Hitman role because he had gotten a mortgage just before Deadwood was canceled. Paul Walker would likely have been left to be the franchise’s main star, and while that worked for 2 Fast 2 Furious, it’s difficult to imagine Brian O’Conner onscreen without Dominic Toretto.

Fast & Furious Wouldn’t Be As Successful Without Vin Diesel

Almost as much as he is an actor, Vin Diesel is a hype man, and few others in the movie industry are as great at promoting movies as he is. Whatever absurd question he’s asked on the red carpet, his answer is almost always positive. His commitment to Fast & Furious has infinitely helped the franchise, even if Fast & Furious’ box office performance is slipping. There’s no way it would have become as successful without Diesel being the franchise’s engine. There’s already proof of that, as The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift made $158 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo), almost $50 million less than the first movie.

As soon as Diesel returned, the series saw its highest box office gross, as Fast & Furious made $360 million. Since then, the series has grossed over $7 billion worldwide (via The Numbers), a figure Universal couldn’t have dreamed of if Timothy Olyphant played Dom. Even Olyphant acknowledged Diesel’s hand in the franchise’s success. The actor believes that the series wouldn’t have been as successful if he accepted the role, explaining, “I haven’t seen those movies, but y’know, they’re part of the culture that I know what they are. And it feels like part of what makes that, [Vin Diesel] is a huge — he’s just unlike anything out there.”

How Timothy Olyphant Could Still Join Fast & Furious

The Fast & Furious franchise is always growing, and its ever-expanding cast is even more ambitious than the over-the-top, physics-defying stunts. The franchise’s ensemble cast includes action heroes such as Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, rappers such as Ludacris and Cardi B, and even Academy Award winners such as Helen Mirren and Brie Larson. With such an eclectic cast, there’s no reason why Timothy Olyphant couldn’t join the team in Fast & Furious 11. The series is becoming more meta, too, as Roman is calling out the team for seemingly being invincible, and there’d be nothing more meta than Timothy Olyphant finally joining the Fast family.