Vin, your rise to stardom seems to have happened very, very quickly. You've accelerated with the speed of one of those ridiculous cars you drove in "The Fast and the Furious"...

It's crazy how it happens. You spend your life working on your craft - I started acting as a seven-year-old - and then, all of a sudden, you're an "overnight success".

It's an interesting career trajectory you've had, from indie films and then Spielberg and now the big action star stuff. Was this was a deliberate plan on your part?

No - if it were up to me, I would have just landed roles as a teenager. I got to my mid to late 20s frustrated, and had to become an auteur in order to be a successful actor and that's where the independent filmmaking came from. And then just trying to make the smartest decisions and trying to do the best that I can with every film that I have.

In "xXx", you play a kind of unwilling spy. He's got his name tattooed on the back of his neck - that means undercover work is going to be a bit tricky for him!

Well, if it's up to him, he's not going to be a spy. That's the whole idea, he’s not trying to be undercover. He is who he is, and that's why he's chosen for the job.

Your arms are perhaps the most terrifying I've ever seen committed to celluloid. They've gone down a bit since the movie, I'm sure deliberately.

Well, I like to try to stay as neutral as possible, because you know the next role may call for an obese character or an anorexic character, and what would be the point of working out and being so physical and then having to lose it all? And so my objective when I'm not working isn't to try to be a body builder.

This movie is great. But this is the nation that gave the world Bond. We're proud of our secret service man. Xander Cage versus Bond? What's the outcome there?

I think there's easily room for both of us. I think that this is a completely original approach to the spy genre movie. This is the guy that never went to spy school. Xander Cage allows you to feel that heroism and to fantasise about becoming that hero.