Vin Diesel gets teary-eyed explaining his son's role in 'F9'

Vin Diesel has played Dom Toretto at the center of the sprawling Fast and Furious universe since the franchise debuted its first movie in June 2001.

Twenty years later, his 11-year-old son, Vincent, is making his acting debut as a younger version of Dom in F9: The Fast Saga. As soon as Jimmy Fallon mentioned this development during Diesel's visit to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday night (June 22), the 53-year-old actor got teary-eyed.

Diesel got out of his chair, paced around, wiped his eyes and regained his composure before explaining how Vincent's role came to be:

"First of all, it wasn't my idea. I can't take the credit. It was Justin Lin, the director. But we've been making these movies for so long that every time one of children were born, I was usually working on a Fast and Furious movie. So, the director and the cast all have their own relationship with my children.  "And it was [Lin's] idea for my son to play young Dom, and the irony is the thing I remember the most was coming home that because when you see the movie, it's kind of a deep scene. So Dom is in a deep state of mind, and my son was watching me work the whole day, and it wasn't until I got home when I saw a twinkle in his eye because he had finally seen his father come home as opposed to being with Dom Toretto the whole day. It was adorable. It was so beautiful."

Diesel has three children: his son Vincent and two daughters, 13-year-old Hania and six-year-old Pauline. The youngest was named after Diesel's late Fast and Furious co-star Paul Walker, who played Brian O'Conner and died in a November 2013 car crash at 40 years old. 

Diesel was asked last week whether Walker's 22-year-old daughter, Meadow, may join the universally ground-breaking franchise at some point. "I would not count anything out," replied Diesel, Meadow's godfather.