Nina Dobrev Wishes Vin Diesel Happy Birthday With Cute Instagram Selfie

Nina Dobrev sent a sweet happy birthday message to her xXx: Return of Xander Cage co-star, Vin Diesel, via Instagram on Wednesday night. The 29-year-old actress posted a cute “selfie” with Diesel, and in it, she looks to be wearing a striped swimsuit and he’s shirtless.

“Happy Birthday @vindiesel!!! Planes, trains, and automobiles, we’ve been around the world together, there isn’t a single place I wouldn’t travel to celebrate with you,” she wrote in the caption. “My big teddy bear with a heart of gold, happy birthday. Sending you love today, and always! #HappyBirthday.”

Based on Dobrev’s previous Instagram photos, it looks like she’s in the Dominican Republic celebrating Diesel’s birthday with the rest of the cast.

This isn’t the first time that Dobrev has gushed about Vin Diesel. In an interview with Kelly Ripa last year to promote the Return of Xander Cage, she also called him a teddy bear and said that he was “passionate, sweet, and caring.” She also recalled going to the first xXx movie 15 years ago and revealed that it was one of the films that inspired her to get into show business.

“So, I watch it and I was like, ‘if he (Vin Diesel) could do it then I could do it, I wanna be in a movie like this.” The former Vampire Diaries actress would have been 14 when the first film in the xXx franchise was released, and as fate would have it, she has a leading role in the third movie.

In Return of Xander Cage, she plays Diesel’s nerdy yet spunky side-kick, Becky Clearidge. The movie was released in 2017 and grossed close to $45 million at the domestic box office, according to Box Office Mojo. That’s a pretty tame return on investment when you consider its $85 million budget. But the film made over $301 million in the overseas market, which represented about 87 percent of its sales.

And it looks like fans hoping for a fourth movie are in luck. According to a Variety article published earlier this year, The H Collective and Vin Diesel’s production company, One Race Films, has bought the rights to the franchise and they’re working on a new xXx film. Return of Xander Cage‘s director, D.J. Caruso, will return to direct the project which is being called xXx 4, and Diesel will be back as Xander Cage.

Variety also reports that the three xXx movies are close to grossing $1 billion collectively which means that Vin Diesel is connected to multiple blockbuster franchises including the Fast and Furious movies and Guardians Of The Galaxy 1 and 2. As Variety notes, Diesel produced five of the most successful Fast and Furious films.

As the Inquisitr previously reported, Dobrev recently shared that she will be returning as “Becky The Techie,” and that production on xXx 4 starts in November.