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WITH 41 MILLION million likes on Facebook, ‘Fast & Furious 6′ star Vin Diesel is one of the most popular celebrities on the social networking site.

But how did the action star create such a successful online persona? He got in the game early.

“What Facebook didn’t realize is something very big was about to happen, and that was — for the first time in history, and it’s kind of a fluke they didn’t see this coming — when I jumped on that page in April 2009, I started talking to people. In the realest ways,” Diesel tells Entertainment Weekly in a new interview.

“So, when I had started my page, the only person that had a million fans was Barack Obama. Because it was first-quarter 2009, and he’d just got elected as President, because of social media,” Diesel explains.

So, when I started talking to the fans, I became the No. 1 page in the world. Over Coca-Cola, over huge companies. And it was only because I said: ‘Hi, guys, I love you.’

The 45-year-old actor continues, “Imagine if you could’ve been a Facebook friend to Marlon Brando, or whoever your role models are. Imagine, if you were able to Facebook Elvis, and talk to him, and hear from him without the Hollywood of it all. That was the ‘Fast & Furious’ experience.”

“I think Hollywood, and the choices Hollywood has made, would’ve been radically different if Clark Gable had 40 million people on his Facebook page,” Diesel added.

At one point, Diesel was the number one fan page in the world — and even Facebook corporate didn’t understand why.

Diesel says the Facebook team asked him “to come up to their office to explain what the f— I was doing, and why I had so many fans.”

“Facebook really owes me billions of dollars,” he jokes. “But whatever.”