From athletes to actors

Born on July 26, 1967 in Derbyshire (England), Statham’s father was a salesman and his mother was a dancer. Since childhood, he has been interested in sports, specifically martial arts (kickboxing and Karate), diving and football. Thanks to regular daily training, Statham was selected for the UK diving team. At the 1990 Commonwealth Games, he represented England.

With his growing reputation, Sports Promotions invited Jason Statham to model for the French Connection fashion brand with the reason “We want a model with a masculine appearance but not too much like a regular male model.” ”. From here, a truly life-changing opportunity came to Statham when he was noticed by director Guy Ritchie.

Madonna’s ex-husband was then casting the role of a street con artist for the movie Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Statham’s face quickly convinced him. After listening to Statham confide about the time when he had to help his father sell fake jewelry, perfume… on the street, Ritchie decided to give Statham the role of Bacon. Released in 1998, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels quickly succeeded both artistically and commercially with its thrilling content and unique comedy style.

Two years later, Statham continued to participate in another of Ritchie’s projects, Snatch. This time, his co-stars also include international stars like Brad Pitt or Benicio del Toro. The role of the Turkish guy who organizes boxing matches helped Statham really enter Hollywood, after Snatch became one of the highest rated movies of 2000.

The push with “Transporter”

Statham’s journey in Hollywood began with two films Ghosts of Mars and The One in 2001. The stars of the above films were Ice Cube and Jet Li, respectively, but Jason Statham did not have to wait long to create foothold. In 2002, he was cast in the lead role of Frank Martin in the action film The Transporter written and produced by French filmmaker Luc Besson.

Martin is an excellent driver, willing to deliver anything and always on time. He has three rules he sets for himself: “Once an agreement is made, it must be followed”, “Do not reveal names” and “Never open the delivered item”. A mission caused trouble for the “mercenary”. Martin was assigned to deliver a “goods” to a notorious gangster. On the way, this “goods” shows its true form as the beautiful girl Lai (Thu Ky) and puts Martin in a dangerous area…

The Transporter is a breakthrough in Jason Statham’s career. With a budget of 21 million USD, the film grossed 43 million USD despite being unpopular with critics. Statham’s extremely “cool” appearance and eye-catching fighting and shooting scenes help The Transporter attract a large number of fans. The Transporter also had two more parts in 2005 and 2008 and reached a total revenue of nearly 200 million USD.

This is also a work that introduces Hollywood to an action superstar from the land of fog. In addition to his angular face, cold eyes and voice, Jason Statham also performed all the action scenes in the movie without the help of a stuntman.

“I spent years practicing the skills,” Jason Statham explains. When I entered the studio, my male competitive instincts kicked in. I always wanted to do my own action scenes. The people who influenced me were Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, they were really great. When watching their movies back in the day, I always felt like I was living in the movie. Nowadays with CGI technology, even my grandmother can become an action star. But the action must be real, because nothing can completely replace it.” Since The Transporter, action movie scripts have been continuously sent to Jason Statham. The type of characters he plays are usually roles that are not heroes but are good at martial arts and are placed in difficult situations. Movies like War, Crank, The Bank Job, Death Race, Killer Elite or Hummingbird… honor Jason Statham as a superstar of “anti-hero” roles. The actor explained: “In my childhood, I met many outlaws and never knew what they were planning to do. So now, I play such people and rely on my own experiences.”

A dreamy life

Most of the movies Statham has participated in are B-grade action works: not focusing on plot or psychology but focusing on action, chases… and are underrated by critics. Jason Statham himself is also aware of this and once stated: “You will never receive an Oscar with a movie like Crank. And I certainly haven’t won any awards for the movies I’ve participated in.”

But behind Jason Statham are millions of fans. His position is now that of an action superstar, standing in the same ranks as veteran names such as Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Dolph Lundgren. The three episodes of The Expendables in which Statham plays knife-throwing expert Lee Christmas have grossed up to 786 million USD globally.

In the summer of 2013, just a few seconds of Statham’s appearance at the end of Fast & Furious 6 was enough to make the audience excited and anxiously waiting for his role in episode 7 as a villain.

Coming to Fast & Furious 7, fans’ expectations became reality. Statham plays terrorist Owen’s (Luke Evans) brother Deckard Shaw in episode 6 and is determined to take revenge on Dominic Toretto’s (Vin Diesel) group for crippling his brother. Once a special forces member, Deckard is an extremely dangerous man. Right from the first scene of the movie, this character attracted attention when he destroyed a hospital and sent a bomb warning to Dom. In this blockbuster, viewers can witness what Statham is famous for: driving chases, shooting scenes and top-notch close combat sequences (against Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel’s characters).

After only two weeks of release, Fast & Furious 7 reached the 800 million USD mark and became one of the most popular movies of 2015. That success was achieved with no small contribution from “villain” Jason Statham. This summer, he has another notable film, the action-comedy Spy, starring with Jude Law and Melissa McCarthy.

As one of the most stylish men in England, dating beauty Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and having films that attract millions of viewers, Jason Statham’s life is the dream of countless people.