Jason Statham was a former swimmer and street hustler; discovered by Guy Ritchie, who gave him his first role in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
When you see Statham on screen he always feels authentic; you most certainly would NOT want to spill his pint. When he first appeared in Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, you wouldn’t have guessed about his expertise in Jiu-Jitsu or that Guy Ritchie is also a black belt and they would spar with each other on set.
He first showed his action chops with Jet Li in The One; a cool little sci-fi actioner about parallel universes which was a lot of fun, despite his rather ropey American accent.
It wasn’t until The Transporter that Jason Statham really showed how good he was at kicking some ass; over the next decade The Stath would become one of the biggest action stars in the business and when the genre was going through a quiet spell in the early 2000’s he suddenly became the action king. The Transporter was an old school action film from Luc Besson with stunts, fast cars, beautiful women and plenty of action.
Since then he has grown from strength to strength with a filmography that includes Killer Elite, The Mechanic, Safe, 13, The Expendables Trilogy, Blitz, Crank 1/2, The Bank Job, Wild Card, Parker, Homefront, Hummingbird, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, War, Chaos, Revolver, Cellular, The Italian Job, Furious 7, Spy, John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars, Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels to name but a few.
He is currently working on The Mechanic: Resurrection which is due out in 2016 and rumour has it he will be teaming up with Tony Jaa in an actioner called High Value Target.
With his shaved head and constant 5 o’clock shadow, Statham is an imposing looking figure and utterly believable as an action movie badass. 2015 has thus far been great for his career and and his villainous role as Deckard Shaw in Furious 7 was one of the movie highlights of the year. I can’t wait to see what he comes out with in the next few years so happy birthday Jason from The Action Elite; we salute you!
