Jason Statham
Jason Statham
• Jason Statham born 26 July 1967) is an English actor, former
model and competitive diver.
• Statham is known for his roles in the Guy Ritchie crime films
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), Snatch (2000), and
Revolver (2005). He has also appeared in films such as the action
thriller The Transporter trilogy (2002–2008), the heist film The
Italian Job (2003), the black comedy-action film Crank (2006), the
action film War (2007), the science fiction action thriller Death
Race (2008), the crime film The Bank Job (2008), and the action
series The Expendables (2010–14). Statham has joined The Fast
and the Furious franchise, having a cameo appearance in Fast &
Furious 6 and starred in Furious 7 and The Fate of the Furious. He
usually performs his own stage combat and stunts, and is noted
for being typecast as an antihero.
Early life
• Statham was born in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, the son of Eileen , a
dancer, and Barry Statham, a street seller and lounge singer. He
moved to Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, where he initially chose not
to follow his father's career working the local market stalls,
instead practicing martial arts. He grew up with football player
Vinnie Jones, alongside whom he would later act. Jones
introduced him to football, and Statham went on to play for the
local grammar school (1978–1983), which he had attended since
the age of 11, a passion that he shared with diving.He practiced
daily in perfecting his diving techniques, and was a member of
Britain's National Diving Squad for twelve years. Statham
competed for England at the 1990 Commonwealth Games.
Career
• While working as a model for French Connection, he was
introduced to fledgling British director Guy Ritchie who was
developing a film project and needed to fill the role of a streetwise con artist. After learning about Statham's past as a black
market salesman, Ritchie cast him to play the role of "Bacon" in
his 1998 crime comedy thriller Lock, Stock and Two Smoking
Barrels. The movie was well received by both critics and
audiences, and helped put Statham in the public eye. Statham's
second collaboration with Ritchie came in the 2000 film Snatch,
playing the role of "Turkish". Cast alongside popular actors Brad
Pitt, Dennis Farina, and Benicio del Toro, and with the movie
earning more than $80 million in box-office revenue, Statham
was able to break into Hollywood and appeared in two movies in
2001: the science fiction action horror film Ghosts of Mars and
the science fiction martial arts action film The One.
Career
• Statham was offered more film roles, and in 2002 he was cast as the lead role of driver Frank
Martin in the action movie The Transporter, in which he was responsible for his own stunts
(Statham has made this choice for all of his films). He has studied Wing Chun kung fu, karate, and
kickboxing. The film spawned two sequels, Transporter 2 (2005) and Transporter 3 (2008).
Career
• He also played supporting roles in
Mean Machine (2002), The Italian Job
(2003) (in which he played Handsome
Rob), and Cellular (2004) in which he
played the lead villain. In 2005,
Statham was once again cast by
Ritchie to star in his new project,
Revolver, which was a critical and box
office failure. He played a dramatic
role in the independent film London
in 2006. That same year he played
the lead role in the action film Crank
which spawned the sequel Crank:
High Voltage (2009).
Career
• In 2008, Statham starred in the British crime thriller The Bank Job and Death Race, a remake of
Death Race 2000 (1975). American film critic Armond White hailed Statham's ascension as an
action film star. On the occasion of Death Race, White championed Statham's "best track record
of any contemporary movie star." Later in 2008, White praised Statham's Transporter 3 as a great
example of kinetic pop art.
• In 2009, Statham started to develop a new movie written by David Peoples and Janet Peoples.
Statham stated "We've got a movie we're trying to do, written by David Peoples and Janet
Peoples, in the vein of an old film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. It’s not a remake or anything,
but it's a little bit like that, about relationships and how greed contaminates the relationships
these three people have. The working title is The Grabbers."