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."
