| Jason Statham |
|---|
Statham at the Toronto International Film Festival, 10 September 2011
|
| Born |
12 September 1967 (age 45)
Shirebrook, Derbyshire, England
|
| Occupation |
Actor, film producer, martial artist |
| Years active |
1998–present |
| Partner(s) |
Kelly Brook (1997–2004)
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (2010–present) |
Jason Statham is an English actor, producer, martial artist, and former diver known for his roles in the Guy Ritchie crime films
Revolver,
Snatch, and
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. He has also appeared in films such as
The Italian Job,
The Transporter,
Death Race,
Crank,
The Bank Job,
War,
The Expendables, and
The Expendables 2. He usually performs his own stage combat and stunts.
Statham is noted for being typecasted in antihero roles.
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 and decided to pursue the arts. He grew up with
football player Vinnie Jones, alongside whom he would later go on to 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's life in the media began when he was spotted by the agency
Sports Promotions specialising in sports modelling while he was training
at London's Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. Afterwards, he became a model for the clothing brand French Connection.
A spokesperson for the high street clothing chain said: "We chose Jason
because we wanted our model to look like a normal guy. His look is just
right for now: very masculine and not too male-modelly."
However, he was still forced to follow in his father's footsteps as a
street seller to make ends meet, selling "fake perfume and jewellery on
street corners" according to Statham.
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
street-wise 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
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
The movie was well received by both critics and audiences, and helped
catapult Statham into 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:
Ghosts of Mars and
The One.
Statham was offered more film roles and in 2002 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).
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.
[22] He played a dramatic role in the independent film
London in 2006. That same year he played the lead role as Chev Chelios in the action film
Crank which spawned the sequel
Crank: High Voltage (2009).
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 the leading international 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 (
12 Monkeys).
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."
In 2010, Statham appeared alongside fellow action stars Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li and Mickey Rourke, among others in
The Expendables.
Statham plays Lee Christmas, a former SAS soldier and expert at close
quarters combat using knives. In 2011, Statham starred in the remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson film,
The Mechanic, and returned to British film in the police drama
Blitz.
He also starred in the action film
Killer Elite. The film was based on real events, which were the subject of Sir Ranulph Fiennes' fictional novel
The Feather Men. Statham played an assassin named Danny who comes out of retirement to save an old friend, who was played by Robert De Niro.
In August 2011, he began filming
Parker for director Taylor Hackford; the film was released in January 2013. Statham played Parker, the criminal antihero previously played by Mel Gibson in 1999's
Payback and by Lee Marvin in 1967's
Point Blank (though their characters were given different surnames).
His 2012 releases were
The Expendables 2, in which he reprised his character Lee Christmas, and
Safe. Rumors said Statham would appear in
Fast and Furious 6
(2013) but this was denied, since he turned down the offer. However, it
was later confirmed he would cameo in Fast 6 and be the main antagonist
of Fast and Furious 7. He would portray Ian Shaw, the brother of
antagonist in Fast 6, Owen Shaw.
Personal life
Statham was in a seven-year relationship with model Kelly Brook, until 2004. Since April 2010, he has been dating Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
Filmography
Film
Video games
Box office performance
Since 1998, Statham has appeared in over thirty films. Several have been box office hits, such as
Snatch and
The Bank Job. He has starred in three film series,
The Transporter,
Crank and
The Expendables.
The films he has been in have grossed a total of more than $1 billion
USD at the box office, with the highest individual film being
The Expendables.
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Statham
