Jason Statham Biography

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British director Guy Ritchie frequently attributes the success of his unorthodox crime films — 1998′s Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, 2000′s Snatch — to the fact that his offbeat miscreants are more than believable, they are real. Preferring to cast for authenticity rather than resumי, Ritchie handpicks many of his actors from the true-life cult figures and rascals of London’s underbelly. Actor Jason Statham is among the best of them.

A one-time Olympic diver, fashion model, and black-market salesman, Statham came to acting by way of commercials and “street theater” — a euphemism for hustling tourists on London’s Oxford Street. Raised in Syndenham, London, he was the second son of a lounge singer and a dressmaker turned dancer. Although Statham had the familial background to go immediately into entertainment, he excelled first on the high dive. He was a member of the 1988 British Olympic Team in Seoul, Korea, and remained on the National Diving Squad for ten years. In the late ’90s, a talent agent specializing in athletes landed Statham a gig in an ad campaign for the European clothing retailer French Connection. This led to an appearance in a Levi’s Jeans commercial and a fledgling modeling career. Meanwhile, Statham had also earned local fame as a street corner con man, selling stolen jewelry and counterfeit perfume out of a briefcase. Thus, when French Connection’s owner became one of the biggest investors in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, he naturally introduced the diver/model/hustler to knave-hunting Ritchie.

Intrigued by Statham’s past and impressed by his modeling work, Ritchie invited him to audition for a part in the film. The director challenged Statham to impersonate an illegal street vendor and convince him to purchase a piece of imitation gold jewelry. Statham was evidently so persuasive that Ritchie bought four sets. When the director attempted to return his worthless acquisition — pretending that the gold had turned to stainless steel — Statham was so graciously inflexible that Ritchie hired him.

This unorthodox audition resulted in Statham’s big screen debut as Bacon, one of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels’ four primary characters engaged in a risky get-rich-quick scheme to repay a massive gambling debt. Bacon supplies a streetwise discipline and restraint that the other characters lack and a sense of humility crucial to Ritchie’s film. In the director’s follow-up crime comedy, Snatch, Ritchie rehired Statham to play Turkish, a smalltime hood vainly trying to break into the world of underground boxing. As this amateur but respectable hoodlum, Statham is attractive, urbane, immaculate, and smart enough to be bewildered by even his own laughable criminal ineptitude. The role began as a small supporting part in Snatch’s star-filled ensemble cast but expanded throughout shooting. By the time of the film’s theatrical release, Statham received top billing as its narrator and chief anti-hero.

The Guy Ritchie oeuvre that supplied his breakthrough performances is not Statham’s only acting arena. In 2000, he made his American film debut as a British drug dealer in Robert Adetuyi’s Turn It Up starring Pras Michel. By 2001, he had finished shooting John Carpenter’s sci-fi thriller Ghosts of Mars and joined Delroy Lindo in the cast of the Jet Li vehicle 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 his background in martial arts enabled him to do most of his own stunts. The film spawned two sequels, Transporter 2, in 2005 and third Transporter film in 2008. He also played in supporting roles in Mean Machine (2002), The Italian Job (2003) (in which he played Handsome Rob), Cellular (2004) where 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 also played a dramatic role in the independent drama London in 2006. In 2006 he played the lead role in Crank. Statham compares his role in Crank to his real life in the September 2006 issue of Maxim. The success of Crank led to a sequel in 2009 titled Crank: High Voltage.

In 2008 he starred in the British crime thriller The Bank Job which was both a critical and box office success. In 2008, 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, he started to develop a new movie written by David Peoples and Janet Peoples (Twelve 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,” and the release date is still unknown.

In 2010, Statham appeared alongside fellow action stars Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, 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.