You must have seen that bald, English, tough guy whom no one can defeat. Well, you’ll never guess, he was a vegetable vendor in the market. That is inspiring! How does one go from selling vegetables to being of Hollywood’s most bankable actors?
Jason Statham was born on 26 July 1967 in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, England where his love for martial arts led him to acquire it as a hobby while he worked in the market stalls. He was a part of the British diving team and participated in the commonwealth games.
With some fame of athletic success, he was soon contracted as a model for the Tommy Hilfiger brand and later Levi’s. As fame brings fame, he was soon chosen to play a market vendor in two films Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000).
Transported to Fame
The films were overly successful and won him a starring role in the Transporter Franchise (Transporter trilogy (2002–2008). He was very important in keeping alive the ‘tough guy’ action films which were losing place to the action fantasies such as Avatar.
Statham went on to higher grounds with other films that proved highly commercial successful or failures such as
- Box Office Success: The Italian Job (2003)Crank (2006), War (2007), The Bank Job (2008), The Mechanic (2011), Spy (2015), and Mechanic: Resurrection (2016)
- Box Office Bombs: Revolver (2005), Chaos (2005), In the Name of the King (2007), 13 (2010), Blitz (2011), Killer Elite (2011), Hummingbird (2013), and Wild Card (2015)
Most Bankable Actor
During his short stage life, from 2002 – 2017, Statham was considered by Rotten Tomatoes as one of the most bankable stars. Despite mixed reception, he was able to score $115 billion in less than two decades.
In addition to the Transporter franchise, there were two other films that empowered his fame. The first, The Expendables (2010–2014), written by Sylvester Stallone, was a splendid attempt to resurrect all the past ‘tough guys’ who had dominated their movies – Stallone, Statham, Snipes, Li, Schwarzenegger, Norris, Willis, etc.
The franchise held commercial ground and great fan flare and bumped a revival to the genre. Even though in this phase of Hollywood, the “tough guys’ showed up with feelings and more vulnerability.
The second franchise was of a longer stretch, even including one special that focused on Statham and Dwayne Wilson. the Fast & Furious franchise only featured him in parts 6,7,9 and 10.
He was later casted as a partner with Wilson in the special presentation, Hubbs and Shaw (2019).
Statham is happily engaged to Rosie Huntington-Whiteley with whom he has two children, a boy and a girl. He is one of the chief advocates for awarding stunts men instead of actors in all the roles and has made his support public.
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