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Jason Statham talked today with IESB about The Bank Job, Crank 2, Transporter 3 and, believe it or not, Namor, the Sub-Mariner.
Sitting down with Jason Statham, it’s hard to separate the man from his work. That’s maybe a blessing and a curse for an actor who seems to exude natural bad-assery. He joked with reporters earlier in the day that even when he gets straight forward dramatic roles, they always end up writing in a fight scene.
IESB: When you started acting, did you ever picture yourself becoming such an action hero superstar?
Statham: Maybe in a dream, one day. But no, I’ve always been very motivated to take it as far as I can. The fact that you do a movie that people enjoy and that it has a certain amount of success is like a boost. You go “Great, fuck, I did something that people liked.” Then you think, fuck, how can we take it to the next level? Can we do something a bit bigger, a bit better. Give a few more good actors in. You’re always trying to top what you did the last time so you’ll never be content. I don’t think you’ll ever sit on top of the mountain and go, “You know what? Fuck, I did it. I did what I wanted to do.” I feel I’ve got a long way to go. I regard that as a motivating factor. So yeah, I made a couple of decent films. I’ve made a couple of not-so-decent films. So the drive is certainly there.
IESB: Now when you say “not-so-decent”, are those still good experiences?
Statham: Yeah. I mean, you can only learn by your mistakes. A lot of the time you’re not responsible for the way a movie finishes. Some of the time you have a certain amount of responsibility but, you know, you learn to be more rigid with your decisions and less risky. As the stakes get higher, you want to be a bit more careful, you know? I think now I’m in a position where I don’t want to take too many risks. I just want to work with decent people and I think to work with someone like Roger [Donaldson] was a real indication of that. When I finished the movie with him, it was like, fuck, he’s so protective with something like that. He understands the narrative. He understands the characters. He understands where he’s gonna cut and where he’s not. You know, he’s got it all pre-planned. You’re not wasting time shooting ten hours of coverage. He knows what he needs. You just surrender all your fears. They just disappear because you’re working with someone you trust. The same thing happens when you work with someone like Guy Ritchie, you know. You just don’t care because you know they’re going to make a good movie no matter what.
IESB: Speaking of Guy Ritchie, he’s moving into directing The Dirty Dozen. Has he talked to you about appearing in that?
Statham: No, he hasn’t. I haven’t seen Guy in a little while. But we’ll get together soon enough. But I’ll work with him until I can’t even fucking walk anymore. You know, he’s there forever in my eyes.
IESB: Do you have a dream project that you’ve always wanted to do?
Statham: Yeah, I’ve got a few. I think my dream project would be to work with somebody like Michael Mann or Martin Scorsese and within that project there to be someone like Russell Crowe there. To do something where I could expand upon my other sort of area. I think that’s what I’d like to do. At the same time, I’d like to do a dream action movie. Something that has enough of a budget, enough of a great script, enough great locations and a real character-driven action movie. Not just some bit of fluff to try and sell straight to DVD. Something that has a bit of longevity – a bit of quality – to it. An adult action movie. Not to say that adults don’t go to see films like Crank and Snatch but I’d like to do something that’s a bit more of a thriller.
IESB: Are there any comic book characters that you’d like to play in a film?
Statham: Yeah, absolutely. That’d be another area of my wishlist. I’d love to play one, yeah.
IESB: Anyone in particular?
Statham: Let me think… It’s funny, I took a meeting for Sub-Mariner. I don’t know if I’d look right running around in a tight speedo with wings on my ankles but there’s so many cool fucking characters. The Hulk, I’ve always been a big fan of but Ed Norton’s doing that. And rightly so. He’s fucking amazing. And he’s working with Louis Leterrier, believer it or not who did The Transporter. I’m trying to think of what would be a good comic book character for me to play. You know, there’s talk of them redoing The Crow. That was a good movie with Brandon Lee, although that was years ago. So if that one comes my way, bang! You know, there’s so many comic book movies out there and most of the time there’s only a handful of people who can do them any justice. Hopefully, they’ll come my way for one of them.
IESB: What about getting on the other side of the camera? Ever wanted to write or direct?
Statham: Writing, no way. Directing? Yeah, I could see some possibility of that down the way. I’ve made some silly home videos. You want to see them? (Laughs) I’ve had a video camera since I was a kid. My buddies used to come over and we’d make some videos. Some silly ones. I’d edit them on my computer, you know. I-Movie and very simple linear editing. But yeah, I’ve always had my finger in a pie in that sense. And I love photography so it’s just an extension of that. And understanding the characters and putting the story together. So yeah, I wouldn’t rule it out. But I’m having a lot of fun on the front side. When I get old and the joints stop working, maybe I should slip around the other side.
IESB: Now Guy Ritchie actually wrote a comic called Gamekeeper that he’s talked about making into a film.
Statham: I haven’t looked at it but he’s very excited about it. (Imitating Ritchie) “Yeah, I really want to do this one. It’s fucking going to be great.” So yeah. I’m sure there’s a huge trend for this kind of film and I’m sure he’ll do a good job of it.
IESB: So coming up next is Crank 2 and Transporter 3…
Statham: Yeah, two franchises. Fucking hell. It’s crazy because over the past few months, I’ve had a ton of offers. You want to do something you want to do and you want to do something that people want you to do. You don’t want to just do a movie to be different. It’s like, does this work for me? Right? It’s a character I’ve played and the script’s okay but where do you score in that film? So you just have to put everything on the scale. Right at the time, Transporter 3 and Crank 2 made the most sense because they’re the characters people like. But people like to pigeonhole you into the corner of that’s all you can do but they’re going to do that anyway. If you do something that is away from appealing to the public they go, “Why didn’t he just do Transporter 3? Everyone wanted to see that!”. You can’t fucking please everyone so you just have to please yourself. If everyone enjoys it, then great. You can never please everyone.
IESB: So you’d like to work on smaller films, too?
Statham: Yeah, I did a film called London. I don’t know if anyone ever saw it. It’s a great thing. I filmed it in like 20 days. There’s pages and pages of dialogue. It’s great. I can really sink my teeth into that kind of stuff. But not a lot of people go to see those films. They’re very art-housey. There’s a fine line. You can’t keep making too many of those. You have to strike a balance between something not too ridiculously commercial and something that will win the attention of the people out there and at the same time give you a little bit of credibility. I think that The Bank Job catches both sides there. It’s entertaining, isn’t it? It’s fun. It’ll be interesting to see how The Bank Job does.
http://www.iesb.net/index.php?option...4182&Itemid=99
The Crow does NOT need a remake.