Jason Statham spent 12 years on the British national diving team, competing on the 10-meter platform and the 3-meter springboard. In 1992, he was ranked 12th in the world as a platform diver.
Well trained in Mixed Martial Arts and is an expert in Kickboxing/Jujitsu.
Did nearly all of his own stunts in The Transporter (2002), including car chase sequences, scuba diving sequences and fight sequences.
Inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame in 2014.
Though he never won a medal during his 12 year diving career, Statham competed in the 1990 Commonwealth games and came close to competing for Great Britain in the Olympics three times: 1988, 1992, and 1996.
He turned down a role in RocknRolla (2008) due to his commitment to Death Race (2008).
In the comic book series Ultimate Spider-Man, that series' version of the villain Vulture was rendered by artist Mark Bagley to resemble Statham, as per writer Brian Michael Bendis' instructions.
Was originally set play Private Cooper in Dog Soldiers (2002), but dropped out to star in Ghosts of Mars (2001).
He was offered the lead role in Bronson (2008), but was unavailable.
An article by Times Higher Education, reported that Manchester University Press commissioned an academic study analyzing the impact Jason Statham has had on the British and American film industries from his debut in 1998 to 2018. According to the article, professors Steven Gerrard and Robert Shail are looking to show "the changing face of British cinematic masculinity" into "one that embraces cinema across a wide range of projects, but one that also uses cross-textual media in his output".
Quotes[]
You ain't ever gonna get an Academy Award for doing Crank (2006) and you certainly won't for doing all the other movies I've done.
I go to this gym full of stunt men. There aren't any TVs or treadmills there. This is a spit-and-sawdust kind of place. It has a lot of great training aids - trampolines and bags and every weapon ever invented to do harm to a human being. If you want to know how to throw a knife it's great.
Growing up where I did, you met a lot of colorful characters whose business was on the other side of the law, or more likely you didn't know what they were up to, and you never would. So playing those kinds of characters now, I can draw on that. The rest of it, you can practice or learn from books. But mostly, I draw from my experiences. That's all I have, you know.
I'm enthusiastic and ambitious, and I work hard.
If you're going to do something, do it with style!
Whatever you do, do it to the extreme.
If someone's got a fear of heights, they'd probably say, well, hanging off a helicopter at 3,000 feet above downtown L.A. would be the scariest. For me, that's a day's work, something I was very happy to do.
