JASON STATHAM IS still counting his blessings almost five years after his breakthrough in director Guy Ritchie's wildly successful Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels. That film thrust the one-time street hustler into the limelight and he has never looked back. These days he is a star in his own right, too, taking the lead alongside Shu Qi in Hong Kong director Corey Yuen Kwai's The Transporter.
It's been a wild ride and Statham has been laughing all the way to the bank. 'It's quite funny really,' he says, relaxing at Wan Chai's Grand Hyatt hotel during a whirlwind, two-day trip to Hong Kong. 'I never really dreamed of being an actor. I mean, I still pinch myself, even today. It's been a phenomenal ride. I was blessed with being in the right place at the right time. There was a huge amount of luck involved. And I have been fortunate enough to capitalise on that.'
The 32-year-old was taken on by Ritchie after the pair were introduced through a mutual friend. At the time, Statham was supplementing his work as a part-time model by hawking cheap jewellery outside London's Harrods store. He retains all the chancer's charm too; dressed immaculately in shades of brown, he makes sure everyone in the room is at ease before the interview begins. And his eyes only leave you when he laughs.
'I was a street trader for years,' he grins. 'I used to sit outside Harrods on a milk crate and I knew that world and I know all these crooks and criminals. You know, that's what I've been exposed to growing up. So here's him [Ritchie] writing a movie about the world I've lived in, he wanted to see what I could bring in. And so I was just another stroke to colour the canvas.'
Ritchie gave Statham the part of the street-wise Bacon in Lock, Stock, a character who is cool, calm and collected. And he repeated the dose as Turkish in Ritchie's Snatch two years later. From there he's gone on to play opposite Jet Li in The One (2001) and alongside Ice Cube in John Carpenter's Ghosts Of Mars (2001) - hardly earth-shattering productions but the beginnings of a healthy CV nonetheless. But it was a phone call from Luc Besson that led to his first chance to play a lead role.
'My agent had met Luc Besson and told him I had some physical abilities,' Statham says. 'So he wanted to meet, and we did, and the next thing you know, he's written a script for me. It was something that Luc developed for me so it was like a ******* dream.'
That script developed into The Transporter and it meant Statham would be reunited with martial-arts maestro Yuen, who had worked on The One as one of the fight co-ordinators. And while The Transporter is by no means a resounding success (see review on Page 4), the action sequences have Yuen's trademark flair. The pair, it seems, hit it off on the set of The One and so were delighted to get the chance to work together again.
