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Since making his screen debut in the cult angling classic, Haddock, Pollock and Two Smoked Barbels, Jason Statham has established himself as one of Britain’s most versatile and charismatic actors, and is now widely regarded as the natural successor to iconic performers such as Laurence Olivier, Charles Hawtrey and Tomasz Schafernaker.
Statham has demonstrated a mesmeric ability in a huge range of roles, bringing a singular dynamism and luminosity to characters who often do without a shirt, drive at very high speeds and routinely speak in a barely audible mumble.
Although inexplicably overlooked for the major cinematic awards, Statham’s films consistently feature among the most popular with the public at large – notably the Trainspotter series, in which he plays a troubled diesel enthusiast battling the malign forces of foreign steam fanatics, the Expondables series, in which he plays a great crested newt struggling to survive in a hostile city environment of concrete and glass, and the Sherlock series in which he plays a hansom cab (not a handsome cad as many filmographies erroneously claim).
Despite being born in Lancashire, he is not related to Brian Statham, the county’s legendary fast bowler, who took 252 Test wickets during the nineteen fifties and sixties.