JASON STATHAM: Good morning. Hello there.

IGN FILMFORCE: Jason, how are you?

STATHAM: Oh, very good.

IGNFF: You must be pleased with The Italian Job, even though for you
there's less marital arts, more chase.

STATHAM: Yes, I needed to let my knuckles dry anyway. (He jokes.)

Those days are over.

IGNFF: In the film you and Seth Green get on quite well. You guys
have a lot of camaraderie.

STATHAM: We shared many laughs. He's got a great ability, Seth, as an

actor to improvise. If you say, "talk," he can just talk and make the funniest
story completely off the cuff.
IGNFF: A great example is that scene with Seth in the car…

STATHAM: The scene where we were trying to rid [the cable lady] of the
cable truck, where he was mocking me in the car, that was all completely
ad-libbed. There was hours and hours of it and they ended up using a small
portion. Hopefully you'll get to see everything they did on the DVD. He's
just so funny.

IGNFF: You weren't at all aware of the commentary?

STATHAM: All of us was crying! Gary went, "Jason, come here!" he

shouted, and I didn't even know he was doing it. They left a mike on in the
car, and I just thought [Gary] was taking more pictures, you know, to fill the
camera angles. He shouted me over, and literally we was both asking for
tissues. We was crying, we laughed so loud. It was a complete surprise.
And to see the edited version, it's a great scene.

[Recently] there was a great moment where we watched it in front of a live

audience, they were very responsive.

IGNFF: How did you and Gary connect on this?

STATHAM: He gave me a phone call one evening. And we had a chat.

And he says, "Great! You're in!" (He laughs.) How cool is that?

[At the time] I don't know if he'd seen The Transporter but he'd been
familiar with Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. People
take chances every now and then, and you don't want to disappoint them.
I'm very thankful to Gary for that.

IGNFF: Hopefully all the jobs in the future will be that easy.

STATHAM: Yeah! God, if only.

IGNFF: What are your memories of being in the Olympics? How do

you look back on that?

STATHAM: I didn't actually go to the Olympic Games, but you know, pretty
much everything else, the World Championships.

IGNFF: You finished 12th? That's what it says here…

STATHAM: Who wrote that, my mom? (He laughs.)

IGNFF: You placed 12th in the world for diving on the platform.

STATHAM: That's very true.

IGNFF: In 1992.

STATHAM: It wasn't actually in the Olympic Games, but I spent 12 years

on the national squad. And it was a great experience, you know, to travel
the world and compete at a certain level. It teaches you discipline, focus,
and certainly keeps you out of trouble.

IGNFF: And that's a high diving board. Way up there.

STATHAM: A ways. Used to compete on a 10-meter platform and 3-meter

springboard, which is not necessarily very high but we used to do a certain
amount of gymnastic tricks off there. We'd do backwards three-and-a-
halves. You know, like Greg Louganis.

IGNFF: Where do diving and your film career connect? To start, did
it?

STATHAM: No. [Diving] was obviously a hobby of mine, and being an

amateur sport you can't earn any money at that. So I used to put money in
my pocket while working on the street corners, selling perfume and jewelry,
and other goods that were supposedly expensive.
IGNFF: Where in London did you do this?

STATHAM: Argyle Street, which is off Oxford Street. Nightsbridge outside

Harrods. Any of the places that was very busy for shoppers.

IGNFF: Since The Transporter, and I assume it was pretty successful

in England, how have things changed for you. I mean, can you get
into clubs?

STATHAM: Laughs. Yeah! (He laughs) I mean, nothing's really changed,

but I hope I am quite approachable, you know? I'm certainly not Tom
Cruise or Brad Pitt. And if people come up and say they like the movies
you're in, it's a great compliment. But it doesn't sort of create much of a
hindrance to go anywhere, as of now.

IGNFF: Being from England, were you a fan of the original Italian
Job?

STATHAM: Oh yeah, that was a great movie! It's a classic. You know,
most English people will talk very enthusiastically about it.

The thing about the UK is we don't really make that many great movies. So,
the very few that we do make, we might say, "Oh, you should leave it
alone. Try not to mess it up." But, you know, it's just people's negativity
back at home. It's just a general attitude amongst the nation.

IGNFF: Has it been easy for you to master the art of stunt driving?
Could you keep up with Charlize Theron?

STATHAM: She was very good, actually. I was very surprised. (He laughs.)
She's a bit of a tomboy deep down. An extremely good driver.

I love to get behind the wheel and get competitive. I've always had that
competitive nature, whether it's racing around the track in Mini Coopers or
diving off a platform or doing a bit of grappling. Whatever it is, I've got that
sort of competitive edge.

IGNFF: I would imagine Mark Wahlberg would also have that

competitive edge. You guys were kind of playing basketball...

STATHAM: Me compete with him at basketball? (He laughs.) I'm like a fish
of water. It's not something I'd grown up doing, and I'm probably about as
incapable as any man could be at basketball. But I love it. I watch it.
IGNFF: Beyond diving and martial arts what else did you excel at?

STATHAM: Anything gymnastics orientated: trampoline, the high jump, and

gymnastics itself. I used to play a lot of racket sports, tennis and squash.

IGNFF: A common question: are you comfortable doing most of your

own stunts?

STATHAM: Yes, but I'd do more if they let me. I've never really been
frightened to do anything. It's always an issue of safety that sort of prevents
me from doing everything. Apart from things like fire burns and stuff that's
completely out of your control, I'm really keen to do any of that stuff
anyway. But, you know, half the time they don't see who it is.

IGNFF: You tried lifting Seth Green over your head?

STATHAM: Yes. It was somewhat like lifting that cassette recorder. (He
laughs.) He's not that big, you know.

IGNFF: And of course, the boats. You got to navigate Grande Canal in
Venice. How are your boating skills?

STATHAM: Yes, I did quite a bit of boat driving. I wasn't very good,
although it might have looked like I was quite capable. My boat driving skills
were very much under par. But I had the confidence to get in a boat and do
it. And, you know, it was under the bridges and we were making the big
turns in the Grande Canal.

[The boats] are not very responsive. It's a Boston Whaler that I was driving.
It's more of a fishing boat, so it's not got that much of a responsive action. It
takes seven rotations of the wheel to make the engine to go from one side
to the other. And there's not much of a turning arc when it does anyway.
So, you're doing a lot of spinning and turning for not a lot of movement on
the back end.

And when you want to stop you can't stop. There's about 50 feet of
coasting before you come to anything like a stop. It's quite worrying in that
respect. It's not like you can just slam on the brakes and go, "That was
close." That was one of the toughest moments, the boat driving. But still it
was a lot of fun.

IGNFF: Like your character, Handsome Rob, in the movie, if you had
the money, what kind of car would you buy?
STATHAM: I'd probably buy the Aston Martin [the car Rob wants to buy], or
a luxury car like the Bentley would be cool. I do like the sports cars. I've just
seen a picture of, I don't know if you're familiar with the band Jamiroquoi,
but [one of the members] has just bought a new Ferrari called, I think, the
Enzi. Have you seen it? The new Ferrari.

IGNFF: It's wild.

STATHAM: It's like unbelievable! It looks like a rocket. That's probably

what I'd have.

IGNFF: Will you be doing a marital arts film in the near future? The
Transporter was a damn good flick.

STATHAM: Thank you very much. Yeah, I'd love to. I mean it was my first
attempt at that kind of a physical role. And I think learned so much from
that. I think that whatever I do next along those lines, you know, will
certainly exceed what I did in The Transporter. And I'm very much looking
forward to that.

IGNFF: Have they talked about a sequel? The Transporter 2 maybe?

STATHAM: Yeah! I mean, Luc [Besson, producer of The Transporter] was

very keen to do one. It's something I do want to do. I think the people like
the character. I think the movie could have been better in certain areas.
You know, we can definitely try and do that. I hope so.

IGNFF: Since you were discovered and became an actor, have you
gone back to look at training or doing stage work or things like that to
get better at what you do?

STATHAM: I haven't really had a lot time. I've been unfortunate enough to
be working, and recovering from a few injuries now and again. It just seems
like the time that I do get off, it so important for me to go back and see my
folks and my friends. I think it's very important to keep in touch with people
that mean a lot to you. It seems like I've just been doing that more than
pursuing any drama schools or anything along those lines.

IGNFF: Would you like to do that, so that perhaps you have more
tools as time goes on, and you're doing different things in different
roles?

STATHAM: Oh, absolutely. I would certainly not frown on any of that.

Some people have had years of tuition and it really shows. But there are
certain people that disagree with that, too. Guy Ritchie, he thinks going to
drama school is the worst thing in the world. He said it just turns people in
the clones, and it takes away your intuition, and it just teaches you
technique. He says, "Why would anybody want to do that? You lose
everything that's original and unique to an individual." So, there's two
thoughts to it.

Look at someone like Edward Norton. A truly phenomenal actor. He's

definitely went to school and trained. And Robert De Niro. They're like the
best actors in the world. It's definitely worth doing if you're going to achieve
some kind of an ability like Robert De Niro.

IGNFF: This is the first time I believe that you've worked with
someone of the stature of Donald Sutherland, from that school.

STATHAM: Yes.

IGNFF: From your perspective, what's that like?

STATHAM: That a man of experience is on the set. He's a wealth of

experience and there's no substitute for that. Just the way he approaches
things, it's just a confidence really. A very apparent one.

IGNFF: You seem nonchalant about it, but I bet you couldn't walk
down Oxford Street today without getting mobbed.

STATHAM: Yeah! (He laughs.) They're all looking for their money back
from the jewelry I used to sell!

IGNFF: Is California is home now?

STATHAM: No, but I'd like it to be home. I do like California. It's a great
place, but I'm never in one place long enough to say this is where I want to
make home.

IGNFF: You think it might work out better for you, opportunity-wise?

STATHAM: Living in Hollywood? I think so, because it has more great

filmmakers per square inch there than anywhere in the world. I definitely
want to do that but don't turn my back on anything in Europe, too, because
you know I started there.

IGNFF: And, of course, your family and friends.

STATHAM: My family's great, like a rock to me. My father used to run
auctions. He's now a singer in the Canary Islands.

IGNFF: When you're not working, what are you up to these days in
London?

STATHAM: A bit of socializing, really, when I go home I'm always shoved

into a pub. That's the friends for ya!