March 2, 2008 - The Bank Job star Jason Statham’s ready to let the world in on his secret to the perfect 5 o’clock shadow. “You see, I’ve got such sensitive skin that I can’t have a proper shave because I get a rash,” joked Statham at The Bank Job’s LA press junket. “No, you have to have one of those beard trimmers, if you really want to look like that...”
Statham sports a permanent 5 o’clock shadow in the dramatic thriller The Bank Job based on true events. The film tells the story of the 1971 robbery of Lloyds Bank in Marylebone, London. Statham plays Terry, a car dealer whose criminal past made him the right guy for Martine (Saffron Burrows), a model with a shady past herself, to turn to when a bank vault loaded with safe deposit boxes was ripe for the picking. Terry agreed to do the job with the help of his hand-picked crew. What Terry didn’t know going in was that he and his gang were going to wind up playing large roles in a scandal involving the British government, local gangsters, and the Royal Family.
Statham was too young to have any memories of the real bank robbery, and even his parents didn’t recall much about what happened. “My parents remember – they go, ‘Oh yeah, maybe there was something that I do remember…’ But literally there was three days of exposure and then it was all like hush-hush, there was a whole blanket put upon the press. So unless you were around reading the papers on those particular three days, you wouldn’t have heard much about it, you know? And it’s quite interesting. I’d never heard of a D notice until Roger [Donaldson, the director] told me about what the implications of one of these were,” said Statham. “Not many people that I knew remember, and I certainly don’t remember because I was [not very] big.”
Donaldson actually located one of the real robbers, an elderly man who’s now close to 75 years old and looks surprisingly like an older Jason Statham. In fact, the resemblance between the real robber and Statham was so striking, people were actually asking Statham if the man hanging out on the set was his dad. “He was walking around on set, and we were told that we were not supposed to say who he is, I think there were three of us, me, Roger and Steve [Chasman, a producer] - that’s the only people that knew what his job really was, or what it used to be. Anyway, so people would ask me, say, ‘Who’s that guy that you was talking to? It’s not your dad, is it?’ Literally, so it was a common feeling throughout the set that people thought I was talking to my dad.”
Statham had to refrain from asking certain questions of the guy who had an intimate knowledge of how the bank robbery went down. “You know, you try and pick their brains as much as possible, and you try and give them a certain amount of respect,” explained Statham. “I mean, you find yourself in a position where you don’t want to be, you know, sort of, ‘So tell me about this. How many years did he get? And did he get nicked? What did you steal? Where are all the jewels?’ I mean, you don’t want to go down that line and behave like a bit of an imbecile and a bit of an idiot. So you try and make them feel comfortable about the fact that they’re even talking to you about such a thing.”
The screenplay for The Bank Job evolved as more research was done on the robbery. “Originally Dick and Ian - Dick Clements and Ian La Frenais - they do tremendous work on British TV and in movies. A lot of their stuff I know so well as being great comedy writing, so the script when I read it was quite a funny script. It was very, very comical, and once Roger started doing all his research, and [finding] all these facts, the scandal side, it just took a complete turn and became this, more like, thriller,” said Statham. “I think it was something I was quite pleased about, because I’ve made a few comedies. Even the Guy Ritchie stuff, in my opinion, very sort of black comedies, and I’ve never really done anything in the tone of The Bank Job, something quite scandalous and a great, true story. As the weeks progressed and we started finding out all these facts, new pages came, new scenes started to come, and it was great. It took a turn in the direction that I wanted it to.”
Statham was involved in the script process, although he admits he’s not a particularly great writer of stories or scenes. “I had my fair share of input, but it’s not like I was at home with a pen trying to contribute in any way. But I think that’s the collaboration with all actors. I mean, at the end of the day, they have to try and bring to life what’s on that page. So, if it resonates as you’re reading it and you can feel…I think the way you have to be able to make it is, ‘You know, is that the way that I can articulate this and be truthful to it?’”
“A lot of the dialogue that we tried to stay away from, you know, with the rhyme and slang and all the East End stuff…we didn’t want to make it too English. It can start falling back along the lines of the Guy Ritchie stuff, if you start giving it too much of a peppering of that kind of dialogue. A lot of the time some writers they’re writing very quickly and they think that that’s the way that these people talk. A lot of the time they don’t, so you just go in there with a sieve and sort of sweep up and try to make the dialogue a bit more authentic. I think that’s a great contribution that I gave Roger. You know, Roger comes from Australia. The way that we speak back in England has a certain rhythm to it, so sometimes you can make the dialogue a little bit more truthful,” explained Statham.
Statham’s known for tackling action-centric roles (Transporter, Crank) and says it’s difficult to find the right part that isn’t all about the physicality of the character. “It’s hard because every time I do find a non-fighting movie, they always write a fighting scene in,” said Statham. “So I find them and it’s like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t even clench my fist in this.’"
"Next thing you know, two weeks into the movie, ‘Yeah, we’ve got this scene, and just hit him.’ And so there’s always something that comes. I think this movie always had a moment of violence towards the end because there’s so much at stake," explained Statham, adding, "I’m still looking for that complete romantic comedy where I don’t hit anybody. One day…”
