Jason Statham returns as Frank Martin in the third film of the Transporter franchise, the appropriately titled Transporter 3. After playing Frank twice before, this is a character Statham has figured out - and one he admires in many ways. "He's much cooler than me," said Statham at the film's LA press conference. "I'm a bit of a fool deep down."
Asked how he's like Frank, Statham replied, "Luc [Besson] is ultimately responsible for the creation of Frank Martin and for me being in Hollywood right now. If it wasn't for Transporter 1, I don't think I'd be in this position. It's the first movie I ever did where I played a leading part, and certainly the first action movie I've ever done. It's great to have such a huge opportunity to do something like that and it takes a lot of balls to gamble on somebody that doesn't really have anything to sort of back that up. So to answer the question of am I like Frank Martin, apart from I'm able to put on a black suit and I have the same haircut, probably not."
Audiences love Frank and Statham has a theory as to why he's such an appealing character. "I think Frank Martin's like this guy who would always like to talk his way out of a situation, but I think he has this good moral code. What he does is not necessarily on the right side of the law, but what he really does instinctively is something that is good. He has a good judgment of what is really deep-seated and correct and respectful. But there's also a great amount of respect due for someone that can deal with these very intense situations that don't necessarily go as planned and how do you get out of those situations with minimal amounts of damage."
"It's not like this guy just waves a gun around and shoots people in the head unnecessarily. He's trying to do the least amount of damage possible. He's not looking for conflict. He just wants to have an easy life and at the same time, the way he protects that is to not get involved with people and live a very sort of quiet, sort of lonely life, if you like. But at the same time, it's quite different to most of us and I think that's why we find a bit of interest in that, because generally we're much more sociable and much less inclined to deal with situations than someone like Frank Martin," offered Statham.
Returning to the franchise for the third movie, Statham didn't want to let the series become stagnant. "You know, obviously it's about the creative aspects of how we're going to make this one a little bit more interesting. How do you make Frank Martin more vulnerable? And, at the same time, you always have to try and exceed what you did in the previous two, which is so difficult these days because there's so much to live up to with what Luc created with the character, in fact. So there's always challenges and hopefully we've made this one interesting enough."
After playing Frank twice before, Statham had no problem handling the physical demands of the character this time around. "We actually learned a lot with what you have to get ready for physically," said Statham. "I mean, the fight sequences always pose a certain challenge. If you're not physically ready, if you don't hit the gym and you're not stretched out, you're going to get injured very quickly. So it's basically you learn that from making the first one that you have to be very efficient with your preparation. So we try to give as much time as we can way, way before we start the first day of filming."
But Statham found his past training in the water didn't really help him with the film's underwater sequences. "I used to do diving years ago but you have to hold your breath for about two seconds. You dive in and you come straight to the surface so I actually learned to scuba dive for the first one with a good friend of Luc's who's probably the best person you could ever learn to scuba dive with. A little bit unorthodox in his teaching techniques - I was thrust into a cave and the mask was ripped off - but you gain confidence very, very quickly. It was the best place to learn," revealed Statham.
Statham couldn't pick out any one action scene he could label the most difficult of Transporter 3 when asked what stunt he found hardest to handle. "It's hard because we had so many. It's difficult because we have to try and do something new, and you've got Olivier [Megaton, the director] with a trolley with a camera on it thinking of new ways, new angles and it's difficult how you try and improve on what you've already done and what you haven't already seen in movies that are out there now."
"It wouldn't be possible to do if you didn't have some kind of adrenaline coursing through your veins," said Statham on the thrill of being in an action sequence. "You have to be aware, because you don't want to do something wrong. If you don't have the energy, you'll have to do it again. So it's better to try and get it [in the] first one [or] two takes if you can, so it's best to try and switch on and be plugged into that mentally. And, obviously, if we've done enough rehearsal than we get it right. We had a very efficient way of shooting. We have some very good stuntmen and we had so many different angles. I've never seen so many creative angles that Olivier came up with. We had top shots, under shots, shooting through cages, some really creative stuff and that just comes from having… I think that's why we went back to France, because we have the most creative army there. We made a great one in Miami too, but I think what [works] best in my experience is what happens in France. We have such great stuntmen and such great production design. Everything seems to be better there, in my opinion anyway."
Statham will next be seen in Crank 2 which reunites him with writer/directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, and there are rumors circulating he's interested in doing a reboot of Daredevil. When questioned about those rumors, Statham said, "I think someone saw me in a bar with Frank Miller and put two and two together and thought it would be a good combination. And I said, 'Maybe it would.' I'm a big comic fan and Daredevil, the one that got made not so long ago, I thought they could have done a better job with that. If they want to put me and Frank Miller together and do one, let's have a look at the script."
