We know Jason Statham as a suave tough-guy that can go toe-to-toe with anyone on the silver screen. But he wasn't always a Hollywood hitman.
Statham was 31 before he got his first major role in a feature film - as Bacon in 1998's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Prior to that, Statham worked as a model, working with brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Griffin, Levis and French Connection.
Thankfully, YouTube is a gold mine when it comes to Jason Statham footage from the 90s. His career as an electro-pop background dancer is must-see-TV. The Shamen's Comin' On features a shirtless Statham in a leopard-print speedo, and Statham shines, quite literally, in Erasure's Run to the Sun.
Then there's the commercials - a sexy 1997 jeans ad aboard a space ship and a comical commercial from that same year for an exciting new computer game. That wasn't his first time gracing the TV screen, either.
In 1990, Statham competed in the Commonwealth Games as part of the British diving team, where he finished eighth in the 1m springboard competition, 11th in the 3m springboard competition and 10th in the 10m platform competition. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, he was ranked 12th in the world at one-point.
Statham spent 12 years as part of the British diving team, and the acrobatics he perfected as a diver have served him well in his acting career. But it was a different aspect of his past that helped him earn that first role in the aforementioned Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
At one point, Statham was a hustler, selling various goods in what one might term the black market. This experience is what drew Director Guy Ritchie to Statham when casting the film.
Related: Here's Why Jason Statham Is A Complete Action-Movie Package
It just so happened that the character Bacon worked in that exact same industry.
His performance led to another Guy Ritchie film - Snatch - which was a box office success and saw Statham acting alongside Brad Pitt and Benicio Del Toro, among others.
From there, Statham began his meteoric rise to fame. Starting with The Transporter, for which there were two sequels. His addition to the Expendables roster for all three of those films essentially verified that he had arrived as an action-film star. He leveled up yet again in 2013 when he made a cameo appearance in Fast and Furious 6. And he parlayed that cameo appearance into starring roles in the next two Fast films, as well as a standalone feature alongside Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in Hobbs & Shaw.
Statham hustled his way into the Hollywood elite and he's here to stay.
His IMDB page as of this writing only lists two upcoming projects: Spy 2, a followup to the 2015 Melissa McCarthy comedy, and Cash Truck, an action drama directed by none other than Guy Ritchie. Cash Truck is scheduled to release in January 2021, and if Ritchie's previous success with Statham can be replicated, it will be a crowd-pleaser.