Jason Statham slams CGI-heavy Marvel movies: ‘It’s not authentic’
The Spy star continues his war on 'poncy actors’ who rely on green screen and stunt doubles: ‘My grandma could do that’
Contrary to recent reports, it looks like Jason Statham won’t be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe after all. This week it was rumoured that Marvel had approached the British action star to appear as villain Bullseye in season two of their Netflix series Daredevil.
But in an interview with the Italian film website I-400 Calci, as spotted by the AV Club, Statham makes clear his distaste for “modern action movies”, especially those made by Marvel.
While promoting his new Paul Feig-directed comedy Spy, Statham said: “I could take my grandma and put her in a cape, and they’ll put her on a green screen and they’ll have stunt doubles come in and do all the action. Anybody can do it. They’re relying on stunt doubles, and green screen, and $200 million budgets, it’s all CGI created. To me, it’s not authentic.”
Statham, the star of the Transporter and Fast & Furious movies, has long been a champion of practical stunt work over CGI, and has been known to pay out of his own pocket in order to perform stunts for real instead of using digitally-enhanced green screen: "Fahkin' hate green screen,” he told Details in 2012. “Pay significant amounts of money never to do it again. You cannot fake adrenaline.”
And in 2013 he told Vanity Fair that stunt performers deserve Oscars just as much as actors, calling them the “unsung heroes” of many action movies. Nobody is giving them any credibility,” he said. “ They’re risking their necks. And then you’ve got poncy actors pretending like they’re doing [the stunts]. They’re the ones getting busy. Then you have some guy standing in front of a f______ green screen screwing his face up pretending like he’s doing the stunt.”
Statham also recently revealed that he would "abso-f______-lutely" love to play James Bond once Daniel Craig steps down.
Spy is on release now
