HE is often overshadowed by more critically acclaimed home-grown acting talent such as Christian Bale and Idris Elba.

But Jason Statham is laughing all the way to the bank after being named the highest-paid Brit in Hollywood last year, raking in £32million.

The 56-year-old movie hardman came seventh in a rich list of acting stars recently published by Forbes, tying with Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio and beating Ben Affleck and Denzel Washington.

Derbyshire-born Jason pocketed a cool £15.7million to star in action thriller The Beekeeper – and he will have been buzzing when it became the highest-grossing film of 2024 for eight weeks, raking in £120million worldwide.

The film beat Dakota Johnson’s big-budget superhero flick Madame Web before finally being overtaken by Dune: Part Two this month.

It’s a far cry from Jason’s beginnings as a teenage hustler who sold cheap watches outside Harrods and failed in his bid to become a diver at the Olympics.

His screen career only began in his 30s – and Jason says he’s “never had an acting lesson”.

Alison Maloney reveals how the unlikely star conquered Tinseltown.

BIG BREAK
BEFORE breaking into acting, Jason was at one point ranked the world’s 12th best diver, ­competing for Britain at the 1990 Commonwealth Games.

His dad, a former boxer and gymnast, was his inspiration.

Jason said: “He taught me to do a handstand practically before I could walk. I could do somersaults and ­backflips from a very early age.”

But the star was late to the diving game, explaining: “You have to start when you’re five. When I started at 12, it’s way late. You need pro coaches – my coach was a chartered accountant.”

His Olympic dreams were dashed when he came third in trials for two spots in the 1992 British team – so he took up judo, boxing and jujitsu in the hope of becoming a stuntman.

Instead, he was scouted by the agency Sports Promotions, and in 1997 became the face of French Connection.

A spokesman for the High Street fashion chain said: “We chose Jason because we wanted our model to look like a normal guy.

“His look is very masculine and not too male-modelly.”

The modelling led to an introduction to Guy Ritchie who, upon learning about Jason’s street-trader past and hearing his “patter”, cast him as Bacon in his hit 1998 directorial debut Lock, Stock And Two ­Smoking Barrels.

Paid just £5,000 for Lock, Stock and £15,000 for the follow-up Snatch, Jason said: “I would have done them for free just for the opportunity to do ­something different.”

At 31, he was a relative latecomer to the acting game – but the move proved financially sound, landing him the lead in Luc Besson’s The Transporter in 2002.

THE REAL DEAL
JASON honed his streetwise, rough-diamond image as a teenager, flogging cheap jewellery on the streets of London.

Taking after street trader dad Barry, who was known as “Nogger”, he started hustling at 14, selling chains outside Harrods, and says he made “plenty of money, loads of dough – two, three grand in a weekend”.

The ready cash also fuelled a passion for ­illegal car racing, which has helped with his ­famous chase scenes in speed-freak movies such as the Fast & Furious franchise and The Transporter.

Jason recalled: “Me and my mate Fish ­Fibbens, when we had enough money we’d buy cars and we’d race the f*** out of each other, all through London.

“It was really dangerous – we’re lucky we didn’t get f***ing killed or kill somebody.

“Back then you don’t care – you’re just having a bit of fun. You’re just getting behind the wheel and you’re game for it.

“Cars I’ve always loved. I f***ing love cars.”

SERIOUS STUNTMAN
AS well as being trained in martial arts, adrenaline junkie Jason loves jet skiing, wind surfing and rock climbing.

Having dreamed of becoming a stuntman, he has never shied away from filming death-defying scenes himself.

He dangled out of a helicopter more than 1,000 metres over Los Angeles for one fight scene in Crank.

And in The Expendables 3, a brake malfunction in the truck he was driving led to it plunging off a pier and 60ft down into the Black Sea.

Jason managed to crawl through the truck’s broken ­window and escape before it sank.

Co-star Sylvester Stallone later commented: “If anybody else had been in that truck, we would have been dead.

“We would’ve drowned. But because Jason is an Olympic-quality diver, he got out.”

All of the stunt men – these are the unsung heroes

Jason Statham
The Transporter 2 featured perhaps his most dangerous stunt, when he leapt from a jet ski on to the back of a bus.

Jason confessed: “I shouldn’t have done it – there was no safety wire.

If I’d have missed the back of the bus, it would have been a faceplant at 30mph into the concrete.”

In an interview with Vanity Fair, he called for the Oscars to honour stunt men.

“All of the stunt men – these are the unsung heroes,” he said.

“They really are. Nobody is giving them any credibility. They’re risking their necks.”

GLAMOUR GIRLFRIENDS

A SIX-YEAR engagement to Kelly Brook is just one of the long-term romances Jason has enjoyed with a string of high-profile beauties.

He was in the early stage of his career when he hooked up with the ex-Big Breakfast host, and she later revealed he had no money during their engagement from 1998 until 2004.

After Ashley Roberts described him as a “multi-millionaire action hero with a supermodel fiancée, and the star of one of the biggest franchises in the world”, Kelly told listeners on her radio show: “He was skint when I was there, trust me.”

After splitting from Kelly, Jason dated ­Australian actress and pop singer Sophie Monk, then had a four-year relationship with Hollywood star Alex Zosman which ended in 2009.

Since 2016 he has been engaged to Victoria’s Secret model and fellow Brit Rosie Huntington-Whiteley who, at 36, is 20 years his junior.

She said: “We have a connection that has nothing to do with age.”

The couple are parents to son Jack, six, and two-year-old daughter Isabella.

BRAND LOYALTY
FANS of Jason’s movies keep coming back for more because they know exactly what they’ll get.

His action adventures follow a pattern: The steely tough guy sets out for revenge on the wrongs of society, eliminating all that stands in his way in a series of almost ballet-like highly choreographed and brutal fight scenes.

Dialogue is kept to a minimum, and the heart-throb’s trademark shaved head and designer ­stubble is rarely messed with.

It’s a formula that works – and he knows it, remarking: “You can’t have a sushi restaurant and then put cheese on toast on the menu.”

When he starred in the 2015 comedy Spy, Jason admitted he was “apprehensive”.

He explained: “At least in making an action film, there’s always going to be someone who wants to see a car chase.

Bad comedy is just garbage

Jason Statham
“Even if a lot of the people don’t like it, there will be a lot of people that do.

“But bad comedy is just garbage.”

He has also been scathing about the superhero movies that have raked in the cash for the likes of Robert Downey Jr, Robert ­Pattinson and Andrew Garfield.

He said: “You slip on a cape, and you put on the tights, and you become a superhero? They’re not doing anything. They’re just sitting in their trailer.

“It’s absolutely 100 per cent created by stunt ­doubles and green screen.”

Alluding to his acting icons Sylvester Stallone, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood and Paul ­Newman, he says: “I just couldn’t see any of those guys putting on a cape and a mask and going around on wires.”

BOX OFFICE GOLD
SINCE the early 2000s, Jason has been ­credited for leading the resurgence of action films – and in total his movies have grossed more than £1.5billion at the box office.

Now commanding a hefty £15million per film, his high price tag comes on the back of a ­barnstorming 2023 which saw him starring in Fast X, Expend4bles, Meg 2: The Trench and Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre.

There’s already talk of a sequel to his latest hit The Beekeeper – and Jason is never one to turn his back on a box office-busting ­franchise.

His first movie as a leading man, 2002 smash The Transporter, resulted in a trilogy, and he has since starred in four outings of The Expendables, three Fast & Furious movies as well as a spin-off, Hobbs And Shaw, two Crank films and two outings for The Mechanic.

SEX APPEAL
AFTER 25 years of testosterone-fuelled action, Jason has lost none of his sex appeal – and looking at his topless ­pictures it’s not hard to see why.

But the draw for both men and women goes beyond the impressive physique.

As someone lucky enough to have met the brawny Brit, I can confirm that, with Jason, what you see is what you get.

At 5ft 9in, he still oozes ­masculinity and, like his tough-guy characters, he is not the ­chattiest of stars.

But he is refreshingly down to earth, unpretentious and true to his roots.

There’s not a diva-like bone in his perfectly formed body.

GLAM LIFE
THREE years ago, long-term girlfriend Rosie shared pictures of the home she shares with Jason in Chelsea after ­selling their £14million Malibu mansion to move back to the UK to raise their kids.

The couple are said to have spent £7.5million on the London pad after Plymouth-born Rosie admitted that while in the US she had missed home and the British sense of ­humour.

They also spent 18 months ­renovating a four-bedroom mansion off LA’s Sunset Strip before listing it for £5.5million – resulting in a profit of more than £3million.

Jason previously bought a £5.8million, six-bed mansion in the Hollywood Hills from Ben Stiller and the Meet The Parents star’s then-wife Christine Taylor before selling it in 2015 to actor Johnny Galecki for a reported £7million.