Why Jason Statham Loves Fighting His 'Fate of the Furious' Costar Dwayne Johnson
Jason Statham is staying out of the Vin Diesel-Dwayne Johnson beef, but when it comes to onscreen fighting, The Rock is Statham’s favorite opponent. In an interview with the Jim Norton and Sam Roberts show on Sirius XM, below, the Fate of the Furious star raved about doing fight scenes with Johnson — like the Furious 7 moment when the Rock put his head through a glass coffee table.
“He’s so cool to do an action sequence with because he’s such a physical expert in what he does,” said Statham. “He moves fluidly. He’s got great judgment of time and space, so he’s not going to whack you in the head by mistake, which is a godsend!”
According to Statham, it’s easy for fight scenes to result in real injuries when both opponents aren’t on their game. “People make mistakes,” he told the radio show. “If you haven’t got a good concept of your own balance in space, if you’re swinging hard with adrenaline — you’re trying to miss each other, but carefully miss each other. And if you’re not accurate in that sense, you can really make a mistake. And if he makes a mistake and you’re on the receiving end of it, then it’s straight down to hospital.”
Thankfully, said Statham, Johnson is “the opposite of that. He’s extremely precise and he’s just so relaxed. He’s just a diamond to work with. He’s a ten out of ten.”
No doubt it helps that both actors come from athletic backgrounds: Statham is trained in martial arts and was a competitive diver, while Johnson played college football before becoming a professional wrestler.
As for that much-publicized spat between his co-stars, Statham says he knows nothing and he’d like to keep it that way. “I’m really good with the Rock and what he does and what he experiences is his own thing… a lot of the time, I’m not working when Vin’s there or I’m not working when Tyrese is there,” he said. “Everyone’s got their own thing. So if stuff happens on set, and you’re not privy to what was going on, you just keep your nose out of it…. It’s not my business and I don’t want to make it my business.”
Read more from Yahoo Movies
