The press junket for Death Race was actually held at San Diego Comic Con. On Sunday, the last day after a weekend of partying, the stars got up early to discuss the remake of the Roger Corman Death Race 2000. Jason Statham plays a framed convict blackmailed into becoming the new Frankenstein to keep ratings up for a prison's televised deathsport.
Crave Online: How has your experience at Comic Con been this time around?
Jason Statham: We literally flew in, and then we did the panel, and then we went back to the hotel and started drinking. So, it was very good. Most enjoyable.
Crave Online: Were you leaner in the film than you are now?
Jason Statham: Oh, yeah, a lot. That is the leanest I’ve ever been. Paul W.S. Anderson wanted me to change and get fit. He had an idea of me being really skinny and ripped. It’s sometimes good to give yourself a little challenge, anyway, and give yourself some discipline. It works rather well.
Crave Online: You trained with the guy who did 300, right?
Jason Statham: Yeah, he worked with a lot of the guys on 300. [Matthew] Logan Hood, his name is. He’s an ex-Navy Seal. He’s like a machine. He’s very knowledgeable, and a great motivator. I did about 10 weeks with him and was on a very strict diet, and it all just fell away.
Crave Online: Shooting those racing scenes, were you in an actual fast-moving car? Were you being pulled?
Jason Statham: They had many stunt cars. Any action movie that involves cars has multiple copies of the same car, so when they get mangled and bashed, they just slip in the next one. One of the most difficult things was the fact that they don’t have a lot of vision. The cars were covered in armor, and there was very little vision that you could really draw any confidence from. It was quite nerve-wracking to know where you are and who’s coming up and who’s not coming up. The track was just full of dangerous pylons and steal girders. One mistake, and it’s over. So, it was a massive concern for the stunt coordinators involved, just because of the danger that those kind of things present. We just had to go and do the best we could.
Crave Online: How fast were you going when you were driving in those cars?
Jason Statham: It’s hard to say. The track was made of bits and pieces. We shot in different locations and made it look like it was one big track, but there were different locations to make up the different areas. We were not really going as fast as you might imagine, but it’s pretty fast. It depends on what you call fast.
Crave Online: How well could you see out of the mask?
Jason Statham: Not very well. That presented a big problem. So, I didn’t drive in that thing.
Crave Online: Could you even walk in it?
Jason Statham: Yeah. They made different ones with bigger eye pieces. They had various ones. It was all to do with the aesthetics. They didn’t give a sh*t whether I could see or not, really.
Crave Online: Had you seen the original film?
Jason Statham: No. I haven’t seen it. Paul asked me not to see it, until after the movie. He just didn’t want anything that would interfere with his idea of the film. It’s not a remake. It’s just an homage. So, he said, “If you can, try not to see it.”
Crave Online: Were you okay with having your shirt off so much in the film?
Jason Statham: I had more than my shirt off. I was naked in the prison scene.
Crave Online: What can you say about Crank 2? How crazy is it going to get?
Jason Statham: That’s one of the most enjoyable films I’ve shot in the last decade. It is absolutely madder than you could imagine.
Crave Online: Can you give an example?
Jason Statham: No. It is nuts. It’s like the first one times 100. It’s just ridiculous.
Crave Online: Were you kind of surprised that they were going to make another one, considering how your character was left at the end of the first film?
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