Quotes

You ain't ever gonna get an Academy Award for doing Crank (2006) and you certainly won't for doing all the other movies I've done.

[on being directed by Sylvester Stallone in The Expendables (2010)] He is someone that you have to respect and with that he runs a very relaxed set.

[on preparing for action roles] I go to this gym full of stunt men. There aren't any TVs or treadmills there. This is a spit-and-sawdust kind of place. It has a lot of great training aids - trampolines and bags and every weapon ever invented to do harm to a human being. If you want to know how to throw a knife it's great.

Growing up where I did, you met a lot of colorful characters whose business was on the other side of the law, or more likely you didn't know what they were up to, and you never would. So playing those kinds of characters now, I can draw on that. The rest of it, you can practice or learn from books. But mostly, I draw from my experiences. That's all I have, you know.

You see a lot of action films, and it's almost (like) you can't tell who's doing what. It's chopped up so much, you just see a fist, a leg - it's all driven by the sound, boom, pow, boom. You wouldn't know what was happening otherwise. The people who inspired me growing up, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, that's the real deal. You see them, the camera's way back, there aren't a lot of cuts - you feel like you're really in there. Today, there's so much technology and green-screen and CGI, you can turn your grandma into an action star. But people are getting wise to that, I think. There's no substitute for the real thing.

[on performing in action movies] I've spent all those years learning how to do certain skills, and then that competitive spirit kicks in and you want to do the stunts. Basically, it's the the male competitive ego at work.

[2007, on filming Death Race (2008) in Canada] The whole time I was up there I never had one beer. It was four months. I was training every day. You know you do the best you can do. If I'm no good in the movie, that's my fault. It's not because it was eight tequila shots and a bunch of people I shouldn't have been with.

I'm enthusiastic and ambitious, and I work hard.

If you're going to do something, do it with style!

Whatever you do, do it to the extreme.

If someone's got a fear of heights, they'd probably say, well, hanging off a helicopter at 3,000 feet above downtown L.A. would be the scariest. For me, that's a day's work, something I was very happy to do.

London and L.A. are two opposites - I like the difference.

My role model is Sly Stallone.

The best things in life sometimes happen spontaneously.

It's something I never dreamed I'd be doing, making movies.

I'm not as big a soccer fan as people might imagine, being British.

Scorsese will only work with brilliant material. And everyone wants to work with him.