In 2011, a new version of the 1972 Charles Bronson film, ‘Coldly… for no personal reasons’, was released under the original title that the original had, ‘The Mechanic’, counting as Jason Statham as a professional assassin working for a shadow organization headed by Dean Sanderson (Tony Goldwyn), in the business of taking out a variety of high-level targets.
Considered by our colleague Mikel Zorrilla as “a forceful thriller that marks one of the peaks of the Jason Statham “genre” and a length that does not even reach 90 minutes, since it seeks not to give the viewer a breather through a vibrant rhythm above average “, next to the established actor was Ben Foster, who told at the time of its premiere how he came to enter the project.
Foster faced the challenges of reaching Statham’s intense physical level particularly in relation to doing his own action scenes, which marked his entry into the project.
“I got a call saying: ‘Do you want to blow things up with Jason Statham?’ It seemed like a really good idea. (…) I’m not a fan of heights. I think I came in under the impression that stuntmen were going to do it and then they told me Jason was going to do it. I always push myself to improve my performance, my physical courage or whatever. That’s the best thing about working with a real athlete like Jason.”
But, of course, he soon realized that it’s not just reaching the physical level required to do the scene, but find the sangfroid to do it and act without being noticed. According to the actor:
“My heart races just talking about it. There’s a certain point where you’re like, ‘Fuck this, put me down, no!’ The second time, you want to go up again and again and then it’s the best ride in the world because you’re in a wonderful park. It’s an addiction.”
Own Statham was full of praise for his teammate’s bravery in the same interview:
“Here is a man who is very afraid of heights, but even more so when he sees someone’s face shaking in the wind. Ben was very brave at the same time. Those kinds of situations are full of adrenaline and are very exciting. You always wonder if they are safe. There are no guarantees that something can’t go wrong, so it’s always exciting. You can’t prepare anyone for that. It’s going through your mind, when do we get down from here?”
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