Jason Statham, over the course of a lengthy career, has become one of the most recognized faces in Hollywood. Ruling over the action movie genre. He has created memorable characters and played in memorable films, making a name for himself as the serious actor that he is. He has starred in many massively successful projects, with The Fast and the Furious franchise, The Meg film series, The Expendables franchise, and Wrath of Man.
Despite these notable roles, one of his most recognized projects is also the film that gave him his breakout role, The Transporter. This film was extremely memorable and iconic, having an extremely good story as well as captivating action sequences. It is because of this, that fans of the film would be surprised to know that plot, was completely different than the final product, including the fact that Statham’s character was initially homosexual.
Jason Statham’s Character Was Initially Queer
According to The Los Angeles Times, Louis Leterrier, the director of The Transporter 2, revealed that Jason Statham’s character was initially homosexual in the film. The director elaborated on this, stating that if an audience member wants to watch the film again, with this in mind, the entire experience would be completely different for them, and they will have a completely different perspective when it comes to the character of Frank, adding that this would make him one of the first queer action-movie heroes.
‘If you watch the movie and you know he’s gay, it becomes so much more fun,’ Leterrier said then. ‘It’s so great — the first gay action movie hero!” He continued, “Action fans in general are pretty homophobic. You see these tough guys who say, ‘ ‘The Transporter,’ that’s such a great movie!’ If they only knew they’re really cheering for a new kind of action hero.”
The director then went on to talk about the irony of this. He claimed that action fans are generally homophobic. Knowing this, it is quite a funny experience for him to find people talking about Statham’s character, and how good the movie is, not knowing his true intention and the story of him.
The Script Was Changed to Omit This
Louis Leterrier then went on to reveal, according to The Los Angeles Times, that the reason for this, was the fact that the production team did not want to make another character that fell into the category of the majority of action-film heroes, taking the example of those played by Steven Seagal. It was then revealed that after this aspect of Jason Statham’s character was removed and all evidence of it was taken out of the script, there were scenes added to the film.
The scenes in question were Frank Martin’s intimate scene with Shu Qi’s character, Lai. The reason for adding this is the fact that the film wanted to get rid of any potentially remaining subtext in the film that could point to the fact that Statham’s character, was homosexual at one point.
