Hollywood's next action hero: Ed Skrein on stepping into Jason Statham's shoes and fighting Deadpool
Three years ago Ed Skrein broke through on the big screen with roles in Brit flicks Piggy and Ill Manors. Now, after a brief stop over on Game of Thrones, he's poised to become Hollywood next big action star thanks to The Transporter Refuelled, a fresh take on the franchise previously led by Jason Statham.
Beyond that Skrein will be heading into Fox's Marvel universe to play assassin Ajax in Deadpool. Digital Spy caught up with the fast-rising actor to discuss his two hotly-anticipated movies.
How did Transporter Refuelled get pitched to you - is this a reboot or sequel to the previous films?
"From the beginning, everyone's always spoken about it in terms of when they would change personnel on Bond, that it would keep the same variables and the same things that the franchise is known for. But the change of personnel would change quite a lot of things, and I was aware it wasn't going to follow directly on, in terms of storylines."
Did that take the pressure of you in terms of not having to emulate Jason Statham's Frank Martin?
"From the beginning I've never really felt any pressure. We're always compared to somebody in all walks of life, aren't we? But it always happens like that, so I don't know. I've never really compared myself with... never really suffered with that kind of pressure in the past, the pressure has always come from myself. So I feel very relaxed about it from a beginner's perspective."
What kind of preparation did you go through to ready yourself for the role?
"The martial arts stuff was the main thing I was aware of from the start. It would be a higher volume of set pieces and choreography than I'd ever done before, and I was very humbly aware of the task ahead of me, and one thing I'm good at is getting my head down and working hard, and really listening to my coaches and the people around me, being the best student I could be.
"I worked really hard with Alain Figlarz and his action team, and I also did a lot of strength and conditioning work to make sure that I had the capacity, stamina-wise, to be able to last the full shoot, physically and mentally. It's like anything, the more preparation that you put into it before the event, it means that you can actually enjoy the event on the day, and that's something that I took on in terms of Deadpool.
"I was very relaxed, but that was only because I put in a ridiculous amount of time. Preparation, effort, I put in all the blood, sweat and tears in before the actual shooting days. On the shooting days I was like, 'I'm going to enjoy this, man!' There's a helicopter, or there's a jet ski, or I'm about to beat up eleven guys, I could never do this in real life!"
Was becoming an action star something you thought would be possible when you started acting?
"Not in the slightest. Not personally, but people from the beginning used to say to me, 'You know what? You could do that, man. You could do that.' I remember when my friend said that to me when he was writing the first movie for me, 'You could do this' and I was like, 'That's very flattering of you', but inside my mind I was like, 'Are you fucking mad?' How can I do this? There's people that have studied this for years!
"I definitely didn't have any dreams of grandeur or dreams of becoming an action movie star. I don't think I am an action movie star now, I've just done a couple of action movies! I'm just so respectful of the people that have come before me, and the hard work they've put in.
"I'm trying to play catch up with everyone else that's come before me. I've always loved the old Bruce Lee movies, and the charmers, like Arnie and his funny one-liners. So I'm aware I'm miles behind them, and I've got a lot of improvement to do. I'm excited about the journey, the education and that path of self-improvement."
We've just seen the first Deadpool trailer. With its extreme violence and swearing is this a throwback to those 18-rated, wise-cracking action movies like Total Recall and Die Hard?
"It's a lot edgier than the stuff that you'll normally see. That was a priority for us from the beginning. We'd been so blessed and we're so lucky to have had all these superhero movies so far, but we possibly have become saturated by them so they're possible coming formulaic. Also, they're maybe not quite as faithful to the actual feeling that we had when we were 13 years old and reading comic books, like 'I can't believe he just chopped someone's head off and said something like that, and then stabbed someone in the eye, and then ran off and did all this crazy stuff!'
"In the movies they do some cool upper-cuts or some cool stuff, but it's not representing the characters right, especially someone like Deadpool, who's so irreverent and so violent. They don't get represented like that most of the time, but we've done that. We've really done that, it was a priority for us from the beginning to do that, and it really feels like we've created the first post-modern Hollywood superhero movie.
"I hope it can make studios braver in their approach to taking on superheroes that are maybe less marketable than Deadpool. I hope that we can take on those crazy superheroes that kind of seem like untouchable, because there's a market for it, man! I want to see them, anyway!"
Do you get to explore Ajax's origins in the film?
"No, we don't go too deep into Ajax's backstory. We mention it, it's very faithful to the first section of Ajax in the comics, the backstory that we see, the flashbacks in the comics, and so we're very faithful to that. There's a second half of Ajax in the comics, where he comes back five years later with this big crazy suit and stuff, and we didn't touch on that, so this is the early Ajax. We've stayed very faithful to that."
Ryan Reynolds's "Posh Spice" line got a big laugh in the trailer - what that scripted or improvised?
"The best part of this movie for me is going to be finding out which one of the options, the jokes from every scene we've done, is going to go in, because we had so many.
"We had Harry Styles, David Beckham, we had Prince Charles, we had so many! The funniest part was trying to keep a straight face. Ryan is such a comedic genius, and then people like [director] TJ Miller, who has a phenomenal sense of humour, they would make every take so different. We were so free in that aspect. I think it's going to be a nightmare for the Fox lawyers and a nightmare in the edit, but wonderful for the viewer.
"There are very serious moments, especially my character. He has these big long monologues in very serious sections of the movie, but there are some bits which are absolutely ridiculous. So funny, and the tone of it is phenomenally comedic. I'm just so excited for people to see it, I'm really excited to see it myself. I think I'm going to see a screening of it in LA in a couple of weeks and I'm overly excited about that."
Is there scope for Ajax to cross over into other X-Men films?
"Yeah, definitely! The possibilities are endless in the world of Marvel, we know that. But there are definitely possibilities... let's just say there's nothing stopping him!"
How are you feeling now about the decision to leave Game of Thrones - was that a tough one to make?
"It wasn't as straight-forward a decision as it's been made out in the press. In a lot of ways I would have loved to have carried on and stayed working on that, because it's a fantastic TV series. It's an incredible crew that I worked with.
"At the time it was the best crew that I'd worked with, so impressed with the heads of department. Every head of department was just so talented and the people around me were brilliant. I've made a lifelong friend in Jacob Anderson, who plays Greyworm. But the most important thing in my life is my family, so each project is important but only to a point.
"I always roll with the way things are, so as soon as one decision happens you just realign and move on and make another decision. I never really look back, so if I do look back, I look back with such fondness and great memories of working with an incredible team."
Do you still keep up with the show?
"No. To be honest, I'm very slow to things anyway. I do like to watch the big box sets, and I like to watch them afterwards. I'm sure I'll watch all of them. When it's finished, I'll get the box set and I'll have a Game of Thrones month, and that'll be fantastic. That'll be really exciting."
The Transporter Refuelled will open in cinemas on September 4.
Ed Skrein on his Game of Thrones exit: 'It wasn't a straightforward decision'
You've changed: The mid-show recastings of Game of Thrones
Meet the new Frank Martin in a behind-the-scenes featurette for The Transporter: Refueled
Everything we know so far about Ryan Reynolds's Deadpool: The cast, synopsis and latest rumours