Actor: Jason Statham

Jason Statham was a competitive diver who represented Britain and was selling counterfeit jewellery on street corners when Guy Ritchie cast him in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

He then built a career in action almost entirely on physical credibility, performing the majority of his own stunts and fight choreography, which the films shoot in long takes to prove it.

The Transporter and Crank series are the pure vehicles, and The Bank Job and Spy show he can do more when asked.

Spy in particular is a very funny performance, playing an incompetent agent convinced of his own legend, and it suggests a comic career he has largely declined to pursue.