After his breakthrough role in Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Jason Statham has built up a career as an action hero in movies such as The Transporter, Crank and War. He’s now starring in Death Race, Paul W. S. Anderson's remake of the 1975 cult classic Death Race 2000. He chats about auto action with David Grove.

How did you like the cars in Death Race?

They’re amazing! They have 250 horsepower, which is a result of the car’s nitrous oxide system. There are ejector seats, and smoke and napalm and all kinds of weapons like grenades and flamethrowers. They’re built like tanks, which is the way it has to be because the cars are being used as killing machines. The car I drive, the monster, has mini-guns that fire 4000 rounds a minute, and when you fire the guns at another car it’ll blow the car to pieces in a couple of minutes, kind of like you see in a video game - except this is real.

Are you a fan of the original Death Race 2000?

Yes, I remember seeing the movie as a kid. But when I met with Paul Anderson about this film he told me not to think about the original, as this is a totally different film. This isn’t so much a remake as it is a reimagining of the idea in the original. I guess Death Race 2000 was an influential film because it sort of inspired the Mad Max and Road Warrior movies and all of those apocalyptic action movies that came out later. You could say our film is a homage to the 1975 film, but other than that it’s completely different.

Death Race 2000 was made in the 1970s and there were some political messages in there that were relevant to that time, and Paul’s put some subtle political messages in this film that are relevant now. The biggest difference is that this film is much more contained. Death Race 2000 was a trans-America road race, and our movie takes place on a giant track in the prison, but at the same time this is much bigger in scope than the 1975 film.

There’s no longer a points system for killing another driver…

No, that’s completely different in this film. That was a campy element in the 1975 film, like something out of a game show, like something out of The Running Man. Since this is kind of a prequel, the points system might happen in the future. This is sort of the genesis of the death races and the idea is that the event will become more and more sophisticated over time as the event becomes more and more popular. The sport is evolving. Instead of getting points for killing drivers, you get added weapons and other toys that make you stronger and help you get further in the competition. That creates more suspense because it increases the competition between my character and the other drivers, especially between me and Machine Gun, played by Tyrese Gibson. We both want freedom and we’re both willing to do whatever it takes to win.

What was your favourite part of making the movie?

I loved driving the cars and seeing all of the weapons, but as an actor the best part was being around people like Ian McShane and especially Joan Allen. I couldn’t believe I was even doing scenes with her because she’s been nominated for Academy Awards - she’s so respected and you’d never think she’d do a film like this!

Ian plays my mentor, and he gives me advice as I’m driving the car, and Joan plays the evil warden who orchestrates all of the death races in the prison. She’s a great villain, unbelievably chilling, and it was great to be able to work with such a great actress.

Have you raced cars before?

Not in real life but I’ve done a lot of work with cars on the Transporter movies. Rally driving is a big thing in the UK, and what you can see in rally driving is how important the relationship is between driver and navigator - that’s what happens in the film. I have a female navigator with me in the car and I have Ian there too to help me get through the races.

There’s a big garage in the prison because obviously the cars are always getting wasted and need to be repaired, and that’s what it was like on the set too. It was like one big car lot with broken muscle cars everywhere. Paul Anderson wanted the stunts to be completely practical with no CG cars, and so we wasted dozens of cars when we were filming.

How do the fighting scenes compare to your other films?

The fighting I do in this film is completely different from the fighting styles in Transporter films or War. My character is a guy who grew up on the streets and then he reformed himself a bit when he got married - but he’s still a street-fighter at heart, and that’s the kind of fighting you see in the film.

There’s no big martial arts moves or fancy poses, just raw brawling. He’s a brute street fighter and most of the fight scenes feature weapons, so you kill your enemies with more than just your hands and feet. I went to prison to do research for this film and it’s amazing how the guys in there kill each other. They build weapons out of nothing and they can kill anybody in there; it’s a really crazy environment.

What was the most difficult part of making the movie?

The physical training and the car work. Since we’re using real cars, when you see a car get mashed in the film, it’s really getting mashed. Paul spent about a year working out the stunts and drawing the whole movie, because it’s hard to do car crashes that are fresh and exciting nowadays. The whole movie is cars crashing into each other, and we were driving them at 70 miles an hour, so that gets very dangerous. It’s all very unpredictable and crazy and the cars are covered in armour, so they’re really more like missiles than vehicles. When you add the gunfire it makes this seem like a big war movie with cars.

As for my physical training, I spent several months training with a former Navy Seal, and went on a strict training programme. I even stopped eating sugar, which drives me crazy! Paul also wanted us to get a feeling for the prison life, so I visited Corcoran Prison, one of the toughest places around, and I learned a lot about gangs and how they operate inside the prison. I also saw some of the prison tattoos because I wear some of the tattoos in the film and I wanted them to look authentic.

Then I learned a fighting style that was less like the martial arts based stuff I’ve been doing recently and more of a street-fighting type system that guys really use in prison. My big fight scene took us three days to shoot and it’s very bloody. I did all of that without any sugar, which was really tough for me. I’m a real nasty bastard when I don’t get my sugar…

Death Race is out now in US cinemas and released in UK cinemas on 26 September 2008.