KEY POINTS:
In his new action film Crank, English tough guy Jason Statham hangs from a helicopter 1km above Los Angeles, falls 70m face-first out of a building and drives a car through a shopping mall.
He also stands on a motorcycle's petrol tank, dressed only in a revealing hospital
gown, as it speeds 60km/h down a road.
No stuntmen were needed.
Statham was up for it, although there was one scene in Crank where the 34-year-old baulked.
The actor was not so keen on a sex scene he had to perform with co-star Amy Smart in front of 350 extras in LA's Chinatown.
"That was a rush - a rush of embarrassment," Statham, who reportedly dated Australian pop singer-turned Hollywood actress, Sophie Monk, said.
The very public sexual tryst, you see, was necessary for Statham's Crank character, hit man Chev Chelios, to remain alive.
Crank begins with Chelios waking up in bed discovering a mobster has injected him with a fatal drug. He has an hour to live, but can stretch it if adrenaline is pumped through his body.
The adrenaline can come from a needle or Chelios can put himself in life, death or ... embarrassing sexual situations so his body produces it.
What better way to create your own adrenaline by getting it on in crowded Chinatown.
"That was some day, "Crank director Mark Neveldine said.
Statham, a former British Olympic diver who, with his shaved head looks like a London nightclub bouncer who would punch the lights out of a misbehaving guest, does not consider himself an adrenaline junkie.
But, the thought of having sex in public, without a camera crew and 350 extras watching, has crossed his mind.
"I've thought about doing it in public many times," he smiled.
"But, I haven't been drunk enough.
"And you can get locked up for it for indecent exposure which could be a bit of a hinderance to my career."
Statham's career has been on the up since Guy Ritchie gave him his acting break in 1998's gangster film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
He teamed up with Ritchie again two years later with Snatch and became a bona fide action star on 2002's The Transporter and it's 2005 sequel.
While Statham, unlike many other Hollywood leading men, likes to do his own stunts, Hollywood studios and insurance companies are not so happy.
In Crank, Statham and the film's directors, Neveldine and Brian Taylor, were a little sneaky.
As far as the insurance company knew, it was a stuntman and not Statham hanging out of the helicopter high above LA.
"We were very brave that day," Taylor said.
"We didn't tell them [the insurance company] exactly what we planned to do.
"We said we had a stunt guy, but then at the last minute we put Jason in."
Statham wondered what he was doing when the helicopter took off and he was soon in a fist fight with another actor while hanging out the helicopter by a thin safety wire.
"The helicopter stunt was the most frightening stunt I've ever performed," Statham, the fear in his eyes returning, said.
"We took off from a very tall building.
"I was standing on the skids of the helicopter and then I began to smell the helicopter fuel, the wind began kicking up.
"Then I had to fight a guy. It's not just hanging on.
"You have to fall back, remember the choreography of the fight and sell the whole thing facially.
"So I'm standing there, thinking about what I need to do, then I looked down.
"My legs started going. My adrenaline started rushing.
"So the fear in my eyes was pretty real."
* Crank is in cinemas now
- AAP