Jason Statham could have died on the set of The Expendables 3 if it weren't for his diving skills, according to co-star Sylvester Stallone.
The British actor narrowly avoided disaster when a stunt went wrong on the set of the action film, forcing him to escape from a car that plunged into the sea.
Stallone told The Mirror: "He faced death. He was test-driving a three-ton truck and the brakes run out. It went down 60ft into the Black Sea and became impaled. Luckily we had taken the doors off before.
"If anyone else had been in that truck we would have been dead because we were all wearing heavy boots and gun belts. We would have drowned. But because Jason is an Olympic-quality diver he got out of it."
Statham was previously a member of Britain's National Diving Squad and competed for England in the 1990 Commonwealth Games on the springboard and platform.
He went on to become an actor specialising in action films, and has appeared in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, The Transporter and all three Expendables movies.
Stallone added that Statham "looks great on camera", saying: "He is a great athlete. He learned on the street and is a bad ass for real."
The Expendables 3 is released in the UK on August 14.
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Watch a trailer for The Expendables 3 below:
Reporter & Sub-Editor, Digital Spy Susannah is a freelance writer and sub-editor, specialising in the entertainment industry. She graduated in 2014, with a BA in English and American Literature and Creative Writing, and an MA in Creative Producing. She’s been writing for Digital Spy ever since, after first getting involved through work experience, and has written hundreds of stories for the site on a range of topics, from The Sims to Doctor Who. Susannah has also written for Reveal Magazine. Her special interests are soaps (her Mastermind subject would be 2000s Coronation Street), Marvel and Star Wars. She can also quote far too many lines from Friends and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
