Director Simon West teams up with Statham again for the thriller Wild Card.

Here, he talks fight scenes, William Goldman and more…

In the beginning, there wasHeat, the thriller novel written by William Goldman in 1985.

Its production was dogged by problems, not least a revolving door of directors.

Oh, and hes still the toughest guy in Vegas.

I thought it was really refreshing to see Jason Statham being given a chance to do some acting.

I think it might be a surprise to some people if theyre only familiar with his action films.

Because when I didThe Mechanicwith him, and I think he had about eight lines in the whole movie.

I think it has more dialogue in it than all of Jasons films put together.

Also, hes so good when he doesnt say things hes got such an incredible face.

He says so much with just a big close-up.

And each one of the action moments is character-driven, so youre right, it builds up.

So when it does explode, its exploding for the right reason.

The first one, hes getting back into his old skills precision fighting.

The only way hes going to get out alive is by relying on his old skills.

And hes a master of that.

Whereas traditionally in action films, theyre light relief theyre almost commercial breaks in the story.

How long did that take to plan and shoot?

That was one of the hardest things.

It is written in the book like that, and also in the script that Goldman adapted as well.

We planned it for weeks and weeks weeks of rehearsals.

Not because its very complicated, but because we were trying so many different things.

Youre going hundreds and hundreds of frames per second instead of the normal 120.

It shows up so much.

But having so few shots makes it more effective.

Sometimes action directors tend to over-edit.

Its the famous story.

Hes broken his jaw.

Hes been punched out by Burt Reynolds.

So we wanted to get this film shot how it should have been.

Do you know whether William Goldmans seen it?

I dont know if hes seen it.

I did ask him, whats your one piece of advice for me when shooting this?

He said, Just verify that Nick is the toughest guy youve ever seen in your life.

And so he ultimately doesnt have to do that much, because he is the toughest guy in Vegas.

Im sure he will.

So what have you got coming next?

At the moment Im just prepping a film calledStrattonwith Henry Cavill.

The special forces thriller.

Yeah, the Special Boat Service character from a series of books by Duncan Falconer.

Its set in London and a little bit in Italy.

But its an action adventure.

Its going to be exciting.

Im a big fan of Henry Cavills work.

Ive been looking for a UK-based action character.

Theres Bond, and thats all weve got really.

Even though Jason Bourne runs around Europe a lot, hes an American character.

Im really interested in what you might bring toThe Blob,too.

I read something where you talked about the potential of modern CGI.

What did you mean by that?

Do you see a big, widescreen disaster movie version ofThe Blob?

My version ofThe Blobs going to be more sci-fi.

This will be much more explained on where the blob comes from and how it works.

It will be on an epic, cinematic scale more.

Its more of an invasion movie, I suppose.

This things come from another planet, and also, we dont know how many there are.

Its fun at the moment while Im prepping this other film,The Blobis a bit longer term.

Its fun inventing a creature like that like the new Alien or the new Predator.

Simon West, thank you very much.