EXCLUSIVE: Jason Statham on his favourite insults towards The Rock in Hobbs & Shaw

We also asked who of his previous kick-ass characters would win in a fight.

Yep, we asked Jason Statham that if we put Deckard Shaw (from Fast & Furious and Hobbs & Shaw), Chev Chelios (from the Crank movies), Frank Martin (from The Transporter movies), and Rick Ford (from Spy) into one room, who would be the last man standing. Because let us be honest, Statham has made a pretty fantastic career out of playing kick-ass characters, and shows no sign of slowing down even at the age of 52! JOE sat down with the actor in the lead-up to the release of his huge new blockbuster, in which he co-stars with Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, and while they both tear up chunks of the world with the action scenes, some of the most fun is watching them insult each other into oblivion. There is obviously a natural chemistry between the two stars, and there is a lot of entertainment to be found in watching them outwardly hate each other during the slagging matches, and we had to know if Statham came up with those himself or if he was told to stick closer to the script: "Yeah, I think we're quite good at pulling pieces out of each other," Statham tells us. "I guess the balance of how that ends up, who wins and who doesn't, comes down to the editing suite. "We can give David [Leitch, director] a kick up the arse and say 'Why didn't you leave that joke in? And why didn't you leave this joke in?'. Some of them, the ones that meet the cutting room floor, are my favourites. But there is a certain X-rated nature to the ones that I like, that don't really meet the censorship standards." So they might be the ones that end up on a special edition Blu-Ray? "Yeah, yeah! But maybe not, kids have to go see this movie!" Check out our full chat with The Stath right here: JOE was also lucky enough to chat to more of the movie's stars, Vanessa Kirby and Idris Elba, as well as the movie's writer Chris Morgan (who has written every Fast & Furious movie since Tokyo Drift), and director David Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2) and you can catch all those on The Big Reviewski in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Hobbs & Shaw screeches into Irish cinemas on Thursday 1 August. Clip via Universal Pictures Ireland