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December 03, 2008

Jason Statham’s Transporter Outed by Director

With Transporter 3 now in theatres, the director of the first two films is claiming the sex scenes between Transporter star Jason Statham and actress Natalya Rudakova in the latest installment are misleading -- because the character Statham plays in the films is gay.

Lou Letterier, who directed the first two films in the franchise, outed the character of Frank Martin in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

"If you watch the movie and you know he's gay, it becomes so much more fun. It's so great -- the first gay action movie hero!” He continued, “Action fans in general are pretty homophobic. You see these tough guys who say, 'The Transporter, that's such a great movie!’ If they only knew they're really cheering for a new kind of action hero.”

Letterier pointed to a scene in the second film in which a character played by model Amber Valetta makes a play for Martin, only to be rebuffed by the line “It's because of who I am.”

“That’s him coming out,” Letterier said.

Though Letterier has yet to see the latest installment, which is directed by Oliver Megaton, he said he recently went back and watched the first films and realized they weren’t as gay as he had originally intended.

“I was sick over the weekend and my 2 Transporters were on, so I watched them and in fact they aren't that gay,” Leterrier wrote in an e-mail to the Times. “But it makes for fun movie legends.” (Ross von Metzke, Advocate.com)

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

  • Name: Brian Conrad
    Date posted: 2008-12-08 12:08 PM
    Hometown: Riverside, CA

    Comment:

    Frank Martin gay? I don't think so. I think Lou Letterier and the screen writers must have been working on different movies. Perhaps the director (straight man's vision?) thinks well-mannered, hot men who are OCD are gay. In movie 1, he beds the gal and flirts all through it. In movie 2, he rejects the gal at first, but at the end brings her flowers, only to walk away 'cause she's back with her husband (he wasn't there to bring flowers to HIM). In movie 3, I'm not sure when the "gay action begins". Is it when the gal asks, "Are you gay?" and he says, "No." Is it when he decides to kiss her? Is it when he beds her on the bluff? Or is it when the movie ends with her on vacation with him? The only male/male action is when almost all the other guys are left unconscious or pummeled to death. The only one who's sexually confused here is Lou Letterier.


  • Name: Kris
    Date posted: 2008-12-07 3:55 PM
    Hometown: St. Louis park

    Comment:

    He wasn't gay in the first movie--he has a sex scene with Qi Shu right after the bad guys blow up his house. How dumb for a director to forget his own film. Secondly, who cares whether he is or isn't??


  • Name: anthony
    Date posted: 2008-12-03 1:20 PM
    Hometown: dublin ireland

    Comment:

    personally I'd love to see Jason in a gay superhero role, as he's very easy on the eye, but his comments are interesting in so far as we do need a gay superhero movie franchise, the question is if this will happen, the interesting thing thats happening in cinema is the number of gay related films winning awards and critical acclaim, perhaps when Penn gets the Oscar for MILK, Hollywood will waken up to lgbt needs in a more positive way, a


  • Name: Scott
    Date posted: 2008-12-02 11:51 PM
    Hometown: Tallahassee

    Comment:

    ...And? I don't see how it matters?


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