Jason Statham nearly died filming Expendables 3 last year outside of Varna, Bulgaria. The brakes had failed on a truck he was driving towards the Black Sea on routine filming.
The film’s writer and star, Sylvester Stallone, said: “It went down 60 feet 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.
Terry Crews, another of the many, many action stars appearing in the film, told the story to Jay Leno last year:
"We were doing a stunt and Jason Statham was driving the truck. We were on the back of the truck, talking, drinking smoothies, like, yeah yeah…
And we’re on the edge of Bulgaria in the Black Sea; he literally is supposed to stop the truck, we get out, we shoot, the whole thing. [But] the truck doesn’t stop. The truck goes into the Black Sea with Jason Statham driving.
In your mind you have an action film where you’re like, “I’m gonna grab the truck, I’m gonna do all this stuff,” but I was like, “Jasoooooon!” I’m in a heap on the ground, he’s in the water, in the truck, everyone’s freaking out.
He gets out, swims to the top. The truck is gone. We were supposed to be on the back of it.
Let me tell you something: Jason Statham is a true bad, bad dude.”