Jason Statham

Jason Statham (born July 26, 1967) is an English actor. He is known for portraying characters in various action-thriller films who are typically tough, hardboiled, gritty, or violent. Statham began practicing Chinese martial arts, kickboxing, and karate recreationally in his youth while working at local market stalls. An avid footballer and diver, he was a member of Britain's national diving team and competed for England in the 1990 Commonwealth Games. Shortly after, he was asked to model for French Connection, Tommy Hilfiger, and Levi's in various advertising campaigns. His past history working at market stalls inspired his casting in the Guy Ritchie crime films Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000). The commercial success of these films led Statham to star as Frank Martin in the Transporter trilogy (2002–2008). After starring in a variety of heist and action-thriller films such as The Italian Job (2003), Crank (2006), War (2007), The Bank Job (2008), The Mechanic (2011), Spy (2015), and Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), he established himself as a Hollywood leading man. However, he has also starred in commercially and critically unsuccessful films such as Revolver (2005), Chaos (2005), In the Name of the King (2007), 13 (2010), Blitz (2011), Killer Elite (2011), Hummingbird (2013), and Wild Card (2015). He regained commercial success as a part of the ensemble action series The Expendables (2010–2014) and the Fast & Furious franchise. In the latter, he has played Deckard Shaw in Fast & Furious 6 (2013), Furious 7 (2015), The Fate of the Furious (2017), F9 (2021) and the spin-off Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019). He was credited as a co-producer on Hobbs & Shaw, receiving his first production credit. His acting has been criticized for lacking depth and variety, but he has also been praised for leading the resurgence of action films during the 2000s and 2010s. According to a BBC News report, his film career from 2002 to 2017 generated an estimated $1.5 billion (£1.1 billion) in ticket sales, making him one of the film industry's most bankable stars.

Jet Li

Li Lian Jie (born April 26, 1963), better known by his stage name Jet Li, is a Chinese martial artist, actor, film producer, wushu champion, and international film star who was born in Beijing, China, and who has currently taken up Singapore citizenship. After three years of intensive training with Wu Bin, Li won his first national championship for the Beijing Wushu Team. After retiring from wushu at age 17, he went on to win great acclaim in China as an actor making his debut with the film Shaolin Temple (1982). He went on to star in many critically acclaimed martial arts epic films, most notably the Once Upon A Time In China series, in which he portrayed folk hero Wong Fei-hung. Li's first role in a Hollywood film was as a villain in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), but his first Hollywood film leading role was in Romeo Must Die (2000). He has gone on to star in many Hollywood action films, most recently starring beside Jackie Chan in The Forbidden Kingdom (2008), and as the title character villain in The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (2008) opposite Brendan Fraser. Recently, he appeared in the 2010 film The Expendables.

Dolph Lundgren

Hans Lundgren (born 3 November 1957), better known as Dolph Lundgren, is a Swedish actor, filmmaker, and martial artist. Lundgren's breakthrough came in 1985, when he starred in Rocky IV as the imposing Soviet boxer Ivan Drago. Since then, he has starred in more than 69 films, almost all of them in the action genre. Lundgren received a degree in chemical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in the early 1980s and a master's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney in 1982. He holds the rank of 4th dan black belt in Kyokushin karate and was European champion in 1980–81. While in Sydney, he became a bodyguard for Jamaican singer Grace Jones and began a relationship with her. He received a Fulbright scholarship to MIT and moved to Boston. Jones convinced him to leave the university and move to New York City to be with her and begin acting, where, after a short stint as a model and bouncer at the Manhattan nightclub The Limelight, Lundgren got a small debut role as a KGB henchman in the James Bond film A View to a Kill. After appearing in Rocky IV, Lundgren portrayed He-Man in the 1987 science fantasy film Masters of the Universe, Lt. Rachenko in Red Scorpion (1988) and Frank Castle in the 1989 film The Punisher. Throughout the 1990s he appeared in films such as I Come in Peace (1990), Cover Up (1991), Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991), Universal Soldier film series (1992, 2009, 2012), Joshua Tree (1993), Pentathlon (1994), Men of War (1994), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), The Shooter (1995), Silent Trigger (1996), The Peacekeeper (1997), and Blackjack (1998). In 2004 he directed his first film, The Defender, and subsequently directed The Mechanik (2005), Missionary Man (2007), Command Performance (2009), and Icarus (2010), also starring in all of them. After a long spell performing in direct-to-video films since 1995, Lundgren returned to Hollywood in 2010 with the role of Gunnar Jensen in The Expendables, alongside Sylvester Stallone and an all-action star cast. He reprised his role in The Expendables 2 (2012) and The Expendables 3 (2014). Also in 2014, he co-starred in Skin Trade, an action thriller about human trafficking he co-wrote and produced. He reprised his role of Ivan Drago in Creed II (2018), and is due to reprise his role as Gunner Jensen in The Expendables 4. He appears in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017), playing the protagonist's son Gil as an adult, and in Aquaman (2018), playing the father of Mera. He also had a recurring role in the fifth season of Arrow.

Chuck Norris

Carlos Ray "Chuck" Norris (born March 10, 1940) is an American martial artist and actor. After serving in the United States Air Force, he began his rise to fame as a martial artist and has since founded his own school, Chun Kuk Do. As a result of his "tough guy" image, an Internet phenomenon began in 2005 known as Chuck Norris facts, ascribing various implausible or even impossible feats to Norris. Norris appeared in a number of action films, such as Way of the Dragon in which he starred alongside Bruce Lee and was The Cannon Group's leading star in the 1980s.He next played the starring role in the television series Walker, Texas Ranger from 1993 to 2001. Norris is a devout Christian and politically conservative. He has written several books on Christianity and donated to a number of Republican candidates and causes. In 2007 and 2008, he campaigned for former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who was running for the Republican nomination for President in 2008. Norris also writes a column for the conservative website WorldNetDaily. Description above from the Wikipedia article Chuck Norris, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Bruce Willis

Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a retired American actor. His career began on the off-Broadway stage in the 1970s. He achieved fame with a leading role on the comedy-drama series Moonlighting (1985–1989) and has since appeared in over 70 films, gaining widespread recognition as an action hero after his portrayal of John McClane in the Die Hard franchise (1988–2013) and other subsequent roles. Willis's other credits include The Last Boy Scout (1991), Pulp Fiction (1994), 12 Monkeys (1995), Last Man Standing (1996), The Fifth Element (1997), Armageddon (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), Hart's War (2002), Tears of the Sun (2003), Hostage (2005), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Surrogates (2009), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), Rock the Kasbah (2015) and Motherless Brooklyn (2019). As a singer, Willis released his debut album The Return of Bruno in 1987, followed by two more successful albums in 1989 and 2001. He made his Broadway debut in the stage adaptation of Misery in 2015. Willis has received numerous accolades during his career, including a Golden Globe, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and two People's Choice Awards. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006. In March 2022, Willis announced that he was retiring from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia, which affects his ability to communicate. In February 2023, Willis' family announced that they had received a more accurate diagnosis and he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.

Jean-Claude Van Damme

Van Damme was born Jean-Claude Camille François van Varenberg in Berchem-Sainte-Agathe, Brussels, Belgium, to Eliana and Eugène van Varenberg, an accountant. “The Muscles from Brussels” started martial arts at the age of eleven. His father introduced him to martial arts when he saw his son was physically weak. At the age of 12, van Damme began his martial arts training at Centre National De Karate (National Center of Karate) under the guidance of Master Claude Goetz in Ixelles, Belgium. Van Damme trained for 4 years and earned a spot on the Belgium Karate Team. He won the European professional karate association's middleweight championship as a teenager, and also beat the 2nd best karate fighter in the world. His goal was to be number one but got sidetracked when he left his hometown of Brussels. In 1976 at the age of sixteen, Jean-Claude started his Martial Arts fight career. Jean-Claude retired from martial arts in 1982, following a knockout over Nedjad Gharbi in Brussels, Belgium. Jean-Claude posted a 18-1 (18 knockouts) kickboxing record, and a semi-contact record of 41-4. He came to Hong Kong at the age of 19 for the first time and felt insured to do action movies in Hong Kong. In 1981, van Damme moved to Los Angeles. He took English classes while working as carpet layer, pizza delivery man, limo driver, and thanks to Chuck Norris he got a job as a bouncer at a club. Norris gave van Damme a small role in the movie Missing in Action (1984), but it wasn't good enough to get anybody's attention. In 1984, he got his first significant role as a villain named Ivan in the low-budget movie, No Retreat, No Surrender (1986). Then one day, while walking on the streets, Jean-Claude spotted a producer for Cannon Pictures and showed some of his martial arts abilities which led to a role in Bloodsport (1988). The movie, filmed in Hong Kong, was so bad when it was completed, it was shelved for almost two years. It might have never been released if van Damme did not help them to re-cut the film and begged producers to release it. They finally released the film, first in Malaysia and France and then into the US shot on a meager 1.5 million dollar budget, it became a US box-office hit in the spring of 1988. It made about 30 million worldwide and audiences supported this film for its new sensational action star, Jean-Claude van Damme. His good looks led to starring roles in higher budgeted movies like Cyborg (1989), AWOL: Absent Without Leave (1990), Double Impact (1991) and Universal Soldier (1992). In 1994, he scored with his big breakthrough $100 million worldwide hit Timecop (1994). But in the meantime, his personal life was coming apart. A divorce, followed by a new marriage, followed by another divorce. It began to show up in his career when his projects began to tank at the box office: The Quest (1996), which he directed; Maximum Risk (1996) and Double Team (1997). The three films made less than $50 million combined. In 1999, he remarried his ex-wife, Gladys Portugues, and restarted his lost career to attain new goals. With help from his family, he faced his problems and made movies like Replicant (2001), Derailed (2002), and In Hell (2003).

Terry Crews

Terrence Alan Crews (born July 30, 1968) is an American actor, comedian, activist, artist, bodybuilder and former professional football player. Crews played Julius Rock on the UPN/CW sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. He hosted the U.S. version of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and starred in the BET reality series The Family Crews. He appeared in films such as Friday After Next (2002), White Chicks (2004), Idiocracy (2006), Blended (2014), and the Expendables series. Since 2013, he has played NYPD Lieutenant Terry Jeffords in the sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He began hosting America's Got Talent in 2019, following his involvement in the same role for the program's spin-off series, America's Got Talent: The Champions. Crews played as a defensive end and linebacker in the National Football League (NFL), for the Los Angeles Rams, San Diego Chargers, and Washington Redskins, as well as in the World League of American Football (WLAF) with the Rhein Fire, and college football at Western Michigan University. Crews, a public advocate for women's rights and activist against sexism, has shared stories of the abuse his family endured at the hands of his violent father. He was included among the group of people named as Time Person of the Year in 2017 for going public with stories of sexual assault. Description above from the Wikipedia article Terry Crews, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

Liam Hemsworth

Liam Hemsworth (born 13 January 1990) is an Australian actor. He played the roles of Josh Taylor in the soap opera Neighbours and Marcus in the children's television series The Elephant Princess. In American films, Hemsworth starred as Will Blakelee in The Last Song (2010), as Gale Hawthorne in The Hunger Games film series (2012–2015), and as Jake Morrison in Independence Day: Resurgence (2016).