10 Actors Who Aren't Afraid To Mock Themselves

Jason Statham's role in Spy brilliantly subverts the action movies that the actor is best known for. In films like The Transporter or Safe, Statham usually plays gruff action men with hearts of gold. The situations are often ridiculous, but in Statham's gritty portrayals he usually succeeds in selling them to an audience. In Spy, he turned this on its head.

As an actor, Statham clearly knows the way to sell the ridiculousness of Feig's spy thriller spoof is to play it completely straight. In grounding the film through his performance, the jokes about Face/Off machines and silly spy gadgets soar. The man is clearly an idiot, a blunt instrument who's just as out of his depth as Melissa McCarthy's character.

In sending himself up so brilliantly, Statham cemented his comic chops. They'd always been there, from as far back as Guy Ritchie's Snatch. But here he was being genuinely funny in a Hollywood comedy. It's clear that this sense of humour informed his Shaw character's transition from Fast and Furious villain to the Rock's comic foil in the Hobbs and Shaw movie.