Plenty of “blood, sweat and tears” went into the intense stunt training for his role in action movie Transporter Refuelled, Ed Skrein has revealed.

Ed plays the part of Frank Martin in the fourth instalment of the rebooted Transporter series, which originally starred Jason Statham – and he was delighted to get his stunt skills up to scratch.

Training with stunt co-ordinator Alain Figlarz in Paris, he explained, was somewhat of a crash course: “We trained extremely hard. That was empowering, to enter into it three weeks before with nothing – falling over left foot from right foot – to getting there, and being able to do what was asked of me.”

The film stars Ed as a mercenary taxi driver who becomes entangled in his passengers’ battle with a Russian gangster in Monaco – and it involves some epic chase scenes.

“To ride a jet ski in a Christian Dior suit, in the Riviera, next to a £12 million yacht, chasing a speedboat with a scorpion arm and a half a million pound camera on – all of that stuff was so fun,” the 32-year-old said.

“The sun beating down, it was beautiful. I think when I’m older I’ll look back on moments like that and say: ‘Wow, I can’t believe I did that.’”

Ed is soon to star alongside Ryan Reynolds in superhero film Deadpool, where he’ll be showing off more action skills in the part of “supervillain, sociopath and psychopath” Ajax.

The actor, who has a four-year-old called Marley, joked: “My son thinks that daddy’s job is play-fighting.”

Starring in a reboot can be daunting when you’ll be measured against the original, but stepping into Jason Statham’s shoes wasn’t scary at all, Ed insisted.

Ed Skrein
Ed Skrein (Ian West/PA)

“Of course it’s not new,” he explained, “But if I can try and exist, be as emotionally honest with each scene as I can, and try and exist in that world as honestly as I can, I’m not going to be thinking about the previous movies.”

He added: “I wanted to do it my way. I can’t really do it any other way than my way, for better or for worse.”

Transporter Refuelled is released in UK cinemas on September 4.