If youâre a fan of Jason Statham action films, youâll be happy to know his latest movie, a remake of The Mechanic, opens this weekend.  Like the 1972 Charles Bronson film that itâs based on, Statham plays a âmechanicâ, which is âan elite assassin with a strict code and unique talent for cleanly eliminating targets.â  Unlike some remakes that stray far from the original, Stathamâs remake uses the same plot, but updates all the technology and kills. Also, Simon West directed (Con Air, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) the film so the action is well done. I actually thought the remake was a lot of fun and casting Ben Foster to play the apprentice was a smart move as heâs an awesome actor that brings a lot to the role. For more on the film, watch 4 clips here.Anyway, I recently got to participate in a roundtable interview with Foster and you can either read a transcript or listen to the audio after the jump. During the interview, Foster talked about working alongside Statham and what it was like to make The Mechanic, the nasty injury he landed as a result of doing his own stunts, how he prepares for each role, why he tends to play tough guys, and he gave us updates on Contraband, Fernando Meirellesâ 360, and Oren Moverman's Rampart. If you're a fan of this great actor, you definitely should check out the interview:If you'd like to listen to the audio of the interview, click here. Otherwise, I've posted the entire transcript below. The Mechanic opens January 28.-Question: So when youâre getting ready to do a Jason Statham film, do you re-watch a whole bunch of his movies, how do you prep for one of these things?Ben Foster: Yeah, I watched Crank 2 again, and I love that movie. I really liked what he did in The Bank Job, I hadnât seen the Transporters, but I really liked what he did in that. So, how do you prep a Jason Statham movie? I donât know how to answer that question. I mean, you just kind of go in and hope you guys get along, and go make something that hopefully is funDid you watch the original?Foster: No. If I havenât seen it, and Iâm doing a remakeâI think this is the third oneâI donât want to watch it, because Iâm afraid of somehow stealing consciously or unconsciously. Thereâs a fear, how does a film live up to its original, and why are you remaking it? So, we know this is a business of commerce, and occasionally some things can be really entertaining. I donât think you can live up to a film, but you can approach it from your own way, and if you give it yourself, then it can be its own entity. Have you gone back to see the original since shooting it?Foster: No, I havenât seen the original 3:10 (To Yuma). Iâd like to at some point, but it was always too close, and then I kind of forget.What was your third remake?Foster: â¦my brainâs broken today. If I remember halfwayâman, I came from New Orleans today, was up at 3:30 in the morning, went to New York, to go watch footage of a film I just produced, got on a plane three hours later, got here at two a.m. I donât know what weâre talking about (laughs)What were you doing in New Orleans, if you donât mind me asking?Foster: Itâs called Contraband. Good group of guys down thereYou have a pretty memorable fight scene in this film. You obviously knew you were getting into this genre, this action. Did you do a lot of gym stuff, how did you prepare for that scene, and also can you talk about shooting that scene?Foster: Yeah, it was wild. Thatâs kind of like the tent-pole scene, for at least what I have to do in the picture. Itâs the big sequence for me, so we trained for, or worked on choreography, for about three months. Because heâs such a big fellow, you start with a stuntman, then you build up to him. I canât reach his face, so we just have to find our own fight style. Is it krav maga, is it taekwondo, is it just gnarly street fighting? We started just going closer to street fighting. So trained and worked it out with this fella. The drag of that fight sequence was we shot the first section of it really rushed the night before. We were going to have two days to fight it, we lost a day of shooting so we just got the opening. Which is, thereâs some stuff with a drawer, and then he throws me into a wall, its just at the top. They told me not to, and I did it anyway, so I went into the wall and came down, because, you know, Iâm of the Jackass-generation, and snapped my shoulder. Iâm right-handed. You hear something go âsnap,â and youâre like, âStupid man.â Then you get up, theyâre like, âhow you doing?â Youâre tough, you have to be in the pocket, so youâre like, âYeah, maybe one more take.â You do it again, and youâre like, âAhhh, I really shouldnât have done that.â Theyâre like, âWe need one more,â and youâre like, âI really canât...Ok.â Into the wall, down on the shoulder, and said, âOk, thatâs it. We got it?â They say, âWe got.â âYouâre fine?â âIâm fine.â  I go back to the hotel and when I woke up I couldnât get out of bed. What it felt like was my collarboneâI donât know if you guys have ever broken your collarbone beforeâyou canât move. You canât turn your neck and you canât turn your arm. So that call to the producers sucks. âUhh, you know that thing that weâve kind of been working on, that we really got to shoot today? I canât move!â So they brought me to a doctor who works on the Saints, the football team, and he took out a big motherfucking syringe, and he pumps it in, put it out, and put it in again, and the arm starts loosening. Iâm like, âThat drugâs great. Whatever is in this is good shit. I like it here, I can shoot a movie now.â I go to set, Iâm like, âIâm so good, Iâm so good, letâs do this, Iâm ready, letâs do this.â By the time the set was up, it was like this again. âOhh, call the magic doctor. This is how drug habits start, give me the doctor.â He comes in, he just leans into meâreally great guyâand heâs like, âYou know, I work for the Saints, and theyâre a little bigger than you, but Iâve never given any of them this much. Good luck.â So then you reorganize, and youâre like, well, I can at least not fight like this, but I can fight like this. Then we just wrote it in really fast, and just say that right is left and left is right. So screwdriver the flights, the swings, everything had to be reversed. We had a great coordinator and it was a gas. Pain is a great motivator. I mean, at the end of the day, you can use pain as an energy. It can be emotional, it can be physical, but as military says, pain is weakness leaving the body. You just kind of have to ride it out, and hope youâve got a doctor to pump you full of shit.Do you know the medicine that they injected you with?Foster: It was like a mix of steroids, a muscle relaxerâit was a cocktail of crazy pants. Yeah, I mean itâs the stuff they give the big guys.So that line that says I'm not a lefty in that scene, was that added so you could do that stuff with your left hand?Foster: Yeah. Wow, you pay attention. I like that, thatâs good.So Iâm assuming you and Jason did get along?Foster: Yeah. We laughed more than not. You know, when heâs comfortable, heâs the funniest guy youâve ever met. Just a wicked, self-effacing, just a good bloke, and a hell of an athlete, and itâs a world that I know very little about, and he was good to me. I was impressed with the work that he did this picture. Thought it was quiet, it was internal, it was intense, it could have gone a few different ways, but I thought he had some really quiet, nice moments in this film. Yeah, we blew shit up.Iâd love to hear about how you create tough guys, because youâre not 7â0 feet tall, but in like Alpha Dog and 3:10 to Yuma youâre really threatening on screen, and you have this unpredictability.Foster: Thanks. I donât know. Iâm not a tall guy. The roles Iâm interested in or have been interested in, you know, itâs going to get down to conflict. Drama is conflict, conflict of interests. I donât know, I enjoy what I do. Very lucky to work, period.How do you get into the aggression mood? Do you have a routine or do you just have a switch to just shoot it, basically?Foster: Itâs really simple stuff. It doesnât feel good. Youâre not happy; I donât necessarily go home feeling great if itâs been an intense day on set, but you figure out what that person cares about and you care about that thing and protect it as much as you can. If somebody makes your life difficult, or the people that you love, their life difficult, is taking something away from the idea of your own security in life, how are you going to defend it? How much do you careâand thatâs what it gets down toâhow much do you love? The characters that Iâve played, some of them have the tendency towards violence, internally or externally, but it gets down to how much do you care.So do you think it makes you a better person, to play these violent roles, because you think about them and you grow inside?Foster: I donât know, I hope. I mean I think we can take any metaphor, any job that we doâyou ask questions right, you go out and youâre journalists? You go out and ask questions and youâre interested, maybe at the end of the day it isnât what they said itâs what they didnât say that maybe we can reflect back on. Itâs the same thing with acting. I donât know, I hope we evolve, but we intend to open our hearts up a bit.Iâm curious, if you could, you mentioned playing these intense characters, what kind of character do you play in Contraband and, also, in Fernando Meirellesâ 360?Ben Foster: How did you hear about that? It was reported just about an hour ago.Foster: Really? Yeah, itâs online. I heard it and I was like, âguess who Iâm sitting down with today?â Great timing.Foster: Wow. I went and did a film that Iâll have at Sundance this year, Iâm just trying to learn different things right now, and when it feels good, it feels good. So, Here is about a mapmaker. Itâs a gentle romance/road movie set in Armenia. In Contraband Iâm moving import/export with Mark Wahlberg, my best friend, family, and we just move gear through the ports of New Orleans. Thereâs a great cast, Giovanni Ribisi has just got a killer role. Lukas Haas, Kate Beckinsale, itâs a fun cast. And 360 is about a sex-offender who is just getting out of prison and heâs looking to go to kind of a halfway house.  Then thereâs a storm when heâs at an airport and heâs kind of stuck there. Thereâs several different storylines, but heâs stuck at an airport with people. Do you have a start date on that?Foster: Yeah, I think itâs March. So your next few months are pretty busy?Foster: Yeah, and in New York we just produced by first film which was so exciting and, Iâm just saying it now, watch out for next awards season, Woody Harrelsonâs performance in this movie Rampart is insane. Itâs insane what he did. And I donât want to sound like a douchebag producer, but I am now. So, Iâm just saying, Rampart. So, are you in that or are you just producing?Foster: Yeah, I have a small role in that. What was that like? You guys had such a pairing your last time together.Foster: Heâs my brother. Heâs my brother. The Messenger director Oren Moverman and I started a production company, so Rampart was the first one we did together and we just tried to get the gang back. Woody is the only man for this job. He plays a cop in 1999, in Rampart, in Los Angeles and itâs stone cold. Stone cold work. Robin Wright, Sigourney Weaver, Cynthia Nixon, Steve Buscemi⦠When you guys did The Messenger you guys did a lot of ânatural stuff,â you know, from what I remember. Was that similar on Rampart? Were you guys like finding it on-set?Foster: Thereâs a lot of improvisation. But, thatâs based on Orenâs work and itâs based on James Ellroyâs script that Oren Moverman rewrote and then we do all this prep work. He works with each actor separately and then thereâs no more rehearsal and whatever happens, happens. Itâs a very different way to go and we think a successful one with the right people. How has the experience of producing been?Foster: Thereâs a steep learning curve. Really humbling and thrilling. Where, you know, the actors (laughs)â¦thereâs like all these âhandlersâ and the special treatment and itâs really kind of repulsive and a waste of time and energy but itâs good, however it works. Seeing that side of the operation and how a film that runs smoothly and well and you make your days and you keep content while trying to raise the bar every day isâ¦I have a lot of respect for, always dig the crew. Sometimes a lot more than the cast. But a good run production team is paramount to making a good film. You just canât it done without a good line producer, without creative producers, without people who are making stuff happen. Itâs wild. Where did the desire to produce come from in the first place?Foster: Just working with Oren. I met him and I was like, âIâm out of L.A., Iâm going to go work with him, and weâre going to develop stuff.â The Messenger was such a great experience, the process of that, and I just figured he is the guy I want to work with. So, itâs how do you make something with someone, how do you make something, and we were just like, âAll right, letâs make Rampart.â Are you aiming for a certain festival?Foster: Uh, next year. Weâre just cutting right now. We just got an assembly. Do you have a distributor for that or are you still looking?Foster: Weâre independent. Yeah, fingers crossed.