Jessica Alba and her husband are big fans of Jason Statham.

Jessica Alba

Jessica Alba

The 35-year-old actress - who has daughters Honor, eight, and Haven, five, with spouse Cash Warren - jumped at the chance to star opposite the British actor in 'Mechanic: Resurrection' because his action prowess is "insane".

She said: "My husband and I are both fans of Jason Statham. I love action movies and think he's one of the best - if not the best - action stars right now.

"I mean, what Jason can do with his body is insane. He's better than some stunt people that I've worked with. I thought it would just be fun, frankly, and such a different thing to my day-to-day."

Jessica likes to take on a diverse range of roles but was only interested in being in an action movie if she had a "strong" role.

She said: "I don't know if I ever had a fear of being typecast. I've done comedy, drama, action, comic-book movies so I've made it a point to keep the work that I've done pretty diverse.

"I thought it was important that if I was going to be in an action movie at this point in my life, I should play a strong character, not just a victim or a damsel in distress, but someone who was tough, smart and capable."

And one of Jessica's favourite ever roles was playing Sue Storm in the 'Fantastic Four' movie as it was "really cool" to be one of the only female superheroes.

She told Britain's HELLO! magazine: "I loved the 'Fantastic Four' movies because I remember how fun it was to play a superhero.

"At the time, Sue Storm was one of the first female superheroes who was really a main character in an action movie. That was really cool."