Melinda Martinez
A Jason Statham celebrity impersonator who appeared on the doppelganger episode of Fox’s “I Can See Your Voice” has ties to Alexandria.
Jason Stanly of Baton Rouge, known as the_statham_guy on TikTok, is the son of Davelyn Gaspard, whose maiden name is Watson, and David Stanly. Both grew up in Alexandria.
“It’s a lip-sync game show,” Stanly said in a phone interview from Baton Rouge about the show. “You are pretty much being sized up and lip syncing. And the contestant has to pretty much guess after that, and some clues, if you can really sing or not. The real singers are lip syncing to their own voice. Bad singers, like me, had to lip sync really good to someone else’s voice. That’s the premise of the show.”
There are five rounds, and the contestant has to eliminate one singer after each round. If they can guess which is the bad singer, they get $15,000 after each round. In the last round, contestants can ask questions of the singers. The real singers give truthful answers while the bad ones lie. They can choose to keep the money they won in the previous rounds or risk it all in the final round for $100,000 and choose which is the good singer.
Stanly is on episode 7 of Season 3 and can be seen for free on Fox and Tubi. It can also be seen on Hulu, fuboTV, Sling TV and YouTube TV.
Stanly, who has been acting for 13 years, has often been told that he favors the British actor.
“Every time I stepped on set, throughout all the time when I was an extra or a background actor, someone would mention something about my resemblance to Jason Statham the British action star,” he said.
He never really thought much about the resemblance, because he didn’t think there was anything he could do with it other than being a stand-in or photo double.
“It wasn’t like I was going to be a Jason Statham impersonator,” he said. “Well, careful what you say there, and also careful what you wish for, because that’s exactly how my career began and really took off.”
Throughout networking and making friends and always being prepared, he met someone who auditioned for a role in “The Starving Games” which is a spoof on “The Hunger Games.” Within that spoof was a spoof of the movie, “The Expendables” which has the Jason Statham character called Lee Christmas, Stanly said.
His friend told him about an acting opportunity and told him to reach out to the casting director. With his ability to impersonate Jason Statham, he’d get the part. And he did. His first principal role was as nonother than Jason Statham.
From there he went on to do commercials. Since he resembled Statham, he didn’t have to do any impersonations. He was hired as himself, which he said, “is ideally what you want to happen as the years go by.”
Stanly photo-doubled for Statham in two films that were filmed in Louisiana, “Homefront” and “Wild Card,” before Statham started doing his films abroad. Even though he’s photo-doubled for Statham, he’s never met the action star because he was never on set when Stanly was there.
“I created a bit of a twist there where I hope to meet him one day,” Stanly said.
From that point on, he continued to market himself as “Jason Stanly the actor” or “Jason Statham the impersonator.” Of the handful of Statham lookalikes worldwide, Stanly said not a single one attempts to do an impersonation, so that puts him on another level. And, he has yet to see another Statham impersonator.
“I was able to run with that, and I jumped on TikTok in November of 2020,” he said. “I started taking off little by little, throwing out some content. My biggest hits was of me resembling Jason Statham while dancing like Elvis and Michael Jackson.”
He went viral with several videos such as the one where he dances to Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” as Statham. It has more than 14 million views. He has 1.1 million followers on TikTok with more than 125 million total video views.
Because of that exposure, a casting producer for Fox’s “I Can See Your Voice” reached out to Stanly. They were scouting for premiere celebrity look alikes and impersonators for their doppelganger episode.
“It was a fun audition process from the time they reached out to me,” Stanly said. “I immediately sent them some clips of me singing and not singing, or I should say, singing and lip syncing. And they let me know early on that they were looking for bad singers as well. So, I was relieved to know that I would be able to deliver on that front.”
After submitting some initial clips, day he was auditioning the next day. And the ball was rolling for an amazing experience on national television that was his national television debut, he said.
Stanly has an acting background that goes all the way back to high school but worked as a financial adviser and stockbroker as an adult.
He decided to get involved in the film industry after seeing production being made in New Orleans that were spilling over into Baton Rouge. He always likes to make a plug for the Louisiana Film Tax credits, which he says has created opportunities for actors and others involved in the film industry.
Though he did have acting experience, he started out as an extra. But worse than being a “face in the crowd” was having his car used as extra.
“Which is as bad as it gets when you’re just starting off,” Stanly said about the experience. “You want to get involved in the action, but it was my car.”
He was instructed to “drive forward, back up” multiple times.
While on the set, he saw all the nice light panels and trailers and thought to himself that that’s where he needs to be. He didn’t know how it would happen, but he would be prepared.
Three months later, he found a notice on Facebook looking for a businessperson-type. Since he was a financial adviser and stockbroker, he thought this role fit him perfectly.
“I hustled to respond and the next thing you know, I am in ‘The Philly Kid,’” he said. “My very first on-camera experience, which was directed by none other than Sean Connery’s son, Jason Connery. The first time I was in front of a movie camera, I’m with the three main stars, and then my life has never been the same since,” he said.
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