Jason Statham Co-Star Provides 'Shelter' Production, Casting Update [exclusive]

Jason Statham‘s Shelter is in post-production with a January 30, 2026 release date, and fans excited for more updates have finally gotten some from co-star Bill Nighy in his exclusive interview with MovieWeb.

“[Shelter] was great, and it was [shot] in Ireland. It was great to meet Jason. He was very generous and welcoming [to] the whole crew and everybody. It was a very cool gig. I’m not [playing] a nice guy. I don’t get employed to be nice. But it was very good, and I got to work with Jason.”

In addition to sharing that he plays a villain in the upcoming action movie, Nighy dropped some potentially interesting casting news: “I got to work with Harriet Walter, who I haven’t worked with, Dame Harriet Walter, lest we forget. I haven’t worked with her since we were both quite young, so it was great to see her again.”

We don’t know who Walter plays in Shelter, but she joins director Ric Roman Waugh’s cast, which also already includes Naomi Ackie and Daniel Mays.

Bill Nighy’s Action Vehicle Dream

Nighy’s currently promoting his upcoming mystery-thriller series Lazarus, but the accomplished star shared plans for a dream still unfulfilled:

“In the old days, people would say, ‘What’s left, Bill, what do you want to do?’ And I always used to quip, ‘You know, my action career is long overdue.’ Then I got a new American agent, and he laughed, but he also thought, ‘Well, why not?’ So I am actually in discussion about trying to get an action film with me as the unlikely, obviously, [hero].”

Nighy has one clear creative demand, however: “I’d have to have a superpower. It’ll only be a little [one]. It doesn’t have to be a big superpower; just a little one will do. Just to count for my extraordinary reserves of energy and strength.”

Nighy’s plans to make it happen seem to be in motion, but to the naysayers, he has a powerful counter-argument: “I have a whole thing worked out. At my age, you’ll get that very satisfying thing where the younger enemy villains would laugh at me and say, ‘Yeah, all right, grandpa,’ and then I wipe them out.”

Of course, nobody can think of Billy Nighy without thinking about his Christmas movie standing thanks to his performance in the perennial classic Love, Actually. For Bill, it’s the gift that keeps on giving on multiple levels:

I’m very famous at Christmas. It’s nice because I admire the film, and the film is a good thing in the world. It’s about people looking out for one another. It’s a good vibe. There’s nowhere in the world it hasn’t played. I’ve been everywhere, and people come up and say lines from the film. I’ve been in Alaska, and somebody comes, ‘Hey, kids don’t buy drugs. Become a rock star, and some people give you them for free.’ It’s universal. People have come up and said, ‘You helped me through my chemo.’ People use it. It’s a kind of mechanism, you know, it’s beautiful. I’m very happy… professionally, it kind of changed everything.”

Shelter releases January 30th, 2026.

Release Date

January 30, 2026

Writers

Ward Parry