Matt Damon Bourne Identity Interview
Ever since he crossed our radar screens five years ago as the star and Oscar-winning writer of ‘Good Will Hunting’, Matt Damon has been busy making the most of his success. Having made back-to-back films - including ‘Saving Private Ryan’, ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’, ‘The Legend of Bagger Vance’ and ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ - he has found little time to unpack the boxes in a newly purchased New York apartment and no time at all for the tabloid-worthy high jinks of so many of his Hollywood peers. The latest addition to the actor’s résumé is the ‘The Bourne Identity’, a refreshing, cool, post-modern action film in which Matt, playing an assassin with amnesia, makes his getaway in a beaten-up red Mini and is woefully short of a catchphrase. The still boyish-looking, 31-year-old Damon, who recently starred in the London run of Kenneth Lonergan’s “This Is Our Youth”, talked to us about what’s wrong with action films, why he doesn’t lie awake at night worrying about his career, and why people think he’s so much shorter than he really is (he’s 5’ 11’). Q. I noticed that Jason Bourne shares his initials with another international man of mystery, James Bond. Is that a coincidence? A. I don’t know the answer to that, but it’s funny, because Jason Bourne is sort of the anti-Bond, isn’t he? Bond is so suave, so highfalutin’ and this guy is so different from that. We wanted to make Jason Bourne real and believable and someone people could identity with. Q. Believability isn’t usually a concern with most action films, is it? A. No, and I suppose that’s one of the problems I have with them. I mean, in theory I’m a huge fan of action films, but most of the time I am disappointed because they’re so completely far-fetched or just plain derivative. I loved ‘Die Hard’, but suddenly everything was like ‘Die Hard’ and you could set your watch by the gratuitous action scenes. You know, it’s been four minutes, something must be about to explode, and sure enough something does. And very often the action isn’t serving the story; it’s just an appendage. With ‘The Bourne Identity’ we wanted to make a film where the action was integral to the story but was still entertaining. Q. There’s a car chase in the film where you and your co-star, Franka Potente, just end up looking at each other for what seems like minutes. Didn’t anyone suggest you come out with a witty line? A. Yeah, but that’s exactly what I hate. I like the way the scene ends. My character is embarrassed and feels uncomfortable. She’s in a state of shock. There really is nothing to say. Q. Were you nervous that the director [Doug Liman] had never done an action film before? “From the director of ‘Swingers’” isn’t necessarily a great catch line for a summer blockbuster. A. If he had done this genre before, I’d probably have been less interested. Doug said he wanted to make a more European movie, he mentioned ‘La Femme Nikita’, he talked about films from the 70s that were character driven, and that was all music to my ears. Q. Is it true he also told you to get in shape? A. Yeah and he wasn’t exactly tactful. He pulled up my shirt and said, ‘You have an actors body and I need you to have the body of a killing machine’. I did about five months of martial arts and boxing and I did hundreds of hours of weapons training. I don’t handle a gun too much in the movie, but those moments when I do, I wanted it to look like second nature. Q. Five months of training. Is that all day, every day? A. Yes. But for The ‘Talented Mr Ripley’ I was stuck in a room playing piano for months, so I sort of preferred this. That kind of preparation helps so much though. Playing the piano for Ripley, suddenly my posture changed and I was used to being quiet and lonely and by myself, and all that fed into the characterization. On ‘The Bourne Identity’, Doug was very keen that I do as many of my own stunts as possible, so the training paid off there too. Audiences are so savvy now, they know when it’s a stunt person and when it’s you, so the big fight scene at the start of the movie, in the apartment in Paris, is all me. And besides the training, we did six weeks of rehearsing and choreographing that fight and filmed it for days. It’s a lot of grunt work, a lot of hours, a lot of punching the clock, but if it feels real, it‘s far more thrilling to watch. Q. Given all that work, are you very deliberate about the choices you make? Do you lie awake at night worrying whether you have made the right decision? A. Now we’re talking about it, I’m thinking maybe I should lie awake at night. I mean, this movie was easily a full year of my life between the preparation and shooting of it. Yet I made the decision very quickly, very impulsively, and I never looked back. I’m really very happy with the finished film too. Q. One of the best things about the movie is your co-star Franka Potente. Had you seen her in ‘Run Lola Run’? Were you involved in casting her in the movie? A. She’s another example of Doug thinking outside the box, because she’s not the first actress most directors think of. I loved ‘Run Lola Run’ and she’s such a strong personality that you buy every single thing she does. There’s a scene in Bourne where a guy goes flying out of a window. What was scripted to happen was for Franka to be wailing and screaming. So, we’re getting ready to shoot it and we watch the stunt and the set up and Doug says, ‘Okay Franka, are you prepared? ‘Cos this is a difficult scene and you’re gonna be losing it.’ And she just says, ‘No, I think she’d be in shock.’ And she does the scene with this dazed look on her face and says, ‘That man, he just went out of the window. Why would anyone do that?’ It’s the same line that was in the script, but she made something completely unexpected of it. And it’s not like she couldn’t do hysterical with the best of them. Q. I was talking to her earlier and she said she was worried at her audition in case she was a lot taller than you. A. People think I’m shorter than I am because I take so many pictures standing next to Ben [Affleck]. Q. Talking of Ben did you and he discuss the fact that you both have competing, mega-budget action films coming out at the same time in the US? A. He hasn’t seen Bourne yet, but I did see ‘The Sum of All Fears’. We talked about it. We noted the surreal quality of the whole thing. But it’s kind of funny, because they were made at such different times and there was certainly never any plan for them to come out at the same time. Q. Come to think of it, you always seem to have a movie coming out. Ben couldn’t help but clash with you. A. Yeah, I am coming to the conclusion that I’m a pretty restless character, if not a workaholic. A couple of months ago I got back to my apartment in New York from a long shoot and I thought, I’m just gonna sit around and do nothing. But then I read this play and one day later I was on a plane to London to go and do it. The truth is, a lot of my energy goes into my work and I’m so excited by it. I mean, I don’t do skydiving for a hobby, nothing outlandish. I like to do probably what a lot of people do -- I read, watch movies, watch sports, and spend time on the relationships that matter to me. So maybe I’m boring as hell in the rest of my life, I don’t know. But when I read a good piece script I really want to be part of it. Q. its five years now since ‘Good Will Hunting’ came out. I wonder what you hadn’t anticipated about fame and success. A. Well, it was strange to begin with. In the few months after ‘Good Will Hunting’, things got a bit crazy. To go from zero to a 100 was more overwhelming than I had expected -- and I think Ben would say the same thing. But we’re not like the hottest things anymore. I think both Ben and I are somewhere in the middle now and we have a better perspective on things too. I’m surprised by how normal a life I have. I read about actors being surrounded by bodyguards and entourages, but if I’m in London or New York I just walk around on the streets. It’s all very normal. Q. So what are the pluses and minuses of being a movie star? A. Very few things would be in the minus column for me right now. The pluses are incalculable. Doing this work, working with the people I have worked with. My life has been like a dream Q. So you’re still excited about acting? A. Oh yes. But I’d really love to direct and I’ve been treating the last few years as a master class. I’ve been watching all the directors I’ve been working with, trying to absorb stuff from them. When I first started working with Anthony Minghella [on ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’] he asked me all these questions about Spielberg, Coppola and Gus Van Sant. He said, you don’t understand, we all live on an island and we don’t get to see how the others do it, but you have a huge advantage if you ever decide to direct in that you get to visit each of the islands and see how they are run. Master class or not though, I still think directing is a jaw-droppingly difficult job. Q. So is it likely to happen any time soon? A. I want to write whatever I plan to direct, because I know I’ll make mistakes and I would feel far too responsible if I was making mistakes with someone else’s material. So if I can just write something! I’ll be back in New York by the middle of the summer and Ben and Casey [Affleck] and I have been talking about writing something together. For all the great work Ben and I have done in the last few years, we’re both convinced that there’s nothing as satisfying as starting with the germ of an idea and carrying it through all the stages. Q. Does that mean you don’t have any film roles lined up? A. No, for the first time in so many years, I’ve got nothing lined up. Steven Soderbergh has said he might want me to do a film with him, but that’s probably about a year and a half away. So you know, I have time to write now. That said, if a great movie part with a great director came up in the meantime, I’d probably find it hard to say no. I’d probably be on a plane. I’d probably go do it.