by Paul Fischer
by Paul Fischer
Matt Damon is back for round two as Jason Bourne,
and this star is proving to be one of the 
hardest working actors in Hollywood.
Going from obscure actor to
Hollywood golden boy in just a handful of years, Damon became an instant
sensation when he co-wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting. With his
Best Original Screenplay Oscar (shared by co-writer and co-star Ben Affleck),
he was ensured
a place on the Hollywood "It" boy roster. With a string of success
to follow, Damon now revisits the shadowy
world of expert assassin Jason Bourne, in The Bourne Supremacy. In this
second edition, Bourne continues
to
find himself plagued by splintered nightmares from his former life. The stakes
are
now even
higher for the agent as he coolly manoeuvres through the dangerous waters
of international espionage - replete with CIA plots, turncoat agents
and ever-shifting covert alliances - all the while hoping to find the
truth behind his haunted memories and answers to his own fragmented past.
CrankyCritic: So Matt, about three years when we spoke about the first movie,
you were adamant that you won't do another one.
Matt Damon: Yes I was pretty
sure that I wasn't ---
CrankyCritic: What changed, what made you change your mind?
Matt Damon: Well
what I said then, was that I didn't want to do it unless we could make
it as good as the first one and because there are so many
sequels that are disappointing and just for me as movie fan. If I go
to a sequel to a movie that I really like, and, I feel that it was made
cynically - a money grab by the studio. I end up really resenting the
studio that make it and the film makers that made it. Plus it's just
very hard to make a good sequel. I had a friend who said something very
funny to me: "Yes he was very careful about this sequel stuff",
because there's been only three sequels in history that are as good as
or better than the original. The New Testament is better that the Old
Testament, Huck Finn is better that Tom Sawyer, and The Godfather II
is better that The Godfather. So I guess what changed my mind was a couple
of things - first of all that Paul Greengrass wanted to do it. Once I
spoke to Paul about what he had - what his vision of the movie was, and
heard, not only of his enthusiasm but also how he intended to do it,
I couldn't say no to it.
CrankyCritic: Talk about the challenge in playing the same character twice
and the differences in both films.
Matt Damon: It was
interesting. I'd done it with a play before, and played the same character
on stage but never in a
movie. I had so kind of over prepared for the first
one, and I kinda of knew what worked and what was just extra stuff
that didn't really work that I had a really easy time getting ready for
this one. Physically the most important thing I think that came out of
the first one was the idea that Doug Liman had, which was that the character
should stand and have the bearing of a boxer, and neither of us really
knew how to do that -- other than just for me to just start boxing. So
I boxed. It really did change me -- not only me
physically,
but also the way that you kind of stand and listen to somebody. I thought
it was really great for the character, so I started boxing for about
three months before we started.
CrankyCritic: Robert Ludlum has always talked about
his Bourne novels as a trilogy. Would you do a third one?
Matt Damon: I'm considering it, but, I really do feel kind of
like I did last time. I'm very happy to leave it at this. I'm really
happy with the way this one came out. It was a lot of pressure for
the creative group behind it. We all shared that feeling that we didn't
want to make a disappointing sequel to a movie that we really liked
so, there was more pressure than usual and so now that's gone and I
feel like I feel very happy with the way the movie came out, but to
go and do a third one, we really have to get a great script. And it's
hard because the characters at this point I personally don't know where
to go with it. I don't know how to draw him back into that world at
this point. The third book is called "The Bourne Ultimatum",
but he feels to me very much like he's given it to me at this point.
But who knows, maybe there's a rocket scientist out here who can figure
it out.
CrankyCritic: Because you work in Europe more and
more, now with the shoot of Ocean's 12, don't you feel like a
European already in a way?
Matt Damon: I've been there a lot and, you know and I did The
Brother's Grimm, also this year over there in Prague and so yeah
I've just came back for after about 13 months of being there and I
spent obviously with the first movie, and with Ripley, I was there
and so I have spent a few years of my adult life over there. But I
mean I love it, I mean I really could spend plenty of time there actually.
CrankyCritic: What do you keep for yourself, in
a sense? Are you a better fighter now - a better driver? What do you
keep for yourself?
Matt Damon: Well no I actually, I'm like a, for other movies
I've - you know - for Ripley I learned to play some songs on the piano,
and I never really played them again. And there are - you know - bunch
of things that I have learned that have been relatively useless in
my life. But no, the good things about this movie is that all of those
things, you know the driving they have all been practical, they all
really do help me in my regular life. I mean - I think I am definitely
a better driver that I was. But then again there are a lot of things
I learned that I'll actually never do like driving a car at a high
speed and pulling on the emergency brake....
CrankyCritic: Will you and Ben write again?
Matt Damon: Ahh, we want to write, and we've been talking about
it. Neither of us have ever been off work at the same time to do it
and that is the case now. Ben's not shooting right now, but I am finishing Oceans
Twelve and then I'm going off to do a movie called Syriana with
Stephen Gaghan who wrote Traffic, and who wrote and is directing
this one. It's very similar to Traffic in its structure, with
all these story lines converging around a topic but it's oil instead
of drugs. I've seen Ben a bunch the last couple of days cause we're
doing a bunch of Project Green Light stuff. We picked the winning script
the other night and we're picking the winning director tomorrow. So
we keep talking about it. It is really something that we want to do.
We've got to carve out the time and commit to it.
CrankyCritic: Since you brought it up, let's have
the skinny on Oceans Twelve?
Matt Damon: Sure. In Oceans Twelve, I again play Linus
Caldwell, a pick pocket from Chicago. The basic plot of that one
is that a master thief in Europe, played by Vincent Cassell, gives
our names to Terry Benedict (the Andy Garcia character) and so we
are basically all caught at the beginning of the movie. This master
thief does this because he wants to challenge us, to prove that he
is the greatest thief in the world and that we're just a fluke. So
we are forced to compete with him because we have a certain amount
of time to get Andy his money back or we gonna go to jail or worse.
We go off to Europe to start pulling jobs in order to pay back Terry
Benedict.
CrankyCritic: After these two Bourne movies, you
seem to have become a new action hero...
Matt Damon: I doubt that these two movies will mean that I will
only do action movies now, and I never wanted to do the same kind of
movies over and over anyway. My theory on it all is that I'm just gonna
try and dodge the label and keep doing what I am doing. I really like
the fact that I can do a movie like this and then turn around and do Oceans
Twelve, or do Stuck on You. That make it interesting to
me.
CrankyCritic: Would you describe yourself as a workaholic?
Matt Damon: I think it's still hard for me to turn down work
if it's really good because for so many years I was so desperate to
get a job and couldn't and so it's kind of an anathema for me to turn
down work, if I think it's really good. I mean I swore I was going
to take a nice break between Oceans and The Informant,
and Syriana popped up although it's not a big role that I have
in that, but it is just was one of those movies that I thought was
exceptionally well written, really interesting, very current and a
I thought that I would have regretted it if I said no to that as ready
as I was for a break. So, I don't know if it's being a workaholic really
as much as it is to having just common sense, and you know like these
movies are really good and the last year I worked with some incredible
directors and you know I think I would of regretted it passing any
of those opportunities.
CrankyCritic: You mentiioned The Brothers Grimm,
which is directed by Terry Gilliam. Working with Terry was like
. . . ?
Matt Damon: Working with Terry was exactly what I hoped it would
be like. It was great. He absolutely takes in the entire world. The
production designer is a guy name Guy Dear, and he is just gonna to
be a superstar and he really helped build the look of this world in
a way that it's mind blowing, it really is, straight out of Terry's
brain. We took over five of the six stages that were used in these
studios in Prague and built an indoor fort, built a village on the
part of the back lot that had never been used, that Terry could shoot
at 360 degrees. There were trees put in places so you couldn't see
the cityscape in the background. It was just a massive kind of beautifully
designed set and Terry just got into there and played with it. We were
in Prague for six months and it really was everything I could of hoped
for. He's so passionate about what he does and he becomes so deeply
connected to what he is shooting. I think that's why some people on
the studio side say he's crazy. I think he's far from crazy. He's just
a shoot artist, I think.
CrankyCritic: Do you get disappointed with the kinds
of big action movies Hollywood makes?
Matt Damon: Yes. More often than not I'm disappointed in big
studio fare. I had this conversation with my father, we were driving
in New York and we were passing all these bus stops, and all had these
posters for these movies, and after about 20 blocks he said, 'I haven't
seen one poster for a movie that I want to go see.' And I said 'Dad,
if you see a poster of a movie that you want to see, someone should
lose their job in the marketing department. Because they don't market
movies for 60 year old men they market them for 13 year old boys. Particularly
the big ones.' So yeah, when I choose the movie it's always with that
in mind; trying to make it smarter, to make it different, to make interesting.
My theory on action movies is that they are like porn movies -- honestly,
think about it. A porn movie's got really bad writing, really bad acting
and really silly characters You don't really feel anything for the
action and then when the action's over then you get another action
and then you get another really stupid scene with you know, Hey I'm
the Male.
CrankyCritic: But nobody dies.
Matt Damon: Yes and nobody dies right. And that's the difference
between porn movies and action movies.
CrankyCritic: Oh? Would you do porn movies?
Matt Damon: I'm feeling like I can but I want to do is a character-driven
porn movie. It's all going to be about characters, and the porn's
gonna grow all out of the character's and it's going to serve as
character development. Actually Doug said to me he wanted us to be
the first director and actor team that made the porn version of the
actual movie. Because you know how movie titles get porn titles?
Doug suggested, after the first movie, that he makes The Porn
Identity and be the first people ever to do that.