image © Rex Features
After causing recent controversy over his 007 dismissals, Matt Damon chatted to Monisha Rajesh about Bond, bullets, being the most bankable Hollywood star – and what exactly he’d do to Jack Bauer if he met him…
That scene in Waterloo station just oozes tension, how did that feel to film?
Well, people milling around and being so unaware of us shooting all helped with the genuine sense of urgency and the paranoia. When we were filming in Tangier, there’s a sequence where I wrap some towels around my hands and jump over a wall that has glass on it. When we got up there it happened to have glass, so we said to Paul (Greengrass), “why don’t we add a clothes line to the shot that I’ll grab a cloth from, and then I’ll run a couple more roof tops and grab another towel from there”. We regularly come up with things like that on the day – we just leave the good ones in the movie!
So what is it like working with Paul Greengrass?
Well, there was a scene in the second Bourne film, where Bourne’s been shot and is surrounded by people. He looks at his fingers and sees blood and that’s the part that we wanted to get. I’m walking alone and glancing over my shoulder and I said to the camera operator, “what’s your bottom frame, so I can work out where to check the blood?” And Paul heard and came running over from the other side and said “no, no no, absolutely not, you do what you have to do, if it’s low, go down for it, if you don’t see the blood, you don’t see the blood but don’t worry about it.”
That’s very dedicated…
Well, that was my first day working with Paul and I think as an actor that’s the best thing you can hear a director saying - “do this as honestly and truthfully as you can, and I will capture it, you have no responsibility to me or my crew whatsoever.” The experience of both films was exactly the same.
Jason Bourne’s being compared to James Bond a lot, what do you make of it all?
They’re both agents and they work in the world of espionage – but the characters are so fundamentally different that they almost don’t merit comparison.
Why?
The Bond character is anchored in the 1960s and the values of the 1960s and putting it in terms of the world we live today? I mean, Mike Myers earned a fortune making his own spy trilogy about pulling someone from that era into today and it makes for great comedy. He’s not with the government, the government is after him. He’s got this one woman who he was in love with and she’s dead and he does nothing but think about her. He has a passion for others and guilt for the things he’s done, and he’s evolving and growing as a human being.
So is he better or worse?
He’s not better or worse, he’s just different and it is almost impossible to compare.
image © Universal Pictures
Bond aside, what about Bourne v Jack Bauer?
Jack Bauer? Oh, don’t even go there. That’s not even close! First of all, there’s only ever been one Jack Bauer and I’ve got Richard Chamberlain on my side, so I think Chamberlain and I would jump Jack Bauer coming out of the Fox studios and we’d make sure we’d take him out.
Forbes magazine recently listed you as the most bankable star. Having played second fiddle to Brad Pitt and George Clooney in the sexiest man stakes, how did that feel?
Well after that the email that went out to George said “suck it, sexy boy,” and I attached the article. He wrote back saying “ah yeah, that’s great, I had that read to me by one of my servants in my villa.” Seriously, I don’t know any actor who takes a job depending on how well they think it’s going to perform at the box office.
Honestly?
Syriana and The Good Shepherd ended up in the black I’m sure, and The Departed, was a big hit, but classically, Martin’s (Scorsese) movies don’t make any money – even the absolute masterpieces like Goodfellas, they aren’t huge hits like a Spiderman movie. You do it for the honour of working with him.
There have been some sequels and threequels that frankly haven’t delivered the goods this summer. What’s the secret to the Bourne films being so consistently awesome?
It’s really down to the directors. Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass really are just top quality, and they will never let a movie be derivative. I think what people like is that they can expect to be entertained, they’re popcorn movies. But they’re not cynically made.
Bourne 4 – The Musical?
That was my suggestion, it’s either got to be porn or a musical - re-ignite the franchise! (he sings) “they’re chasing me, they’re chasing me!"
And what about the DVD edition? What special stuff will there be?
One of the old Bourne DVDs came out with a load of extras that said “explosive extra scenes” and they were basically all the ones that weren’t good enough to use in the actual film. I went to the studio and said ‘it’s kinda like walking into a house holding a bunch of dog shit and saying ‘hey, look what I almost stepped in’. But the extras on this will be much more behind the scene stuff, and the making of the film.
