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THE MOVIE: The Bourne Supremacy

THE STARS:
Matt Damon • Franka Potente • Brian Cox • Joan Allen
DIRECTOR: Paul Greengrass

THE CONCEPT:
In 2002, Matt Damon created the role of Jason Bourne, a trained assassin attempting to recover his memory. Now, two years later his past has caught up with him again, as he is targeted by an operative and is forced to re-enter the world he’s trying so desperately to remember.

U.S. RELEASE: July 23 2004, Nationwide
• Rated: PG-13

THE COMMENTS:

MATT DAMON (on any concern that Jason Bourne was an anti-hero):
“It was a big concern when I took the job the first time and it was something that Doug Liman, the director of the first movie, and I talked a lot about. He thought it was really daring to cast me as this guy, because of the way I look. I look so young and this guy clearly has to have a history and he’s got a very dark past, and people don’t look at me and necessarily think that. So there was a lot of stuff physically in terms of getting ready. We looked at every aspect of how to make this guy as believable as possible.”

What did Matt Damon do to prepare for the film?:
“I boxed for about six months before the movie, and that really helped. I think the sum total of a lot of little subtleties add up to making something believable or not. There was a moment in the first movie where Bourne picks up a gun for the first time, and what it said in the script direction was that it feels so comfortable in his hand that he throws it down, and from that moment on, any time he’s holding a gun it’s got to look like an extension of his arm. So the only way to get around that was just to go to the firing range and put in hundreds of hours, so I didn’t have to think about the gun.”

What are the biggest challenges of playing Bourne?:
“One of the biggest challenges starting out was that I don’t talk a lot in the movie. That was another thing I really liked about it. I only had about four scenes in the movie where I speak, but I’m on the screen for a lot of the film, so that was a huge challenge.”

Why do you like playing the anti-hero?:
“What I like about it was putting out the feeling in a mainstream movie that [when] something terribly wrong happens to you your first instinct is revenge, but if you just sit back and think about it you start to look at yourself in your own life and take responsibility for your own actions. The last shot of the movie is him walking and rejoining a sea of humanity in New York City of all places. That was the first time we’d ever seen him in his own country.”

Written by Judy Sloane. Back to top

Visit the official The Bourne Supremacy site
Images above © Universal Pictures
Feature © 2004 Visual Imagination Limited.
Not for reproduction.

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