The way I see it, the expensive people who get hired when you have money are the fancy people who tell you what you can't do.
— Doug Liman
The one thing about reality is sometimes it gives you material that is wilder than some of your wildest imagination could come up with.
Flying small airplanes is not like being on airlines.
It causes havoc on set anytime a director wants to go backward rather than forward.
I've really pushed the limits of what you can get away with at big studios, and I've been extremely well-supported.
What happened on 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith,' I was given a big budget and given too many choices, and I made a lot of mistakes and missteps early on until I squandered all that extra money. But then, once my back was up against the wall, I made what I consider a really good movie.
'The Wall' is a reaction to 'Edge of Tomorrow,' where I was like, 'I don't need time travel and aliens to take a hero and pin them down in an impossible situation. I can do it in a much simpler way.' And that was 'The Wall.'
Aaron Taylor-Johnson and John Cena, in 'The Wall,' are superheroes. They're very grounded, but the amount of training and stuff that soldiers bring to the field, they're like Iron Man.
I've got a short attention span, so it makes sense that I like movies because, for the most part, they immerse you in lots of action.
I have a rebellious nature, and being told no is almost the surest way to get me to do something.
I don't necessarily think that having more money helps make you make a better film. Sometimes having less money is better. You're forced into being more original; you're forced into hearing something versus seeing it.
The reality is, the movies that were most impactful to me growing up, when I decided I wanted to make movies, I was going to see Woody Allen double features with my brother, back when they had double features.
I love 'Bringing Up Baby.' Anything that Katharine Hepburn's in. I'm committed to the Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn era of filmmaking.
I subscribe to the school that there are no dumb questions.
The 'Bourne' franchise means the world to me. I love that Universal wants to put one out every two years. Because it is a safe investment, I benefit from that on many levels.
The system did not want me to make 'Go.' And I sort of stood up to the system and made the movie I wanted to make, and the fact that I did that and I'm proud of the movie means I'm really proud of myself when I look back on that.
All of my fellow directors, I think, would agree that in whatever medium you are working, the challenges and obstacles push them to be more creative. That's the case with VR.
At the end of the day, the less money you have, the easier it is to make a movie.
My family went to the Hamptons, so I understand what happens when a slice of perfect utopia gets overdeveloped, when one way of living is replaced by another.
It's kind of hard to work with Tom Cruise and not be aware that you're working with one of the biggest movie stars in the world.
There's a weird intellectual approach to filmmaking, where I pose a question to myself and use the film to try and answer it.
Amazon may be the only studio that's run by people who come out of making independent movies, real hands-on moviemaking.
I always wanted to make a 'James Bond' film, and they only seemed to hire British directors, and I'd made 'Swingers' - they were never going to hire me for a 'James Bond' film off 'Swingers.'
I chose 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' specifically 'cause I had just made 'The Bourne Identity' and made a film that glamorized being an action hero, and I wanted to make the exact opposite. I wanted to make a movie that glamorized maintaining a marriage, and that made the action hero part seem easy and made the marriage part seem hard.
I always liked photography in film - I studied photography growing up. I like the medium of film; I like physically holding 35-mm film. I like the way it looks, the quality when it's projected. I like the way it frames real life.
I got in trouble in film school at USC because one of my Super-8 movies there, in the first semester, involved a snowmobile chase scene. I made an action scene, and they were like, 'That wasn't what you were supposed to be doing.'
Ultimately, if you look at the characters in my films, you'll see a lot of similarities going all the way back to 'Swingers' with Vince Vaughn's character.
For me, the scale of the budget is part of the creative process. 'Swingers' is the movie it is because we made it for exactly the right budget. Had it been made for a higher number, it would not have been as imaginative as we had to make it, given the budget constraints we had.
I'm really drawn to adventure, and characters being plucked from normal life and sent on extraordinary adventures.
I went to USC film school, briefly, which is a very traditional film school.
I'll just say that there are certain people who continue to be hired in Hollywood, and that leaves me truly shocked.
We love movies like 'Edge of Tomorrow.' It's why we go to the movies, and it's why we make movies.
I had one scene in 'Invisible' with 12 actors delivering dialog at the same time.
VR is so immersive, and when it works, it draws you into the story in a way that is truly unique and powerful.
My characters in my movies are all flawed. You'll probably never see Tom Hanks in a Doug Liman film. He plays, you know, very earnest and unflawed.
Normally in spy movies, the person that the hero deals with is at the centre of power, surrounded by video screens, and they're old and grizzled. I'm no stranger to that dynamic.
My films have been successful, and therefore, the process has accommodated me. When the studio said 'no,' I did it anyhow. Now they don't say no to me.
Normally, the action is just a gratuitous thing. In the case of Bourne, he was going to learn about himself in the action scenes.
In hindsight, everything in my life looks a little rosy. But the reality is that with, say, 'Swingers,' when we finished, it was considered a total failure.
I didn't grow up like Quentin Tarantino, watching esoteric art films at the video store. I'd go to the multiplex and see big, mainstream movies, and I'd go, 'I want to make one of those one day.'
I have to have a passionate connection to my films, which I do with 'Justice League Dark.' I have a way into the story that's personal, the way I have a connection to 'The Wall.'
So many of Spielberg's films inspired my imagination growing up. And then there are British films like 'The Full Monty' and 'Waking Ned Devine' that took me to places I really loved, with characters I just thought were amazing. But the films of Luc Besson showed me France - a really cool side of France.
When you have films like 'Bourne' that succeed, not only does it beget sequels, but it begets people taking chances.
A movie like 'Edge of Tomorrow' is so huge and complex - the spectacle and action is all-consuming - and that on its own is enough of a reason for a lot of people to see it.
I think of myself as making independent films within the studio system. Yes, I've made movies with significantly larger budgets, and I've also made movies with smaller budgets.
'North by Northwest' was a big influence for 'The Bourne Identity.'
I do take things away from reading reviews. I think they keep you honest.
I started making Super 8-mm films when I was about six years old and just never stopped. It was always just a hobby, but it's one of the few hobbies that can actually become a career. You know what? I think it was my plan from when I was six that this is what I was going to do.
Even more than 'Swingers,' 'Go', for me, defines my career.
With VR, you are directing in a 360-degree environment. The biggest challenge is that the viewer can look anywhere. They might look at the the weakest moments, the very things you edit for TV. You don't control where they look.
