I can't impress people with the pedigree of obscure French filmmakers that got me into film. It was Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg. I really thought I wanted to make dumb action movies.
— Doug Liman
My older brother took me to Woody Allen double features when I was still teething.
I had just come off doing a lot of commercials when I did 'Go,' so a part of the fast pace and efficiency comes from the discipline I had to learn from telling stories in 25-second increments, and that type of discipline is insane.
I always wanted to make big action movies as a kid, and that was my dream. In a way, 'Swingers' was the thing I suffered through the most doing because of all that dialog, so I could eventually be allowed to do a big dumb action movie, honestly.
I think making a great action movie is one of the hardest cinematic endeavors. By definition, smart characters avoid action. Smart people don't go down dark alleys, but if you're making an action movie and you want to have an action sequence, somehow you have to get that character into that dangerous situation.
'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' - every scene is from those characters' point of view. They're in literally every scene, very unusual in a big studio film.
I'm very interested in politics, and I feel TV is a more political medium than film.
The more real I got on 'The Bourne Identity,' the more interesting it got. So 'Fair Game' was the chance to go a few more steps in that direction. In fact, I discovered this whole other world that I had ignored in the 'Bourne' franchise, which is the domestic life of a spy, and how you make the two halves of your life coexist.
It turns out that it's easier to do politics in a movie. People really don't want it in their TV.
It's no secret that my process is a little bit loose and can be a little bit infuriating to a studio if they don't know what they're signing up for.
I probably shouldn't treat interviews as therapy sessions, but I don't keep a diary, so these end up being my way of keeping track of where I'm at and letting it all out.
I go into a movie sort of saying what it's not going to be.
I don't really analyze my process. I do know that if it's not right, I won't move on. I'm tenacious to a fault about that.
I live in New York City, and I'm making huge action movies. The people that make huge action movies live in L.A., and they're surrounded by other people who make huge action movies. I'm surrounded by people making documentaries!
The thing about TV is it's a meritocracy. I love that aspect of it - and I've had shows that have gone on the air and been canceled. I've seen the good and the bad of it.
I understand that it's a huge luxury for people to dwell on the problems in Washington. Things have to be pretty tidy in your own life that you have the time to worry about what's going on in Washington. Most of us spend our time worrying about the things that are directly around us: our love lives, our careers, and our banking accounts.
I think when the United States of America put a man on the moon in 1969, that was one of the greatest accomplishments mankind has ever done.
In particular, I'm drawn to the stories that have big, high concepts and real characters at their heart. And I love where those two worlds meet, and 'Edge of Tomorrow' is the perfect canvas to explore that.
My films are very rooted in specific people's point of view. Some film-makers give a more global point of view, like God looking down at the characters.
I started my career wanting to make a 'James Bond' movie, and I couldn't get hired! I made 'The Bourne Identity,' and ultimately the impact of that film was that it changed the 'James Bond' franchise.
When I was shooting 'The Bourne Identity,' I had a mantra: 'How come you never see James Bond pay a phone bill?' It sounds trite, but it became the foundation of that franchise.
I make movies for me and posterity. I'm more scared of history than I am of the studio.
The beating heart of your story... that's not what shows up in a trailer. The other stuff is what shows up in a trailer, because that's what gets people in to the seats, and that's how studios make their money.
A part of me is a liberal New Yorker involved in politics and certain attitudes about movies. I kind of lost my indie credibility over 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith.' I know I haven't lost it. I just have to go make an independent movie. I just have to do it. Just for me.
My dad couldn't connect to my wanting to be a filmmaker. He was very connected in entertainment, and through him I met Steven Spielberg and got rides on his private plane to California. I'd see Spielberg's people reading scripts. I was like, 'That's what I want to be when I grow up.'
The movie I end up with is the movie I aspired to make.
From a production point of view, I still have one foot firmly planted in the independent film world, and much of the shooting on 'Jumper' was done 'Swingers'-style because that was the only way we could afford to do it.
That's why 'The Bourne Identity' has that sort of shaky style, because for the most part, Matt Damon and I were sneaking around Paris and shooting where we didn't have permits.
More of 'The Bourne Identity's script was taken from the events of the Iran Contra, which my father investigated for the Senate, than what was taken from Robert Ludlum's novel.
Somehow super power and hero are so synonymous that they get combined into one word, 'superhero,' whereas I'm kind of more interested in separating those two ideas out. You have characters with super powers who may or may not be heroic, because human beings aren't all heroic. I tend to be drawn to antiheros.
Finding original source material is not easy, but when something special like 'Edge of Tomorrow' comes along, everybody recognized it. I wasn't swimming against the stream. Warner Brothers immediately supported it, Tom Cruise signed on instantly; Emily Blunt, who was our first choice, signed on immediately.
Casting is everything. I put a huge amount of work into casting, and consistently across my career, I am most proud of my bold choices I made in casting.
I populated 'The Bourne Identity' with real characters from American history, specifically characters from the Iran-Contra affair, which my father ran the investigation of. But at the heart of it was a fictional character.
What I really found was that the one similarity between 'Covert Affairs' and 'Fair Game' is a deep love and admiration and fascination with the home life of a spy.
I never want to repeat myself. I can't imagine anything else as upsetting as realizing I'm redoing something I did before. For some reason, when it comes to film, I'm very good at not repeating myself. Even though in the rest of my life, I'm constantly repeating my mistakes.
I realize I am contradictory: I have an independent filmmaker's sensibility and a Hollywood director's short-attention span.
To be a lone filmmaker thousands of miles from home with nobody believing in me, that seems romantic.
When I'm working on a film, I think about how it will play with a tiny audience of friends whose opinions I respect - basically, a 40-bloc radius from my apartment in Manhattan.
