The one director that would convince Matt Damon to make his most successful movies

In the list of 21st-century leading men, one actor who is often seen as one of the bigger draws for audiences is Matt Damon. Starting out as a young actor, Damon gained early acclaim with his co-writer/co-star Ben Affleck and their script about a young maths genius Good Will Hunting. It’s a breakout film that is still held in high esteem within both Damon and Affleck’s careers. 

Post Good Will Hunting, Damon would go on to star in a number of now-considered classic films of the 1990s and ‘00s, including Saving Private Ryan, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Oceans Eleven before taking on a new role in the action-thriller Bourne series, based on the novels by Robert Ludlum. 

2002’s The Bourne Identity, saw Damon in the titular role of Jason Bourne, a memory-erased CIA agent and assassin, who finds himself at the centre of an international pursuit, chased down by his handlers and government agencies. The Bourne films are often considered a direct response to the near-science fiction levels of storytelling that the Bond franchise had reached by the early 2000s, instead showcasing a visceral and no-pulled-punches version of a spy thriller, that had the knock-on effect of shifting other films in the genre, including the next iteration of 007, to this more gritty and tense atmosphere, over the spectacles and over-the-top plots that would be seen in films such as Die Another Day, which released later in 2002, and was the final Bond film before Daniel Craig’s more earnest and pared-back portrayal in 2005. 

Damon would go on to star in three sequels to The Bourne Identity, with The Bourne Supremacy releasing in 2004, and saw previous director Doug Liman replaced by Paul Greengrass, who came at the recommendation of scriptwriter Tony Gilroy after Gilroy and producer Patrick Crowley had seen Greengrass’ work on the film Bloody Sunday and believed his use of a hand-held, “participatory” camera would fit well with the story of the second Bourne film.

This choice of new director for the sequel and subsequent third outing would prove a success, particularly with the film’s star, who found himself taken with Greengrass’s directorial approach, although he admits it took some adjusting to his new-found freedom. 

“I said to the A camera operator: ‘Hey, what’s your bottom frame so I can show where the blood is, because if it were up to me, I’d check for the blood down at my waist.’” Damon says about his time working on set during the filming of the second film, in a scene crowded with extras and a waning daylight. Instead of firmly directing the actor, however, Damon remembers that Greengrass would come rushing over to him and let him lead the camera, not the other way around. 

“No, no, no, absolutely not. You just do what you do,” a quote Damon would describe as being “basically the best thing you can hear as an actor”.

Damon would only sign on for each Bourne film one at a time instead of a long-running franchise deal, as he was insistent that he would only return to do a third film, which took the form of The Bourne Ultimatum, if Greengrass returned to direct. “That was my cue to sign up,” Damon said at the time, after acknowledging that Greengrass didn’t have to return for a third Bourne film as his success with 2006’s United 93 made the director “about as white-hot as you can get by Hollywood standards.” 

It would then be almost ten years, and a middling fourth outing that saw Jeremy Renner take over the franchise (although not as the titular Jason Bourne), in The Bourne Legacy before Damon would return to the character in 2016, with Jason Bourne once again putting the previously winning combination of Damon and Greengrass together. 

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