At the recent press day for The Bourne Ultimatum, Matt Damon talked about wrapping up a series
that has meant so much to him, personally and professionally, and why he thinks
the Bourne movies have so connected
with audiences. “Maybe Good Will Hunting
did, because it pulled Ben and I out of total obscurity, but in terms of having
an impact on my career, there hasn’t been a role that’s had a bigger impact on
my life,” says Damon. “The movies have come out over the course of five, but
it’s been seven years of my life coming back to the character.”

“All the movies I think are very much of the time that they came
out,” continues Damon. “The first one [came out in] 2002, and it’s a post 9/11
movie, with all of the fear, all of the paranoia, everything in there. And what
I love about them is that you’ll be able to look back and know the second one
is (from) 2004, when things are starting to turn in Iraq,
and now this kind of American guy, this iconic American figure, is going and
apologizing and atoning for his misdeeds, for things that he’s done — he’s
taking responsibility. Now you have the movie ending where Bourne is pulling
the gun and putting it to the head of the person who lied to him, who said,
‘This is what you’re going to be doing, you’re going to be saving American
lives.’ And Bourne’s saying, ‘I see now that you led me into something under
false pretences, and now I understand that and I’m not going to do that
anymore.’ And so each movie is very much a reflection of the time in which it’s
made. We obviously have all the images of water-boarding, of somebody getting
shot in the corner of the room who Bourne doesn’t even know what he did. He
asks what did he do? He’s told, ‘We’ve been through that; you can’t know that.’
So there’s somebody who’s an American who’s killed without a trial. And all of
these things are just little nods to the world that we’re living in right now.
And I like that about the movies, they feel relevant. Bourne has a lot of
integrity, I do think he’s a very American character, and I like that about him
— his thoughtfulness, his intelligence, the fact that he’s trying to do the
right thing, doesn’t always do the right thing or his misled, but is trying to
do the right thing.” For the review of the movie, click here.