‘The Instigators’ Director Doug Liman on His “Anti-Ocean’s” Matt Damon Reunion and Two Tom Cruise Projects
It’s fair to assume that Doug Liman and Matt Damon had already reunited after the substantial success of their 2002 franchise starter, The Bourne Identity, but Apple TV+’s heist comedy, The Instigators, is somehow their first go-round in two-plus decades.
The director and star had already made names for themselves prior to The Bourne Identity, but their adaptation of Robert Ludlum’s spy novel took their careers to a whole new level. And, from the moment they started shooting Bourne in October 2000, the duo had to overcome a bevy of challenges until they finally concluded their last-minute reshoots in 2002. This trial by fire forged a lifelong bond between the two, making their lack of a timely reunion all the more surprising.
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“That was really a crucible that bonded us, and it was a seminal movie for Matt and for me. So he became like family after that, but I don’t know how serious we ever got on any one project until The Instigators,” Liman tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I always loved Matt and the feeling seemed to be mutual, but it’s weird because you’re like, ‘Well, how did 20 years go by if you guys both wanted to work with each other again?’”
Damon, on behalf of his and Ben Affleck’s production company Artists Equity, eventually brought The Instigators script to Liman. It had been written and rewritten by Chuck MacLean, Casey Affleck and even Ben Affleck, but as soon as Liman read it, he recognized right away that it was a chance to subvert another heist franchise that counts Damon and Casey Affleck among its ensemble cast. So, instead of telling a glamorous story about expert thieves à la Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean‘s trilogy, The Instigators is more of a blue-collar heist film featuring ineffectual thieves and power brokers.
“I don’t think there was ever a moment where someone fully stepped back to a 30,000-foot view of it until I read it. I was like, ‘This is The Bad News Bears of heist movies. This is the anti-Ocean’s,’” Liman says.
It’s now been ten years since Liman, Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt brought the critically acclaimed sci-fi actioner Edge of Tomorrow to the big screen. The movie grossed nearly $400 million at the time of release, and while its box office sum was considered to be underwhelming at the time, the film’s stature has grown considerably in the following years. Talk of a sequel has never gone away, and plenty of ideas have been exchanged, but there seems to be some momentum now thanks to Cruise’s recent production deal with Warners.
“No one has given up on it. I recently rewatched the movie with the studio. I’ve watched it with Tom Cruise. I’m going to rewatch it with Emily Blunt,” Liman shares. “So the good news is that I’m like, ‘Wow, it’s a really good movie,’ but the bad news is that I’m like, ‘Wow, it’s a really good movie. I only want to do a sequel if I can do it better.’ But I’m trying to do that, so there’s hardly a day that goes by that I don’t spend a little bit of time figuring out how to do it and do it better.”
In 2020, Liman and Cruise also started development on a movie that would be filmed on the International Space Station, allowing for Cruise to be the first civilian to spacewalk. The collaboration with NASA and SpaceX has moved along at a snail’s pace, but Liman insists that the project is still alive.
“It is something we still talk about, for sure,” Liman says. “There’s a reason we haven’t gone to space yet, and when we finally do and the movie comes out, I know I’ll look back at it and be like, ‘Thank God it didn’t happen earlier.’”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Liman also discusses the major difference between Damon of the early 2000s and Damon of the 2020s, before explaining how Damon and Ben Affleck’s production company, Artists Equity, creates a more equitable environment on set.
You’ve reunited with Matt as director and actor for the first time since 2001 or 2002. Did the two of you try to make this happen much sooner?
Matt became a good friend after The Bourne Identity. That was really a crucible that bonded us, and it was a seminal movie for Matt and for me. So he became like family after that, but I don’t know how serious we ever got on any one project until The Instigators. I always loved Matt and the feeling seemed to be mutual, but it’s weird because you’re like, “Well, how did 20 years go by if you guys both wanted to work with each other again?” So it’s weird sometimes how quickly time can fly, especially when each of us has been so frigging fortunate to have had the opportunities that we’ve had. I know that Matt feels the way that I do. We’re fortunate to have these opportunities, and it affects how we approach making movies like Instigators. We know we’re the lucky few that get to go make a movie like Instigators, and therefore, we owe putting everything that we have into it.
The Matt Damon of 2001 or 2002 versus the Matt Damon of 2024, how would you compare them?
By the way, Bourne went all the way to 2002.
2002 reshoots, right?
Yeah, but some of those reshoots were the movie. They were figuring that movie out. It wasn’t like, “Oh, a little thing here, a little thing there.” The second reshoot on Bourne Identity … I came from making independent films, and in one reshoot, I really figured out and nailed that character that didn’t exist prior.
But the difference between Matt then and Matt now is that there was a day on Instigators where it was really Casey Affleck’s moment at the beach house. He has quite the long monologue, and I spent four hours filming Casey. It was longer than I expected to [film Casey], and then I turned around to film Matt. And he said to me, “Just so you know, I think you made the right call staying on Casey for as long as you did. I don’t have any ego in this. Don’t feel like you need to film me longer just because you spent so long on Casey. I recognize this is his scene. This is all about putting resources where they matter most and they mattered most on Casey. So if you get me in five minutes, I’m not going to be insulted. Take however long you need, but don’t feel like my ego needs to play into this at all.”
And I was looking at Matt, going, “Wow, he has really grown as an actor and a filmmaker.” He’s obviously always been a brilliant actor since we first saw him in Good Will Hunting, but all those years in between Bourne Identity and Instigators is when he understood where the resources of a film could best be used. So that’s what I’ve been saying, as Matt is like me in that he appreciates how lucky we are to be given the opportunity to go make movies. We’re not anointed to do this. We get to do this because people like our movies, and we have to make smart decisions that are not about our egos. They’re about the audience and what’s going to make the most entertaining and smartest movie for them.
Matt and Casey were both in the Ocean’s movies, which consisted of highly skilled criminals in mostly glamorous situations. Was The Instigators pitched as the anti-Ocean’s since these two blue-collar guys are both highly unskilled?
There never was a pitch. There just was a script that Chuck MacLean wrote and then Casey [re-wrote]. It was kind of in the family. Ben [Affleck] worked on it, but I don’t think there was ever a moment where someone fully stepped back to a 30,000-foot view of it until I read it. I was like, “This is The Bad News Bears of heist movies. This is the anti-Ocean’s.” I then wanted to push it further. Matt originally brought the script to me, and while Casey’s character was brilliant, Matt’s character was a little underwritten because Casey had been writing it. He was basically writing himself, and Matt was like, “We’ve got to figure this out.”
That’s what we did on Bourne Identity. Jason Bourne was a cipher in the script. He didn’t have any backstory. During the first screenings of Bourne Identity, nobody cared about Jason Bourne throughout the entire movie. It just didn’t work. So Matt was like, “Let’s sit down and do what we did on Bourne Identity. Let’s figure out a really fun character for me in this world.” And I love what we came up with. Matt Damon’s character is someone who’s been rule-abiding his whole life and has worked an honest job for an honest dollar his whole life. He’s a floor sander, and in your traditional heist film, even the rule follower would suddenly rebel against all that.
But we thought about something you’ve never seen before: “Wouldn’t it be more fun if he’s still a rule follower during the heist?” I’ve never sanded floors for a living, but I am an amateur carpenter who understands that you measure twice and cut once. There’s a level of diligence when taking notes as you’re doing carpentry. I don’t really shotlist much when I go to set, but if you saw me in my workshop, I’ve got my pencil out and I’m writing tons of stuff down before I make any cuts. So I was like, “I want to bring that to Matt Damon’s character.” That’s not just his backstory. That’s who he is during the heist. That’s who he is when they’re on the run. In fact, there’s only one moment in the whole movie where he cuts loose and does something unexpected with Toby Jones’ character, and that obviously doesn’t go well for them.
So it was really fun, but also hard work, to be back there with Matt as we figured this out, and it doesn’t get easier. Yes, we don’t have a studio pushing back against us. On Bourne Identity, Matt was coming off a string of a few failed movies, and I was totally untested. So we didn’t necessarily have the support of the studio when we were trying to do what we were doing on Bourne Identity, but at the end of the day, figuring out how to make a smart original movie is as hard today as it was when I was making Swingers. I imagine there’s other professions where you finally figure out how to do it and it gets easier.
I noticed a Band-Aid on the back of Ving Rhames’ head in one particular shot during his character’s introduction. Is that supposed to be a 30th anniversary nod to his Pulp Fiction Band-Aid?
No, it definitely was not. You might’ve caught a gaffe. But if I was faster on my feet, I’d be like, “Yes!”
The Instigators has an elaborate car chase throughout Boston, and it, too, has shades of The Bourne Identity. Is it easier to pull off something like that when you have Boston’s favorite sons involved?
Absolutely. First of all, the idea of doing a car chase with Matt Damon was very intimidating. The last time we did it was in Bourne Identity, and the Bourne franchise is known for its car chases. So it was like, “Shoot, do I really want to [do this]? If you’ve successfully done something, maybe leave it alone.” I played tennis yesterday and I won the first set, and the other person was like, “How about another one?” And I was like, “No!” Walk away when you have a win. If you win at roulette, take the money and walk away from the table.
So The Instigators was going to be an opportunity to try to do a car chase that could rival Bourne Identity, but the really exciting challenge was the dynamic of what’s happening inside the car. Casey Affleck’s character discovers that Matt Damon’s character has some suicidal fantasies, and that’s not necessarily a quality that you want in a driver during a high-speed car case. Hong Chau’s therapist is in the car with them, and she is trying to talk Matt’s character into slowing down or stopping because she didn’t want anyone to get killed. But if you’re Casey’s character, you don’t want Matt’s character to stop because then the police will catch you. So, with such a fun dynamic between the three of them in the car, could I possibly shoot a scene where what’s happening inside the car is more exciting and entertaining than the car chase outside the car? Could they exist simultaneously?
You asked about having Boston’s favorite sons in the film, and yes, because of having the Afflecks and Matt Damon involved in the movie, we were able to approach Massachusetts, and Boston, and get permissions to do things that other filmmakers would not be given permissions to do. You couldn’t do a car chase like we did without this. It would have to be all done with special effects and visual effects, and when we did Bourne Identity, it was practical. A lot of car chases today are all done in visual effects, because people don’t have Boston’s favorite sons in their movies and the opportunity to do it for real in Boston. So I recognize what a special opportunity I had with Instigators to do a good old-fashioned car chase.
This movie clocks in at 1 hour and 42 minutes. Overall, your movies have never really exceeded two hours. Road House went one minute over to be exact. Can one surmise that you’re not enamored with this era of epic runtimes?
I just have a very short attention span. Last night, I saw the movie with an audience for the first time at a theater in Edgartown [Massachusetts], and as I was looking around, no one fidgeted or got up the entire time. I was really happy. When you get those epically long run times, people fidget, they get up, they leave the theater — and that would drive me mad.
I used to make commercials, but I wouldn’t do car commercials. I did commercials that had characters and story, and my script supervisor would be like, “Okay, you got that performance, but it was seven seconds. Can you get the same performance in four seconds?” And so that’s part of why I’m so proud of Go. I did the most commercials of my career in between Swingers and Go, and I feel like Go reflects how efficient I was in my storytelling had someone with a stopwatch been clocking my performances. So, not wasting the audience’s time stayed with me, and if you can do the same thing a little bit faster, do it faster.
The film was produced by Damon and Ben Affleck’s company, Artists Equity, which makes sure that everyone involved has skin in the game. Could you feel the difference that sweat equity makes on set?
Yeah, how you really felt it was that there’s no perks in an Artists Equity film. There aren’t two tiers of talent in the movie. An actor was negotiating their contract, and they were like, “I want the same size trailer that Matt Damon is getting.” And Matt Damon was like, “Great! I’m in a teeny little trailer just like everybody else.” Sometimes you visit a set and the star has a whole camp, and then someone who’s number seven on the call sheet has a little trailer. But in an Artists Equity film, everybody is given the same everything. Nobody is treated like royalty above anybody else. If you made any movie with Matt Damon, that’s how it would feel because that’s how Matt acts.
There’s no one more salt of the earth in this business than Matt. Sometimes people meet a movie star and they’re like, “Oh, they’re so nice. I expected them to be more …” If you met Matt at a Starbucks and didn’t know who he was, you’d be like, “That’s a really nice, grounded person.” He’s a great father, husband and friend. But despite that, a non-Artists Equity version of Matt Damon is still treated like royalty by the system. If a Matt Damon movie is made for Fox, he would be in a huge trailer and number seven on the call sheet would be in a little thing. So I really like that Artists Equity has created this environment where there’s not two tiers of people on set.
Nine years ago, you were attached to direct a Channing Tatum-led Gambit for Fox, and that character and actor finally made it into a movie that just came out. Were you made aware of this ahead of time?
Yeah, because [Deadpool & Wolverine] has the same producer. Simon Kinberg was a part of Gambit.
Sometimes, these things take a very long time. Similarly, every time Emily Blunt has done a press tour for the past decade, she alternates between good news and bad news regarding Edge of Tomorrow 2 (also known as Live Die Repeat and Repeat). One minute, there’s a really promising idea for a sequel, and then all hope is lost the next. But it’s still a topic of conversation?
No one has given up on it. The good and the bad news is that I’m so proud of that movie. I hadn’t watched it in years, but I’ve started rewatching it this year. I recently rewatched the movie with the studio. I’ve watched it with Tom Cruise. I’m going to rewatch it with Emily Blunt. So the good news is that I’m like, “Wow, it’s a really good movie,” but the bad news is that I’m like, “Wow, it’s a really good movie. I only want to do a sequel if I can do it better.” But I’m trying to do that, so there’s hardly a day that goes by that I don’t spend a little bit of time figuring out how to do it and do it better.
Do you and Cruise still have dreams of spacewalking?
It is something we still talk about, for sure.
When you develop something like that space movie with a massive movie star who is always busy, is there a built-in understanding that it could be a long while? Does that go without saying?
Yeah, if you’re approaching Tom Cruise, you know how many things he has in the pipeline — and for good reason. He’s maybe the biggest movie star in the world. I also feel that movies happen when they happen for a reason. I’ve always felt that way. Some of my movies have happened exactly when I thought they would happen, and some of them have happened very much not when I thought they would happen. So I go in with that. There’s a reason we haven’t gone to space yet, and when we finally do and the movie comes out, I know I’ll look back at it and be like, “Thank God it didn’t happen earlier.”
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The Instigators opens in select theaters on August 2, before streaming August 9 on Apple TV+.
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