 In the special features on the Jumper DVD, you admit that when you get the script for a movie you can't help but tear it apart. How come?
I think I'm easily bored. I put myself in this niche of doing things unconventionally. And one of the things about doing that is that you very quickly discover why there are conventions: Because they work. It's a good thing and a bad thing. Bourne Identity was an unconventional movie with a defined look and style. And I could just keep making Bourne Identities, and that would be my thing. But the problem is, if I made another one, it would be conventional for me because I did it already. So it's a really awkward place for me to put myself in. I'm not in the movie business; I get in the business to make a specific movie. I think part of my passion for Bourne came from how many people told me I was never gonna get it off the ground. And there are some stories I still want to tell; but if you ask me, in 10 years, I won't be doing film. And probably because I'm going to burn out because I keep changing genres and styles.
For example?
I started using handheld cameras on Swingers, and it defined the whole look of the Bourne franchise. Then I did The O.C., and we're having problems on day one shooting the pilot. So I grabbed the camera off the dolly to go handheld, because it makes everything feel more real; whatever the performance, put the camera on your shoulder and it will go up like 25 percent.
I have the utmost respect for people like Steven Spielberg, who get amazing performances without the camera tricks that I have been resorting to since Swingers. So here I was on the set of The O.C., and, you know, Mischa Barton's performance is awful, and I grab the camera and put it on my shoulder, and one of the producers says to me, "What are you doing? Put the camera back." And I say, "No, no, this is my bag of tricks. This is how I'm fixing her performance." He says, "You're directing the pilot, but the rest of us are going to be here every day, and we can't do something that other people can't replicate." So I put the camera back on the dolly, and I actually had to work with Mischa and just fix her performance. That really stuck with me. Then, when I went to do Mr.& Mrs. Smith, I was like, "I'm going to do this like Spielberg. I'm going to see if I can actually tell the story without the shaky handheld camera."
How did that go?
I knew I cheated on Swingers with the handheld camera, and I knew I cheated on Bourne. Other people didn't know it, but I knew it. I knew I was cheating. And it was good to feel like I don't have to cheat.
Speaking of which—is CGI cheating?
For a film like
<i>Jumper</i>, its really important that you actually go to Tokyo in order to feel what it
would be like to teleport. I feel a real responsibility to the
audience when I know they spend a lot of money to go to the theater.
My battles with Universal on <i>The Bourne Identity</i>
were widely talked about; at first they insisted on shooting the
movie in Montreal. I said, "We're set in Paris and Switzerland and
Italy. Why would I have to shoot in Montreal?" They said, "It looks
plenty like Europe; you’re not going to Europe to shoot this movie." I obviously stuck to my guns, but that was the start of a souring relationship. The average person seeing
my movies doesn't get to go to Tokyo, so they’re gonna see what its like
to go to Tokyo. Or what it’s like to really see Rome and the coliseums,
and not fake it.
You started filming Jumper with different people in the lead roles—why did you change actors?
This was going to be my small movie after Mr. & Mrs. Smith. A high school story, fairly low budget, like the budget for The Bourne Identity, which was very low compared to some of the traditional summer movies. And two weeks before I started the shoot, Fox bought the movie. They came to me and said, "This can be a much bigger movie, and you should really think about recasting it with twentysomethings." They're thinking, We can make more money if he makes the film older. 'Cause it's true; a high school movie has a limited audience. I knew where they were coming from, and they were even honest about that. The problem was that, creatively, they were right. And I'm much more interested in a love story between Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson, where he's sleeping with women all over the planet—it's like, how does that guy make it work with a girl? It's more interesting for me to play with.
Now that you're finished with Jumper, are you finally going to really make your "small movie"?
Well, one of the projects I'm thinking about for my next film takes place on the moon, so it's not necessarily smaller. It's the untitled Doug Liman moon project with Jake Gyllenhaal. But it's about a private moon expedition, present day. And keeping with my unconventional thinking, obviously we're not going to shoot it on the surface of the moon, but I'm wondering if we can send a camera up there to shoot. It would be the first movie that actually shoots on the surface of the moon. Not with my actors, but send a remote camera.
Try a handheld. We hear it makes it 25 percent moonier.
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