Julia Stiles Interview, Bourne Ultimatum

MoviesOnline caught up recently with Julia Stiles at the Los Angeles press day for her new movie, "The Bourne Ultimatum,” which follows the adventures of Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) as he crisscrosses the globe to hunt down his past to find a future. Stiles resumes her role as CIA operative Nicky Parsons who joins Bourne on the run as he attempts to stay one step ahead of his would-be assassins. The film also stars David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, Paddy Considine, Edgar Ramirez, and Joan Allen.

In this latest chapter of the breathtaking espionage thriller, shot on location in Morocco, Spain, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, Bourne continues his quest to find the real Jason Bourne--all the while trying to outmaneuver the scores of cops, federal officers, and Interpol agents who have him in their crosshairs.

The arc of Nicky, first introduced in "The Bourne Identity,” has been a complex through line in the series. "Nicky didn’t really know what she was doing in ‘Identity,’” comments Stiles. "And now she’s at another crossroads. She knows that, with Blackbriar, the situation has gotten worse, and she doesn’t want to be involved anymore. She’s between a rock and a hard place because she wants to stay alive, but can’t get out because she has too much information.”

Called "one of the most fearless and talented actresses in Hollywood” by the Los Angeles Times, Julia Stiles has exhibited a rare sophistication in the characters she plays. She made a lasting impression with her riveting performance in Michael Steinberg’s critically acclaimed drama "Wicked,” which premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and the Prague Film Festival. Her film credits also include David Mamet’s "State and Main,” with William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Sarah Jessica Parker which won a 2000 National Board of Review Award for Best Ensemble Cast.

Stiles now wears the hat of writer/director with her short film "Raving,” which she wrote for Elle magazine’s film series. The film explores the emotional connection between a bright rebellious young woman (Zooey Deschanel) and a lonely, disassociated older man (Bill Irwin) after a chance encounter on a New York street corner. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and on the Sundance Channel on May 8, 2007.

Julia will next star in the adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s autobiographical novel "The Bell Jar.” She is set to produce the feature with Plum Pictures, in association with Killer Films. The 1950s-era drama centers on young book editor Esther Greenwood (Stiles), who grows troubled by the social trappings of her time and slowly descends into mental illness.

Julia Stiles is a fabulous person and we really appreciated her time. Here’s what she had to tell us about resuming her role as Nicky in the third installment of the Bourne franchise and what it was like working with director Paul Greengrass:

Q: Your character has matured and is going on her own journey in this and gets some action…

Julia: Some action? [laughs] Not too much action.

Q: Well, as far as the physicality. How was the process watching her grow as a character and what did you bring to it this time around?

Q: Now that you are directing as well, what have you learned from Paul as far as working with actors and action that you want to apply to your own work?

Julia: Well, I came to the set of "The Bourne Ultimatum” with a totally different perspective after directing a short film. I was much more aware of everything that goes on on a film set like everyone else’s job, paying attention to how Paul was shooting the film and almost in a way that I would see the hand-held camera and the zoom lenses and that would inform my acting too. I sort of adjusted my performance based on that. I could see that he wanted something that was grounded in reality and kind of suppressed. Like the tension was under the surface, ready to explode but not quite there yet.

Q: But what would you take to your own directing?

Julia: What I would take, actually, is, especially for a big action movie, I like how Paul goes to the real locations. He doesn’t use CGI. He’s very much interested in capturing what’s actually going on on a set so he wants as many real elements as possible. Like even the scenes in Morocco, those were not extras in the crowd. Those were everyday people walking around the marketplace and they didn’t know that we were shooting a movie.

Q: What do you think the relationship is between Nikki and Jason? Are they just colleagues and she has a soft spot for him?

Julia: The thing we were dealing with when I agreed to do this movie and I told my friends that I was going to shoot "The Bourne Ultimatum” in Morocco, everybody has an opinion, which is a sign that everybody likes these movies, but the first question out of their mouth was ‘Do Jason Bourne and Nikki get together?’ because there always has to be a female love interest. What I love is that Paul breaks those conventions. Also, for Jason Bourne, the tragedy of the series is that Marie, his loved-one, was killed in the second one. So, we didn’t really want to have him fall in love with somebody else so quickly. I like that Paul leaves a lot of questions unanswered in terms of storytelling. I think I answered it in my head which was that Nikki was around before he became Jason Bourne and she knows who he is aside from all this training and that makes her sympathize with him more and trust him. So, yeah, I think they either had a relationship or she pines after him but can’t bring it up because he doesn’t remember anything. She even makes an overture comforting him [she reaches out her hand] when he’s distraught but it’s not reciprocated.

Q: What about a fourth film?

Julia: You know, I would do it if Matt and Paul were involved. It would be great but I just don’t know. That’s more of a question for them. They’re the men in charge.

Q: What is your philosophy for picking projects and what attracted you to this role?

Julia: I think now, especially with my experience making these three Bourne films is that I realized how much it all boils down to the director, especially somebody like Paul who has enough credibility and authority with the studio that they give him the freedom to make the kind of movie that he wants to make and so that’s the most important thing to me is if I can trust my director and if I think their vision is something that I want to help fulfill. You would like to think that it’s all on paper but it rarely is and a director can make up for a lot of that.

Q: We’re heard about the kind of loose way these films are made with Paul. You’ve worked with David Mamet, which is sort of the opposite. He wants you to hit every sentence. Which do you like better and how does it work for you as an actress?

Julia: I like them both and it’s good to stretch and try to do contradictory ways of making a film. With Mamet, it could be a play but it’s just different. With David Mamet, I like that specificity of the way you have to speak the way he has written, even in terms of punctuation. The challenge there is to make it sound natural also even if it’s stylized. Just like, with the Bourne movies, the challenge is to keep everything suppressed. You don’t want to say too much but you don’t want to say too little either. You don’t want to lose the audience’s attention.

Q: I hear that Paul doesn’t like to have stunt people do the stunts and there’s no CGI. There are incredible action scenes where you are racing with the guys. Did you get injured and has this opened up a desire to play a superhero?

Julia: Well, Paul doesn’t use CGI but sometimes he did use stunt doubles. It’s almost impossible not to. No, I wouldn’t want to play a superhero and that’s why I like these movies. Jason Bourne isn’t a superhero. The thing that makes him special is not that he has a fancy car and special weapons, it’s his quickness and his ability to fight with household weapons. Even if they choreograph those fight scenes, if you see them as we’re shooting, they look almost like a dance or really intricate martial arts but, when Paul breaks it down in the way that he shoots those sequences and edits them, they look much more sloppy, realistic and natural.

Q: What about that stuff on the roof? Was that really you?

Julia: That was me running around, a lot of running. And the part of the fight sequence where I jump on his back and pull at his face, the actual jump across the roof was a stunt double because I took one look down at the alleyway that I had to jump across and I was like ‘No, leave that to the pros.’

Q: So that was you thrown to the floor then? Was that planned?

Julia: Yeah, yeah. I looked down at that alleyway I thought I was going to have to jump across and I thought, ‘Do I really want to go to a Moroccan hospital?’ And I thought ‘No.’ But, when we shot the fight, I was in London so I thought, ‘Okay. I’ll hedge my bets here.’

Q: Could you compare and contrast working with Paul and Doug Liman? How was it making the first film compared to the other two?

Julia: Unfortunately, when they made the first one I had no idea what was going on. I think I would like to work with Doug again in a different context because I remember I was kept in the dark. I could only read the scenes that I was shooting and I would show up in Prague and shoot one scene that was on a stage set that takes place in an office and then come back three months later and shoot one scene in Paris where I’m handing Clive Owen an envelope. It’s all very secretive and I didn’t know what the whole movie was going to look like. So, I was surprised when I saw it and that’s why, when I came back for the second and third one with Paul, I made it clear that I was going to be more vocal this time and I was really going to want to be involved in other aspects of it, not just with showing up and saying my lines. It was great to collaborate with Paul. I wish I could do that with Doug in a different movie.

Q: With respect to "The Bell Jar,” considering there are all sorts of expectations and perceptions of Sylvia Plath, is this going to be a challenge?

Julia: Oh a huge challenge because a lot of that book is very meaningful to a lot of people so we don’t want to disappoint them. I don’t think that, in terms of the perception of people not wanting to see an indictment of Ted Hughes again, the book, although it is probably inspired by Sylvia Plath’s personal experience, it is not her autobiography and it takes place at a time in her life before she met Ted Hughes although she was writing it when she was married to him. I would like to keep the book separate from her autobiography. What I’m trying to do is make it something that will pleasantly surprise fans of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes because I think her autobiography has overshadowed the book a lot and people think of her as this brooding, dark poet because of her death but, actually, the book that she wrote is incredibly vibrant and has these beautiful images and hallucinations that she had that I think would be perfect for a film and so, hopefully, I can highlight that.

Q: Is the screenplay ready?

Julia: The screenplay is being worked on. There is a woman adapting it now. She’s working on a second draft and we want to get that really right because there’s a lot at stake.

Q: What did you think about the other movie version?

Julia: I liked that but I thought it was a totally different story. It’s about her relationship with Ted Hughes and her biography and "The Bell Jar” is not. It’s fictitious.

Q: Wasn’t there a ‘Bell Jar’ movie before with Marilyn Hassett?

Julia: Yes there was. It was a TV Movie and I saw it. I don’t want it to be anything like that, with all respect to the people that worked on it, because I think, even just stylistically, the way that they shot it was very dark and the images in ‘The Bell Jar’ call more for what Julie Taymor did with "Frida,” that intense artistic drive that Sylvia Plath had and that Esther Greenwood has in the book. The character in the book you could almost say she’s manic depressive where she experiences extreme highs and extreme lows and that needs to be reflected in the movie which I don’t think you’ve seen in any other movie that deals with depression.

Q: On this film, there are a lot of wonderful, exotic locations. Did you have any time to look around? If you did, what impressed you either positively or negatively about some of the locations or people?

Julia: Just some of my personal experiences? Spain, I thought was beautiful and I had a great time there and Morocco, I actually spent the most time in Morocco and I had always wanted to travel there. It was a great opportunity to work with Moroccans who actually live in Tangiers and you don’t feel like a tourist when you’re working on a film set. You’re there long enough where you feel like you are getting a more authentic experience. I had a great time. I traveled to Marrakech and all up and down the coastline. The guy who was sort of my translator and helping me get situated there, I fasted one day with him because it was Ramadan when we were there just to see what it was like because a lot of people on the crew couldn’t drink water all day long and couldn’t eat and it seemed like it would be really difficult so I thought I should see what that’s like and I went and broke the fast with him and his family afterward. So, those are rare experiences that, as a tourist, I wouldn’t have gotten to have. They were very hospitable the people that I ran into there.

Q: Matt was talking about how having The Bourne Ultimatum in his sights made him able to make choices on films that wouldn’t be quite the box-office success but were good movies. "The Bell Jar” is the kind of movie that isn’t going to be a huge blockbuster. Do you consider ‘how am I going to keep my career going on the financial side’?

Julia: I try not to base my decisions on that because then, automatically, you go into a movie that you are thinking of as a stepping stone, you go into it with a different perspective that probably isn’t…. I don’t know. I would want to go to work every day and not feel emotionally invested in the work that I was creating. I totally lucked out with this franchise because, in terms of commercial movies that are successful and expensive, creatively, they are extremely satisfying to me so that was really lucky. Not necessarily deliberate but lucky.

Q: You never see much about you in the tabloids. Is that something that you control yourself?

Julia: I try to. I think, at some point, the actresses that you do see in tabloids a lot, it gets out of their control. It’s sort of like a train that takes off but yeah. All the actors that I respect and whose work I respect, you know little about their personal lives. I think it’s much easier to believe somebody on screen as a different person if you don’t know who they’re dating and what clubs they go to. I do my fair share of partying but I just do it not in front of cameras. I think also that can only end up backfiring. If you base your career or your popularity, your success, if it comes from tabloid journalism, it can only backfire. It scares me a little bit.

"The Bourne Ultimatum” opens in theaters on August 3^rd.