No career regrets for versatile Damon

Matt Damon blithely compares action films to adult movies — skimpy characters, little plot and lots of, ahem, action.

Yet here he is, the “Good Will Hunting” star who didn’t appear in last year’s “Gigli,” making the publicity rounds on behalf of a sequel to the 2002 action sleeper “The Bourne Identity.”

Mr. Damon remains a professional conventional-wisdom bucker, be it shunning the blockbuster path taken by Beantown bud Ben Affleck or taking roles whose main effect is to make him look fool-headed (2003’s “Stuck on You”).

“I don’t have an overarching strategy,” he says during a recent phone interview, as if working with the Farrelly brothers could ever be called a strategic maneuver. “I like to do things in different genres.”

Producers, at least those working on Mr. Damon’s new film, “The Bourne Supremacy,” don’t mind his unpredictable tastes.

“They liked that I wasn’t the obvious choice to play that guy,” Mr. Damon says of the original “Bourne.” Much of the team responsible for the first film returns in “Supremacy,” a consistency that makes itself known in the engaging finished product.

The notion behind the “Bourne” films, Mr. Damon says, is for the action to “grow organically out of the stories.” His inspiration came from films such as “La Femme Nikita.”

“It’s a lot harder than it sounds,” says Mr. Damon, who reportedly used his clout on the first “Bourne” feature to beef up the characters.

The new “Supremacy” revisits the semiamnesiac Jason Bourne after the events of the first film have wrapped. He’s living as quiet a life as possible with his girlfriend, Marie (Franka Potente), in Spain, when he realizes he’s being hunted all over again.

Soon, Bourne is on the run once more, this time trying to prove he isn’t responsible for a string of killings while simultaneously figuring out who still wants him dead.

Director Paul Greengrass (“Bloody Sunday”) replaces Doug Liman but keeps the original’s jittery tone.

“He wanted scenes to feel, rather than theatrical, a little rough and observed,” Mr. Damon says of Mr. Greengrass’ work.

Second-unit director Dan Bradley made sure of that during an impressive car-chase sequence that stands apart from most shot today.

“It’s all hand-held [cameras],” Mr. Damon says. “That just doesn’t get done. He had pitched a hand-held car chase 12 years ago, and he got run out of the studio.”

Nothing Mr. Damon says during the interview could dispel his good-guy persona. He’s apologetic when the cellular-phone connection keeps breaking down, and he does his best to answer every question lobbed his way.

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