Matt Damon Apparently Only Has 25 Lines In Jason Bourne

Jason Bourne is a character of few words, but when he delivers them, they mean something.

That has been the approach for the character in all three previous Bourne movies (Bourne Legacy notwithstanding), and that has been taken to an extreme degree in the newest film, Jason Bourne.

The pair of Director Paul Greengrass and actor Matt Damon return for the franchise’s fourth entry, and recently spoke about the upcoming film to The Guardian. After Greengrass and Christopher Rouse finished writing the script, they revealed to Damon he would only have about 25 lines in the entire film. That doesn’t bother Damon too much.

“Well, I’ve done it three times. In the first movie, the Marie Kreutz character [Bourne’s girlfriend, played by Franka Potente) is still alive, so Bourne has a sounding board and he’s more confused about who he is and a lot more chatty” Damon says. “Once she dies in the first act of the second movie, it’s really a very lonely character. And we talked about that mostly on the second one. I remember Tony writing me an email saying, ‘You do realize what this means? You do realize you’re not going to talk in this movie.’ I said, ‘No, I love that.”

That hasn’t changed for Jason Bourne, but Greengrass doesn’t see that as a limiting factor to Damon’s performance or the movie in general. “I think what makes a Bourne movie is the violence and the set pieces,” he says, “but there’s a tremendous amount of emotionality in the character.”

Jason Bourne hits theaters on July 29th.