Matt Damon, who is best known as the kick ass star of the Bourne trilogy, is quoted as saying that he’s turned down movies due to gratuitous violence – as opposed to the violence that’s usually depicted in his films I guess. This quote is given out of context and I wasn’t ableto find the original interview, so maybe he elaborated on it and explained some of his very violent films, like Saving Private Ryan (which I didn’t see due to the violence), all the Bourne movies, or The Departed. Granted those films are arguably smart and violent as opposed to just violent.

Matt Damon has turned down a string of movie roles because he refuses to act in films with excessive violence. The Hollywood actor has starred in a number of high action movies including Saving Private Ryan and the Bourne trilogy.

But Damon has rejected a number of scripts which include gratuitous fighting – because he’s worried it may affect people’s real-life actions.

He says, “I always look at the violence (in a script). I don’t want it to be gratuitous because I do believe that has an effect on people’s behavior. I really do believe that and I have turned down movies because of that.”

[From Starpulse via Fark]

Spoilers for Bourne movies follow
You can argue that the violence in the Bourne films is a necessary part of the story and isn’t the entire plot. Some of the fight scenes and deaths seem particularly human and close-up in the Bourne movies, and they’re not as glossed over as in other films. I’m thinking of a scene in the Bourne Ultimatum (spoilers for this 2007 film follow if you’re waiting to watch it) in which Bourne kills an assailant in an extended fight scene while Nicky (Julia Stiles) watches, looking particularly shocked afterwards. There was a similar scene in the first movie where (spoilers for Bourne Identity) he offs a guy in front of Franka Potente and she struggles to cope with the reality of the situation. And in that first film, Clive Owen played a hit man who seemed so fragile and human in his death. That was my introduction to Clive Owen and I was impressed with his acting skill.

Spoilers for The Departed
In The Departed (again, spoilers for The Departed) the scene at the end was so shocking that I yelled out loud in the airplane when I was watching it for the first time, waking up the guy in front of me. There was plenty of blood in that scene, but the plot was so good you were thinking about the details and not the messy fact that a key character had just died. From what I remember there were other super violent moments in The Departed that didn’t seem as necessary to the plot, though.

I guess Damon’s films aren’t gratuitously violent, but they’re violent that’s for sure. I’m mildly squeamish about violent films but I can watch most of his movies because the stories carry the films, not the action. (Plus there’s the other distracting eye candy.) Maybe that’s what he means and he just turns down weaker films where the violence seems gratuitous because that’s all that’s going on.