Matt Damon: Why It Was Finally Time For Jason Bourne To Strip Off

Unlike James Bond, Jason Bourne has never been one to get his kit off for the camera… until now.

In ‘Jason Bourne’ - out now - Matt Damon’s amnesiac spy goes shirtless for the first time in the franchise’s history, but the Oscar-winning star says there’s a very good reason for it this time around.

“We’d avoided [going shirtless] for the three other movies,” Damon tells Yahoo Movies in our interview above.

“We always actively said we don’t want to do the ‘beefcake shot’, but it felt right for this one because you want to see him like that, I think, to get a sense of what his life’s been like.”

The new film picks up Bourne’s story 9 years on from when we last saw him in ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’. Having exposed those responsible for the Blackbriar and Treadstone agent programmes, Bourne has gone underground, but he hasn’t moved on from his violent past. The film starts with Bourne exploiting his talents in the shady world of bare-knuckle boxing.

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“If this movie starts,” explains Damon, “and you look like you’ve been living well - we don’t have a movie. So that shot is supposed to make that statement, that he’s living on the margins.”

The 45-year-old star was in his late 20s when he shot ‘The Bourne Identity’, the first film in the action franchise, and he admits he found it much more difficult to get fit this time around.

“It’s a whole different ball game getting ready,” he explains, “I shot [Bourne Identity’] when I was 29, so getting into shape was very easy back then. I thought it was hard, but compared to what it takes now, I had it pretty good!”

‘Jason Bourne’ is in cinemas now. Watch the film’s stars discuss whether James Bond has finally overtaken Bourne in our interview below.

Image credits: Universal Pictures