'NYMag' Profile of Director Liman Leaves Out One Thing: Doug Is A Douche
Sunday's New York piece on Bourne director Doug Liman was basically your typical boilerplate profile of the weird genius. Annoying-but-brilliant, healthily despised, and-for the purposes of this here piece-highly redeemable. That is, if you don't count the debasing way the director, son of a hero of civic litigation, treats his assistant. Less relevant to his character, but still a major put-off, we hear Liman doesn't brush his teeth!
Author Steve Fishman recounts in detail Liman's destructive tendencies on set, quotes friends who once hated him (some sound like they still do) and dishes on the director's Daddy issues. But, this being a Hollywood magazine profile, in the end Fishman ties it up in a neat package: Liman may be a fuck-up, but he's a rebel fuck-up with a vision. A source who's worked with the director (and came away displeased, admittedly) tells us the profile misses in a big way. "Instead of the truth (he is a shitty Director) they cast him as a creative david fighting the Goliath that is the studios." A few insider details New York left out? Liman's not big on cleanliness (dandruff and deodorant mishaps), makes his assistant pick up the dog poo while he walks his pooch, and likes to brag about starting a new fraternity at alma mater Brown-the others just weren't cool enough for him. As for his power at the box office, his four major films (one of which he sort of swiped) reportedly cost a combined $238.7 million, with domestic revenues of $329.1 million. For a director who's spent over a decade in the business, "he has literally dozens of failures," says our insider.