Julia Stiles was busy churning out films non-stop between 10 Things I Hate About You and O, but when The Bourne Identity rolled around, it marked her very first franchise opportunity. The thing is though, even though Bourne did go on to become a five-film series, it was pretty close to being a one-and-done thing for Stiles because her character, Nicky Parsons, was actually meant to die in the 2002 film.
While promoting the Season 2 debut of Riviera on Ovation TV, Stiles took the time to join us for an episode of Collider Ladies Night and discussed how an 11th hour story change meant she’d get to continue on with the Bourne series. In The Bourne Identity, Nicky is a Treadstone Paris warehouse employee and field operative who’s posing as a student.
At the end of the film, Nicky has an encounter with Jason Bourne (Matt Damon). The original plan was for Bourne to kill Nikki. They even filmed it that way. However, that changed after principal photography. Here’s how Stiles put it:
“Yeah, it was a complete surprise to me. I filmed a scene where Jason Bourne flips Nicky upside-down against a wall and I break my neck and so, as far as I knew, that was it for Nicky Parsons!”
As Stiles explained, while doing ADR for the movie “They needed to have sounds of me breathing so that we knew that she was still alive.” Turns out though, there was no flipping in the final cut of the film anyway. During his confrontation with Chris Cooper’s Conklin, Bourne simply makes eye contact with Nicky and leaves her be.
Even though that change meant there could be more Bourne for Stiles, at the time, there was no certainty that first film would spawn of franchise. Here’s how Stiles described the situation:
“I think they were hoping that it would, but there’s no guarantee and at the time, Matt Damon was a very respected actor and well known, but he wasn’t necessarily by the studio system considered an action star and it was, for its time, visually very groundbreaking with the handheld cameras. It didn’t look like your typical action movie. There was no guarantee that there was gonna be four movies after that.”
Rather than sign on the dotted line of a multi-film contract, the Bourne movies were film to film commitments. Stiles explained, “I think each film we would have terms of, if they do make a sequel, but it’s always up to the studio to decide.”
If you’re eager to hear more from Stiles, be sure to check out her full episode of Collider Ladies Night tomorrow! She revisits auditioning for 10 Things I Hate About You, hosting Saturday Night Live, names her personal favorite teen romantic comedies of the 90s and so much more.