Jason Bourne: Matt Damon has just 25 lines of dialogue in new film

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If you're wanting your Jason Bourne like your Elvis, then you're in luck; this time round, it's certainly looking like a little less conversation and a little more action.

In an interview with the Guardian, director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon revealed that Jason Bourne offers its titular hero only around 25 lines in total; though Greengrass believes there's plenty to be said in Damon's non-verbal acting. "I think what makes a Bourne movie is the violence and the set pieces," he said, "but there’s a tremendous amount of emotionality in the character."

"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 explained of the change. "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 realise what this means? You do realise you’re not going to talk in this movie.’ I said, ‘No, I love that.'"

Though both Damon and Greengrass had definitively stated in the past that they would not return to the franchise after 2007's The Bourne Ultimatum, their minds have clearly changed on the matter. What gives? Following both actor and director's exclusion from The Bourne Legacy - featuring Jeremy Renner in the lead role - their returns appears to be down to Greengrass' realisation that we live now in a changed world.

Though the earlier films focused on the "war on terror", Greengrass' new perspective reflects the post-Edward Snowden work of super-hackers and governmental surveillance. Certainly, there was a great deal of pressure on the director's shoulders, but he enthuses that his partnership with Damon was of great relief in his creative process.

"You can come on set some days and feel, ‘I don’t know about this’. The anxieties are very profound," Greengrass explains. "That’s why it’s such a stressful undertaking. When you’ve got someone like Matt who’s going to sell it for you, who’s going to be brilliant and is committed, the feeling of empowerment is so intense. And love. He’s a fantastic man to make a film with. And we’ve been in the trenches before. We’ve been in the deepest shit that it’s possible to be in on a film set."

Jason Bourne hits UK cinemas 29 July.