NYFF: ‘Bourne Legacy’ Star ‘Sure’ More Sequels in the Works

Director Tony Gilroy wasn’t taking any chances with set secrets escaping from The Bourne Legacy, the fourth film in the franchise. (But the first to star Jeremy Renner instead of Matt Damon.)

“I had to hand back the pages every day. I was never in possession of a script. I got to read it once,” Corey Stoll — who plays an “amoral scientist” in the action flick — told The Hollywood Reporter Friday at the New York Film Festival premiere of Carnage.

“It was like nuclear codes. At the time it seemed a little silly, but you see what happens online… when one little bit of information, whether it’s true or not…”  added Stoll, who played Detective Tomas ‘TJ’ Jaruszalski on the short-lived Law & Order: L.A.

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Stoll read the script once. “The meter on my car was running out, so I was quickly flipping thorough the pages and I was really excited.”

“It takes the story as we know it and makes it more ambitious on a larger scale,” he says. “It’s ridiculously action packed.”

Stoll admits he had his doubts about the film living up to the first three takes, but they were quickly eased: “When I heard they were doing a fourth one, I didn’t understand what they could do [and thought they’d be] just doing retread. But [Gilroy’s] opened up the story in this way that’s just… you could really mine this material for a bunch of movies, and I’m sure they’d love to. And I’d love to be a part of it!”

Is there discussion already in place? “I’m sure there is,” he says.

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The film was shot throughout “seven or eight” countries, Stoll says.

He also speaks highly of Renner, calling him, “such a great choice as the new lead.” Damon wasn’t on the set.

Stoll also recently played Ernest Hemingway in Sony Pictures Classics’ Midnight in Paris.

“It was a dream job from the very first meeting,” he says.

Woody Allen even wrote him a letter of recommendation to land his Law & Order role.

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“[Producer] Dick Wolf didn’t think I could be tough enough, so then I contacted Woody’s assistant and producer to ask for some sort of letter or email from Woody, a sort of letter of recommendation,” Stoll tells THR. “At first, my manager and I went back and forth with drafts of emails trying to write a letter of recommendation so he could sign off on it. But it was just ridiculous! We’re trying to write in the voice of Allen, so we thought, ‘Why don’t we just ask him to do it?’ And he was so amazing! He wrote me a litter of recommendation and I got the role.”

To thank him, Stoll “sent him a gift bag from H&H” he says, referring to the famed New York City bagel shop, while Allen was still filming in Paris.