Acting on ‘Impulse’
CENTURIES ago, back in the ark, lawyer Arthur Liman, Reagan’s IranContra hearings consigliere, told me his son looked to work in films. Yeah, yeah, I said.
That was then. Now grown-up producer/director Doug Liman makes
Tom Cruise films, did “The Bourne Identity,” etc., etc., and at a Cinema Society event said his new thing’s the YouTube Red series “Impulse.”
“Listen, I’m a New Yorker who makes projects in Hollywood. My schooling was Dalton, Fieldston and Riverdale. A client gave my father, my hero — I’ve even made a movie about him — a camera after winning a case. He had no use for it so, age 8, I got this camera.
“My parents supported my dream. My father wouldn’t invest in their projects, but he had smart clients. A friend of his financed my first film, ‘Swingers.’ About single unemployed actors, it got four stars and developed a cult following.
“This new series I chose to do for TV. TV’s more open to taking big chances.”
Its subject doesn’t seem right for a good boy brought up nice. It’s about a high school girl played by Maddie Hasson, who’s assaulted sexually. It’s sci-fi. Superpower genetics. She’s teleported (whatever that is) and blaah blaah. “One scene set in Tokyo’s subway we faked. We made it here.” Fake something? Who would believe such a thing? “My [upcoming] ‘Chaos Walking’ is an action-adventure.” A sci-fi dystopian universe where thoughts are heard — is what it is. So this being the week of the Tonys, I asked where’s he keep his awards. “I lose things. So I don’t keep them around. My friends have them.”