Who

As the director of Swingers and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Liman is responsible for unleashing both Vince Vaughn and Brangelina on the world.

Backstory

Liman was raised in Manhattan, the son of legendary attorney Arthur Liman. A self-confessed problem child who bounced from private school to private school, Doug eventually found himself as a student at Brown where, he says, his dorky weirdness helped him fit in. USC's film school followed and he made his first film, direct-to-video bust Getting In, in 1994. He hit it big two years later after buddy Jon Favreau asked him to direct Swingers. (Favreau had wanted to direct it himself, but no producer would allow him to write, star in and direct the movie.) Liman managed to secure financing—a miniscule $200,000—and Swingers set the festival circuit abuzz, prompting Miramax to pay $5.5 million for the rights. As most of the money went to Liman, Favreau was so resentful he wouldn't talk to him for years—even though the hit film (and its unforgettable catchphrase "You're so money!) launched the careers of Favreau and Vince Vaughn.

In 1999, Liman parlayed his newly-acquired indie cred into Go starring Katie Holmes and Scott Wolf, before turning to big-budget action flicks and directing the 2002 Matt Damon spy thriller The Bourne Identity. Bourne was a huge hit—it grossed $120 million domestically and spawned a franchise—and Liman went on to exec-produce its second installment, The Bourne Ultimatum. While critics largely thumbs-upped Bourne, Liman made no pretense of directing a quality film with 2005's Mr. & Mrs. Smith, on whose set Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie famously started dating. Limon's also dabbled with TV projects the last few years: He directed the pilot for Fox's The O.C. and served as an executive producer of the now-dead teen melodrama. His most recent big-budget Hollywood spectacle was Jumper, based on Stephen Gould's sci-fi novel of the same name and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Lane, and Hayden Christensen.

Of note

Liman is notoriously obsessive, difficult and unpredictable to work with. Mr and Mrs Smith screenwriter Simon Kinberg—who Liman had write 40 or 50 different endings, only to choose the first one—calls his style of filmmaking "Limania," referring to Liman's approach to directing as a continually evolving process involving endless mind-changing, chaos and a money's-no-object attitude. Such antics obviously don't endear him to studio execs—it was his behavior on the set of the first Bourne that sent Universal execs in search for someone new for the next two installments—but according to Favreau, Liman "enjoys the image he projects of being a mad scientist of cinema. It gives him leeway."

Upcoming

Liman has signed on with Dreamworks to make a movie about a private expedition to the moon, based on a script he wrote with his cousin John Hamburg.

Family ties

Doug's father, Arthur Liman, was one of top trial lawyers of his generation. A longtime partner at the law firm Paul Weiss, he's best known for his Iran-contra prosecution and for leading the investigation into the Attica prison uprising. His father helped him raise the $200,000 needed to make Swingers, and also provided free legal advice. He passed away in 1997 shortly after the film hit it big.

Personal

Liman has never married. (A few years ago, he dated college-counselor-to-the-wealthy Katherine Cohen.) He lives in a loft in Tribeca, where the name on the doorbell is Bourne, J—as in Jason Bourne.