As I said yesterday, I took no texting or bathroom breaks during Tony Gilroy‘s The Bourne Legacy (Universal, 8.10), and that is a form of tribute and respect. (This isn’t to imply that I routinely step out for text messaging, but I sometimes do when a film blows.) And I’ve always admired and respected director-writer Tony Gilroy, who spent two years on Legacy, he said, in the manner of a captain going on a whaling voyage. And yeah, he brought home the oil and the blubber.

Bourne Legacy director-cowriter Tony Gilroy.

Gilroy and I spoke last week for a half hour or so. Here’s the mp3.

“Every time I re-watch my Bluray of Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton, which seems a bit more masterful each time, I feel a little bit worse about not being more enthusiastic when it first came out 40 months ago. I didn’t put enough feeling into my riffs about it. Calling it “never boring,” “a tense adult thriller about some unsettled and anxious people” and “as seasoned and authentic as this kind of thing can be” didn’t get it. I held back and over-qualified. And I’m sorry.” — posted on 1.31.11.