Written Interview: Steven Soderbergh

Extensive interview with writer-director Steven Soderbergh in Vulture:

What do you think people mean when they call a film Soderberghian?

I have no idea. But never use that word to describe your movie in a pitch meeting because it won’t get made.

Really? You just made a $7 million film about strippers — Magic Mike — that has earned something like $167 million worldwide.

So pitch the movie as Magic Mike. Otherwise, if you’re using my name, you could mean The Good German.

But you’ve shown an incredible ability for getting films made, particularly the mid-level, character-driven, superhero-and-vampire-free films that conventional wisdom says don’t get made anymore — from the esoteric sci-fi film Solaris to, yes, even a somber, black-and-white movie about post–World War II Germany. How do you account for that?

On the few occasions where I’ve talked to film students, one of the things I stress, in addition to learning your craft, is how you behave as a person. For the most part, our lives are about telling stories. So I ask them, “What are the stories you want people to tell about you?” Because at a certain point, your ability to get a job could turn on the stories people tell about you. The reason [then–Universal Pictures chief] Casey Silver put me up for [1998’s] Out of Sight after I’d had five flops in a row was because he liked me personally. He also knew I was a responsible filmmaker, and if I got that job, the next time he’d see me was when we screened the movie. If I’m an asshole, then I don’t get that job. Character counts. That’s a long way of saying, “If you can be known as someone who can attract talent, that’s a big plus.”

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