Steven Soderbergh Quotes & Sayings

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't. — Steven Soderbergh

I like a lot of different kinds of movies, I like a lot of different kinds of paintings. — Steven Soderbergh

Making a film that's supposed to be fun to watch is really hard - that's the weird irony of it. — Steven Soderbergh

In the land of ideas, you are always renting. — Steven Soderbergh

The great thing about the business is how Darwinian it is. We have to swim or die - if you are found wanting over a period of time, you've either got to change what you're doing or find something else to do. — Steven Soderbergh

It's a weird thing to say, but it would appear to me axiomatic that if you understood fully what I was doing and appreciated it, you would like it. — Steven Soderbergh

Well, it's 15 years since Sex, Lies And Videotape, and if you hang around long enough you're having the same arguments with just a new set of people every few years and it gets boring. — Steven Soderbergh

Traffic is about drugs. As detailed a portrait as I can muster about what is happening in the drug world, from top to bottom, from policy to how things move on the street. — Steven Soderbergh

If you're a painter and you want people to know who you are and recognize your work, you've got to build some long-term value. — Steven Soderbergh

If you're going to make a movie for ten thousand you can talk everybody into doing it for free. You could make a really good-looking movie right for ten grand, if you have an idea. — Steven Soderbergh

I'm a grinder. I'll beat you because I will not sleep. — Steven Soderbergh

I make every movie like it's the last one. "If this was the last movie, what decision would I make?" That's how I make my decisions. — Steven Soderbergh

Castro, without question, is one of the smartest politicians that's ever walked. — Steven Soderbergh

I know why we can't have a frank discussion with our policymakers - if you're in the government or in law enforcement you cannot acknowledge that drugs are anything but inherently evil and morally wrong. — Steven Soderbergh

I was lucky that I was getting exposed to a lot of different kinds of films, and I was liking them all. So it seemed logical to me that you could - as in the style of the studio directors of the 30s and 40s - jump from one genre to the next, with the same satisfaction. — Steven Soderbergh

My father, who was the one who really got me hooked on movies, liked all kinds of films, and I saw all kinds of films at a very young age. — Steven Soderbergh

You got to deal with reviews the same way you deal with your views, which I a long time ago stopped reading because the point is if you believe the good ones you have to believe the bad ones. It's kind of all or nothing. — Steven Soderbergh

I'm in the process of working out an arrangement to make some very, very, very small films in the midst of all these films and maybe that will help. But you get tired of talking. You just want to do it. — Steven Soderbergh

I'm a big believer that if there's something you really want to do, don't walk away because of the deal. — Steven Soderbergh

If you're sitting around thinking what other people think about your work, you'll just become paralysed. — Steven Soderbergh

It's become absolutely horrible the way the people with the money decide they can fart in the kitchen. — Steven Soderbergh

I guess I didn't feel confident enough to be searching in a big public way. I was very content at the time to toil in obscurity on things that I thought might point me in certain directions or teach me certain things - not knowing what that would be. — Steven Soderbergh

I've never been a snob. It [movie] is just about stories. And I've never felt just because it's a big screen and you plop down your eight bucks that gives it a special meaning. It's just "Are you good at telling a story?" — Steven Soderbergh

You're supposed to expand your mind to fit the art, you're not supposed to chop the art down to fit your mind. — Steven Soderbergh

I grew up mostly in the South, and there's definitely something about the South that's different from the North. When people ask me where I'm from, I say Louisiana. I spent more years there than anywhere else. — Steven Soderbergh

Maybe I'll paint, do photography, just something else. I can see that. — Steven Soderbergh

Reality shows are all the rage on TV at the moment, but that's not reality, it's just another aesthetic form of fiction. — Steven Soderbergh

I find myself in situations a lot where I have to say to someone, "This can be better," and it's hard to say that. — Steven Soderbergh

I'm not a snob. If I feel like there's a star that's the best person for that role, then that's who I get. — Steven Soderbergh

In nature, if a cell gets too big, it divides. You can't come up with a set of rules that's going to work for 350 million people. You're just not. — Steven Soderbergh

Never had a cup of coffee in my life. Dr Pepper is my caffeine delivery system of choice. — Steven Soderbergh

When we look at what's going on in the world and we see the immense level of conflict that seems to always be happening - you can always trace it back to competing narratives. — Steven Soderbergh

But my sense in talking to people when I travel is that the film business is not that dissimilar from a lot of other businesses. — Steven Soderbergh

I think about art a lot only in two contexts. One is narrative.The other thing that I'm interested in, which is tangential, but not unrelated ... All art to me is about problem solving. — Steven Soderbergh

I suppose I could try to be some avant-garde artist if I wanted to, but that doesn't interest me as much. — Steven Soderbergh

That's why my attitude, even on my larger-scale movies, is to make them cheap. The less these things cost, the better for everybody. — Steven Soderbergh

I have a friend whose theory is that you're from wherever you went to high school. I think that's mostly true. — Steven Soderbergh

Nobody's talking about movies the way they're talking about their favorite TV shows. — Steven Soderbergh

The traditional models for success are just also disappearing. — Steven Soderbergh

I'm probably more character-driven than plot-driven. It's rare for me to attach myself to an idea for a story. — Steven Soderbergh

I like to make all kinds of movies. I'd do 'Ocean's Thirteen' with the right script. — Steven Soderbergh

There's a technical reason why I think that frame rate is weird and it has to with your brain's ability to scan beyond a certain rate. The point is I find it looks weird. — Steven Soderbergh

I don't consider myself to be particularly gifted in the way that other filmmakers are gifted. — Steven Soderbergh

I think there are only two times that I've ever ended up paying somebody their quote. Like what they actually were worth in the marketplace. — Steven Soderbergh

It's pretty clear to me that working as a director for hire agrees with me. I like it. The films that have come out of that, I personally like better than the ones that didn't. — Steven Soderbergh

American movie audiences now just don't seem to be very interested in any kind of ambiguity or any kind of real complexity of character or narrative - I'm talking in large numbers, there are always some, but enough to make hits out of movies that have those qualities. I think those qualities are now being seen on television and that people who want to see stories that have those kinds of qualities are watching television. — Steven Soderbergh

The brief flashbacks are sun-kissed, summery and optimistic. It's the only place in the movie you will see red, yellow, orange, or any vibrant colors. — Steven Soderbergh

The key is, how do you feel with the one asshole? They cannot be talked to. That's why they are assholes. — Steven Soderbergh

Jude [Law] is really good at playing an obsessive. He has a very watchable quality when he's on a quest for something. — Steven Soderbergh

People are sort of numb to watching violence, but sexual activity is still as strong as it ever was in terms of generating response. — Steven Soderbergh

I love caper films. — Steven Soderbergh

My working life is me doing what I want to do. This is that. I've made movies that people don't go to see. — Steven Soderbergh

I look at other filmmakers and see skills in them that I wish I had but I know that I don't. I feel like I have to work really hard to keep myself afloat, doing what I do. But I find it pleasurable. — Steven Soderbergh

I'm sure some people will say, 'Why do this?' And my response is, 'Why wouldn't you?' The film business in general is using a model that is outdated and, worse than that, inefficient. — Steven Soderbergh

I had more fun making Traffic than either of the Ocean's films. — Steven Soderbergh

When things go right it's hard to figure out why, but when things go wrong it's really easy. — Steven Soderbergh

I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating ... anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us-I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you. — Steven Soderbergh

Everything had been done long before I started making movies. I mean, there's nothing that Godard hasn't already done. You can't do a single thing that Godard hasn't already thought of. And so you struggle to do something that is not predictable. — Steven Soderbergh

We have to have a version of our own story that we keep telling ourselves that allows us to get up in the morning. This version of yourself is what you sell to yourself. I think it necessarily includes ... not looking at certain things. Everybody's got some blind spot. — Steven Soderbergh

If you're not flying people around on wires, and you're only allowing them to do things that people can really do, it can't go on for very long, because eventually somebody gets the drop on the other person and then it's over. — Steven Soderbergh

So I think that life is sort of like a drumbeat. It has a rhythm and sometimes it's fast and sometimes it's slower, and maybe what's happening is this drumbeat is just accelerating and it's gotten to the point where I can't hear between the beats anymore and it's just a hum. — Steven Soderbergh

I guess why the Ocean's films are hard for me is because on the one hand you have to make sure the performances are there, but on the other hand it's a film that demands, to my mind, a very layered and complex visual scheme. That takes a lot of time to figure out. — Steven Soderbergh

I've tried to get better about weighing what I think the accessibility of an idea is against the cost of executing it. I've tried to be smarter about that, because if you're not smart about that, you're going to be unemployed. But I'm still mystified about what works for people. And I'm not talking about my movies, I'm talking in general. I'm mystified by the stuff that doesn't work. I'm mystified by what's going on in the critical side, too. — Steven Soderbergh

In Full Frontal and K Street, I learned to take advantage of the mobility that digital provides. — Steven Soderbergh

A movie is something you see, cinema is something that's made. — Steven Soderbergh

Surprisingly, I don't throw away that much. I don't move forward with a lot of things unless they're going somewhere. You also have to remember that when you're working with other artists, you have to be really careful about how you deal with that stuff. — Steven Soderbergh

Some filmmakers, you know, have their style and then they kind of go looking for the movie. I'm not like that. I don't have one style that I want to take from movie to movie. — Steven Soderbergh

If you think that because you're Che, when you go into Bolivia, when people find out it's you, that they're going to have the same kind of reaction that the Cubans had to Castro, then you're high. — Steven Soderbergh

I always have a plan, but then I'm always ready to throw the plan out, and everyone's ready to make a radical left turn if necessary. — Steven Soderbergh

Stuff I like is getting trashed and stuff that is being praised I think is terrible. I don't really feel in sync with what's happening, but at the same time, what I think keeps me afloat is that I try not to be, and don't want to be, very indulgent. I try to make the films as lean as possible, and to not spend a lot of time crawling up my own ass creatively. — Steven Soderbergh

Once I had a potentially heart attack-inducing eight double espressos in one day. I think my assistant secretly swaps my coffees for decaf as she doesn't want me to die of caffeine overdose. — Steven Soderbergh

I'm not going to spend two years of my life on something that I'm not excited about. — Steven Soderbergh

Warner Bros. has talked about going out with low-cost DVDs simultaneously in China because piracy is so huge there. It will be a while before bigger movies go out in all formats; in five years, everything will. — Steven Soderbergh

I recently decided that I'm not an originator. I'm a synthesist. — Steven Soderbergh

When I look around the world and think why is everything working or not working, it's because it's entrenched ideology. You can't solve a problem if you're sitting down with people who say, "All these ideas are off the table because of what I believe." — Steven Soderbergh

When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead. — Steven Soderbergh

There's a difference between failures and things that are bad. — Steven Soderbergh

I stopped reading reviews about my own movies. I read stuff about other people's movies. — Steven Soderbergh

[I watch] Fincher, Spielberg, Cameron, McTiernan. Just people who are good at staging action. I like to know where I am. I don't like the kind of cutting where you don't know where you are. — Steven Soderbergh

There is sadness of when you're watching someone enjoy something that you think is substandard. The ineffable sadness when someone is happy and something is not as good as it should be. — Steven Soderbergh

You can't get good at anything unless you do it day in and day out, over and over. — Steven Soderbergh

There are people who are originals and the stuff they make really is new. It isn't based on anything else. But I've decided I'm not that-I was never that. My abilities are to synthesize a wide range of references and ideas into something that feels relatively unified and coherent. — Steven Soderbergh

Your take on things is what is either going to make you somebody people talk about or no. — Steven Soderbergh

Any time I think out loud, 'I can't believe this is my job,' and remember I am a very lucky duck. Whether marshalling hundreds of zombies, doing crazy stunts or shooting big music numbers, I just feel fortunate to have made my passion my vocation. — Steven Soderbergh

I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses. — Steven Soderbergh

When you're sent something and read it, either you can see it while you read it, or you can't. — Steven Soderbergh

I just produced Criminal, this remake of Nine Queens, and one of the things that appealed to me about Nine Queens is that it was a performance piece, and that's the most fun. — Steven Soderbergh

Another thing that really excites me: I'd like to do multiple versions of the same film. — Steven Soderbergh

I've begun to believe more and more that movies are all about transitions, that the key to making good movies is to pay attention to the transition between scenes. And not just how you get from one scene to the next, but where you leave a scene and where you come into a new scene. Those are some of the most important decisions that you make. It can be the difference between a movie that works and a movie that doesn't. — Steven Soderbergh

What are the stories you want people to tell about you? — Steven Soderbergh

I want to form a political party that's based entirely on what music people listen to. To me, it's a much better barometer of what they think and feel than their political stance. — Steven Soderbergh

It takes one asshole to ruin the whole thing. That's it. One. The problem with the world is one asshole comes up with a really bad idea and now we're all taking our shoes off at the airport. — Steven Soderbergh

If you're not smart enough to know what Fidel meant during the Cuban revolution, that - when they were on the Granma - Fidel was already a rock star in Cuba, and how important that was to the indigenous population, then you're not paying attention. — Steven Soderbergh

I think that music is a very difficult art form in which to be avant-garde. When we sit down to listen to a piece of music, I think our implicit hope is that we're going to find it beautiful, or at least emotional, on some level. — Steven Soderbergh

A lot of people go to the movies wanting the movie to be about feelings, and it's really not about that. Or rather it's about feelings in the abstract. — Steven Soderbergh

Usually I'm thinking about the palette. I'm thinking about the color for the most part, then I'll start thinking about composition and movement. — Steven Soderbergh

I can make a movie about Lee Harvey Oswald and make you feel what he feels and make you understand why he believes what he believes. That doesn't mean I think you should go out and shoot JFK. — Steven Soderbergh

You can't change who you are, so I think that the only thing you can do is just never talk to people about stuff and then hope that maybe does something. — Steven Soderbergh

We're all standing on the shoulders of what other people have done. But you're supposed to take that and add your own sauce. It can be intimidating, believe me. — Steven Soderbergh

I guess I just look at talent as a very subjective thing. I mean, if you never tried playing an oboe, how do you know you're not the most talented oboe player ever? The point is that if you don't love it, then it doesn't matter. — Steven Soderbergh