Soderbergh Quotes & Sayings

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

People like Chris Nolan are shooting isolated sequences in IMAX. Those cameras are the size of a Volkswagen. — 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

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

We [people] are a species that's wired to tell stories. We need stories. It's how we make sense of things. It's how we learn. — Steven Soderbergh

When someone like Steven Soderbergh asks you to do a film you know you're in good hands. You know it's going to be slick, and it's going to be intelligent, and it's going to have a kind of style to it, and I would probably have done anything to be really honest. — Jude Law

Directors like William Friedkin (Killer Joe), Steven Soderbergh (Magic Mike), and Lee Daniels (The Paperboy) got in touch with me and wanted me to be part of their films. That was a whole new chapter for me. I didn't chase any of those films and it made me think that I was right to take a chance, say no to the kind of thing I had grown tired of doing, and wait until something good came around. And it did! — Matthew McConaughey

"A meteor hits planet Earth" - that's a story idea but that doesn't give me any indication of what the character is. — Steven Soderbergh

There's nothing else exactly like it in any other art form, the orchestration of so many different elements. It's endlessly fascinating what can be done editorially. You can create meaning where there was none, you can create feeling where there was none, you can create narrative where there was none. Two frames can be the difference between something that works and something that doesn't. It's fascinating. — Steven Soderbergh

Never done an explosion, but I have had explosive diarrhea, and that was very, very real. Good thing I have my trailer. — 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 a big believer that if there's something you really want to do, don't walk away because of the deal. — Steven Soderbergh

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

A movie that costs only $1.6 million doesn't have to be a cultural event to turn a profit. — 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

He's Soderbergh, we're working for him. It doesn't matter what he's doing; we'll see it at the premiere. — Terence Stamp

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

To me the director's job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally. — Steven Soderbergh

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

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

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

I guess I much prefer the path of the contrarian: the guy who goes against the grain a bit. The careers of the people who I admire deeply - like the Coen brothers and Soderbergh - don't repeat themselves, and they make radically different films at times, and I think that's wonderful. — Joe Carnahan

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

I like Soderbergh, Spielberg, Lucas. There's a lot of talented guys out there obviously, and if you're a fan of films, you have to look at that stuff and learn from them. — David R. Ellis

All human interaction, you can break it down to incentives. All relationships, at some level, are transactional. They're fascinated with incentives. — Steven Soderbergh

I'm very comfortable with failure. I'm very comfortable being the guy who disappoints people. — Steven Soderbergh

Working with David Cronenberg or Darren Aronofsky or even Steven Soderbergh isn't really like a typical Hollywood movie. These are true artists, and have a certain amount of freedom when they work, and they're more like independent filmmakers making their way through big studios. — Vincent Cassel

The best set was probably 'Bloody Sunday.' We had no money for extras and gambled on months of outreach to persuade the people of Derry to turn out and march for us on one single afternoon. And they did. In their tens of thousands. Seeing them march, their patience and their dignity and their commitment, I knew the movie would have a quality of truth. — Steven Soderbergh

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering. — 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 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

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

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

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

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

You're being mean to someone who's helping you. What is that? Everyone knows who the assholes are, and I avoid them. — 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

A real explosion is not only much more fun to shoot, it also helps the actors and creates an energy on set and ultimately in the scene. — Steven Soderbergh

Once you get an offer from Steven Soderbergh, you just do anything you can to make it fit. — Cate Blanchett

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everything is the director's fault - you can quote me on that. There are no excuses. — 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

Among today's directors I'm of course impressed by Steven Spielberg and Scorsese, and Coppola, even if he seems to have ceased making films, and Steven Soderbergh - they all have something to say, they're passionate, they have an idealistic attitude to the filmmaking process. Soderbergh's Traffic is amazing. Another great couple of examples of the strength of American cinema is American Beauty and Magnolia. — Ingmar Bergman

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

You should never assume anything coming from a critical standpoint. You should go into everything assuming you're going to get crushed. — Steven Soderbergh

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

I wish I could be the black woman Soderbergh, and put the camera on my shoulder and shoot beautifully while I directed. — Ava DuVernay

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

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

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

I love caper films. — 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

Oh, it's the first big thing I've really done. My first job out of college was working with Steven Soderbergh. I was telling my acting teachers, "I did it, you guys!" — Eve Hewson

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

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

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

I come from a generation that was surrounded by popular music, but I don't know if anybody's ever going to move the ball forward as far and as fast as the Beatles did. — Steven Soderbergh

Ego is something that everybody, creative especially, has to grapple with. You need enough ego to keep going but not so much ego that you're deaf or blind, that you're making a mistake and can't fix the course. — Steven Soderbergh

If I'm a director and I read a script and I say yeah I really want to do this, I would never walk away because the deal wasn't very good - that I wasn't getting paid very much or that the chances that I would see anything on the back end were remote because of the financial waterfall and the way it's structured. I would never use that as a reason not to do something. — Steven Soderbergh

The key is, if you're not monkeying around with the script, then everything usually goes pretty well. — 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

Every time you make something that somebody likes, your impulse is to remind them that if you hadn't made some of these other things that they hated, you wouldn't have been able to make the thing that they liked. — 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

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

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

My favorite movies growing up were things like 'The Wizard of Oz,' but as I got older, I really began to admire people like Steven Soderbergh. — Rainey Qualley

I tend to be drawn more to people than pure story ideas. — 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

I'm always a little unnerved when I see a show that's set in the past that implies in any way that things were nicer then. — Steven Soderbergh