"Steven Soderbergh"

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Speaker 1 Okay, guys, we're going to admit what our favorite pasta dish is on three. Ready? Yeah, okay.
One, two, three.

Speaker 1 Chicken Alfredo. Welcome to Smartland.
Smart.

Speaker 1 Let's.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Let's.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Less.

Speaker 1 You seem so stressed out. Why are you so stressed out, Jay? I'm not.
I'm really, I don't know why. I'm tired today.
No one wants to hear about it, though. This is probably the first time.

Speaker 1 Why is it from the golf from the early golf? It's just too much golf.

Speaker 1 You're right. Nobody does want to hear it.
I just asked you why you were tired. I did have an early round.
I shot 77 yesterday, Will. I know you don't care, and you don't want to hear about it, but

Speaker 1 I'm very proud of you.

Speaker 1 I'm happy for you because you have the last couple weeks, and I can say this now that you've shot, you had a good round yesterday. You've had,

Speaker 1 it's been unlike you, and you've had some mediocre rounds, and I know you've been upset, and you've had a few

Speaker 1 grumpier than usual days.

Speaker 1 Thank you for seeing me and hearing me. So I think

Speaker 1 here's what the number 77 in golf means to me. That sounds really high.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 the level, par, normal, is 70 or 72. Yeah.
Okay. Oh my gosh.
So that's if you did everything.

Speaker 1 I've been watching Lord of the Rings. Okay, moving on.

Speaker 1 I'll tell you this. Speaking of Lord of the Rings.

Speaker 1 Are you guys being held hostage somewhere? What's going on?

Speaker 1 I've never seen any of them, but I'll bet they're going to be. Oh, my God.
They're so different. speaking speaking of lord of the rings um

Speaker 1 i uh amanda and i have our anniversary coming up uh i can say this because uh yes she won't uh well no she doesn't listen to these at all i have it in my calendar here amanda does not listen she does not listen so we have it coming up uh in a month or so and i thought uh about getting her a ring uh this this this ring from this jeweler that she likes How many years?

Speaker 1 I haven't bought her any jewelry in a long, long time. And so this is, and I usually don't do it unless it's pre-approved by her.
Because anytime I try to go rogue, I get slammed. Jay, I got you.

Speaker 1 Dude, enough with all the hot romance. It sounds so incredible.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I have somebody if you want somebody. No, no, I got that.
Oh, he's got the person who was approved by Amanda. You might be able to do that.
She's a pre-approved person. I know the person.

Speaker 1 But we share a calendar. We share a calendar, Amanda and I.
And so I had to put a reminder on my calendar to go to this jeweler today.

Speaker 1 And because I'm going to get her a ring, I put as the

Speaker 1 prompt on the calendar as just Lord.

Speaker 1 Oh, Lord of the Rings. For Lord of the Rings.

Speaker 1 Now, our assistant shares a calendar too with us. And I'm waiting for her to say,

Speaker 1 where have you found to worship on Tuesday?

Speaker 1 Why are you worshiping on Tuesday?

Speaker 1 But I couldn't come up with a better prompt in the calendar. No, that's right.
That's my Lord of the Rings. Is that what Lord meant? Lord of the Rings? Yeah, Lord of the Rings.

Speaker 1 So I would remember, oh, go get that ring today. Right.
And did you get it? I don't know. Not yet.
It's after this. I got to be honest.
It's not a great story.

Speaker 1 Well, it's a long story, but I will say this. That's my specialty, bro.

Speaker 1 That it...

Speaker 1 It begs a lot of questions from the other two people with whom you share a calendar, which I think is a mistake. A.
B,

Speaker 1 well, you have an assistant, and if Amanda has a question about your calendar, she could say, hey, can you, how's he look like on this day? Yeah. B.

Speaker 1 But C, by putting Lord, it's, it's begging someone to go to say what's going on. What's going on? And what you should have done is done something like golf lesson.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Or some stupid fucking thing like that. But no, you didn't do that.

Speaker 1 I guess I was so excited that I've tried to tried. What did you get or what kind of ring? Nothing yet.

Speaker 1 Oh, you're going to go pump it out. Yeah, it's one of these vintage goddamn things that you.
I know the lady. How many years, Jay? Yeah.

Speaker 1 20 plus. Wow.
But

Speaker 1 I better find out before we hit 25, because 25 is silver. 25 is when you get like the real rank.

Speaker 1 I'd nail down the day, the number of actual years. Right.
Yeah, before you. You know what I mean? Just in case it comes up.

Speaker 1 I think I heard our

Speaker 1 guest guest laugh. Very guess who's been laughing

Speaker 1 at how foolish we are. I know.
We're wasting his time. I know.
We really are. You know what? I'm stalling because I'm really nervous, actually.
I think that's why I'm tired today. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's so much better when it's not my guest because then I can just hit fuck it and I just roll in completely unprepared and I just get to respond like the ding bad I am. But today,

Speaker 1 there's a hero here today.

Speaker 1 Do we have, I can't wait to hear the, I'm so excited for your intro that you've written because these are my least, sorry, favorite parts about

Speaker 1 you almost said least, Sean.

Speaker 1 It did. But I actually really like them, Jay.
There's thought behind them and they're all

Speaker 1 funny thank you Sean you mean I don't wing it like lazy boy over there or me yeah or you

Speaker 1 all right here he comes

Speaker 1 today our guest might be the person I've most wanted to meet in this nutty biz

Speaker 1 he's a master

Speaker 1 you've never met him I don't if I have I'm going to be really embarrassed I don't think I have I would have remembered but he's going to tell me maybe if he remembers and we didn't sorry I think we I don't I don't think we have he's a master filmmaker and incredibly prolific.

Speaker 1 He made his first movie 35 years ago and has made 35 films since. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Not to mention his many, many projects for the small screen. His films have made over $2 billion and received 14 Academy Award nominations.

Speaker 1 In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Director, and his odds were good because that year he was nominated for two films. He's come a long way from writing music for game shows and holding cue cards.

Speaker 1 He's got a couple of kids, a wife named Jules, and we're born on the same same day, January 14th. Please welcome the one and only Steven Soderberg.
Oh my God. Mr.

Speaker 1 We're born on the same day. Yeah.
Now, see, I track you. You don't track me.
It's all right. Wait a minute.
Yeah. January 14th.
I share a birthday with you, LL Cool J, and Dave Grohl. Whoa.
Okay.

Speaker 1 That's great company. Together again.
It is.

Speaker 1 I would like to see that grouping together. Steven Soderberg, welcome to Smartless.

Speaker 1 That's so cool. Really? It's so nice to meet you.
I'm going to be the most boring person here. How does this work?

Speaker 1 What do I do? We're just going to bullshit.

Speaker 1 Listener, usually,

Speaker 1 we will tell you who are the most boring people. Yeah.
I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
Listener, we're starting with a great Soderberg piece of composition here.

Speaker 1 He's got a frame left or frame right. He's got a spiral staircase cutting up through the ceiling.
It's like a cool shot. And it's a low angle.
We've got a nice palette going.

Speaker 1 stephen it's just you you you never stop being great right this is the bunker

Speaker 1 this is the bunker

Speaker 1 this is the bunker all right now um steven where do we start where do we start with i know because i got

Speaker 1 there's there's a lot

Speaker 1 as he would say 9 000 questions for you or 17 000 questions and for all the listeners i see people always go sean always says i've got 9 000 questions or 17 000 you know what he does so f off

Speaker 1 so steven

Speaker 1 I've often felt like,

Speaker 1 and I feel like I've seen this out there before. So maybe it was informed by that, and maybe it wasn't my original idea.

Speaker 1 But I've often felt like when people talk about independent film, and independent film, the 90s were its real heyday. That was sort of the genesis of the,

Speaker 1 you know, we had the auteurs from the 70s, but then the 90s were like, it was like a whole new movement. And I feel like you were sort of on the cutting edge of that.

Speaker 1 Sexualizing videotape was late 80s. I'm going to say like 80, 89, 89, 89.

Speaker 1 Sexualizing videotape really was the kicking off point for and was the beginning of this sort of golden age of independent film. And you were really,

Speaker 1 really in a lot of ways, the godfather of that. And then you went on to make so many unbelievably incredible films,

Speaker 1 some with bigger budgets, some not. But you've always maintained,

Speaker 1 there's something about the way that you've kind of kept that sort of independent spirit within the framework of the studio system.

Speaker 1 And I don't know if you agree with me or disagree with me, but is that something that was always,

Speaker 1 I don't know, is that something that's part of you, the way that you approach making films?

Speaker 1 It's a terrible question, but I think you know what I'm getting at. Yeah, I think I do.

Speaker 1 I think it comes down to all of the films that I saw that influenced me, that I felt

Speaker 1 were great,

Speaker 1 had a signature.

Speaker 1 They were made by, they felt felt as though they were made by an individual.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 my goal, coming up on the heels of

Speaker 1 what's often called the American new wave that followed the new wave that came from Europe and other parts of the world, that was what made this feel new.

Speaker 1 We knew that there were studio films

Speaker 1 made by certain directors that had a certain signature, but the idea that

Speaker 1 tradition over time,

Speaker 1 on a percentage basis, yielded better movies was not an idea that emerged until this new wave showed up.

Speaker 1 And people like me who wanted to make movies were watching these movies and feeling like there was a difference between something that felt made by a person and something that felt made by a company.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 And that I just felt, well, I want to do that. That's what I want to be a part of.
And I've tried to maintain that and also

Speaker 1 sort of brainwash, you know, other people

Speaker 1 around me and behind me to sign on to that idea.

Speaker 1 Well, not only, but you also did this thing where you, you know, Jason, but I just want to sort of still on this, where you made all these films and a lot of them very, all of them very different from the next.

Speaker 1 And a lot of, I find that a lot of filmmakers have a have a signature style or a thing that they do that makes, you know, but that you have been able to sort of constantly change.

Speaker 1 Not necessarily the way you make films, but certainly tonally, the way that

Speaker 1 you really lean into whatever it is, the film that you're doing, and you make

Speaker 1 to that. They're all very, very different.
And I think

Speaker 1 it's such a testament to

Speaker 1 a lack of originality. No, no, no, no, no.
No, you can't pigeonhole you. You can't pick it up.
No, but that's, that's, I'm a synthesis. I mean, I can tell you that right now.
I'm a synthesis.

Speaker 1 I know the difference between somebody who's a true original and somebody who's a synthesis. I've seen it.
I've met them. I'm a synthesis.

Speaker 1 I don't look at anything I've done and gone, well, I did that first. Like, that's not true.

Speaker 1 What I do and what I like to do is

Speaker 1 see as much as I can see

Speaker 1 and attach to as much as I can attach to that I think is really compelling.

Speaker 1 And then put it in a bucket and, you know, stew it around as I'm envisioning whatever the next thing is and go, oh, okay, I can use that. I can use that.
I can use that.

Speaker 1 I'm going to save those other things. They don't work for this.
I'll kick those down the road. But I'm just taking in anything I think is good.
A shot, a line, a transition, an idea, a font, anything.

Speaker 1 I'm looking for anything. So you don't,

Speaker 1 you kind of already just answered this, but I was going to say, so

Speaker 1 you don't consciously seek out like, I want to do a big, gigantic franchise for a studio because I have dollar signs in my eyes or whatever. You'd rather go for

Speaker 1 idea, for

Speaker 1 whatever speaks to you personally, right? I mean, it's a dumb question, but you kind of just said it, correct? Well, I'm looking potentially through two different lenses.

Speaker 1 If there's nothing immediately in front of me, I'm just watching things to pick up new ideas and new information.

Speaker 1 If there's something then that I focus on, oh, I'm going to do this next,

Speaker 1 Then I start to telescope that toward things that I think have been really good in that space.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because I think what's fascinating is when with somebody like you and your brain is like, I think I'm sure lots of people want, we always ask this of people that are as successful as you is like, we try to get inside of the head and be like, what informs your decisions?

Speaker 1 Because they seem to be always correct. Like that's what's fascinating to me is like finding out

Speaker 1 what where that comes from inside of you rather than this is a great story. I've never seen it.
It's kind of speak to something even deeper than that.

Speaker 1 And I'm always fascinated with people with your track records. It's like, God, if you get it right time after time after time after time, what is that secret sauce?

Speaker 1 I look, if I knew what it was, I would tell you.

Speaker 1 You wouldn't keep it from me. No, no, because I'm honestly,

Speaker 1 I'm the son of a teacher. I'm an open source person.
I don't keep anything that I've learned private,

Speaker 1 even when people wish that I would.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 it is purely a question of taste, which is developed by what you grew up around. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 your

Speaker 1 sort of

Speaker 1 willingness to kind of grind it out to get to the good version of something. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And while doing that, in my view, and this is really important, creating an atmosphere of creativity. You don't do this shit by yourself.

Speaker 1 Creating an environment in which people are thinking about the thing. They're not thinking about you and how you're behaving.
They're thinking about the thing.

Speaker 1 And so you're in this continual sort of conversation about what does the thing want?

Speaker 1 What is the best version of this thing?

Speaker 1 If it's going good, you go with that and it's flowing. When it pushes back at you,

Speaker 1 what's your sort of checklist for why, you know, it's pushing back, why?

Speaker 1 It was going fine, now we've hit a bump.

Speaker 1 What's the, what are the questions I need to ask to get to the solve? Yeah, there's no shortcut to that other than being on the floor. Right, right, right.

Speaker 1 So you very humbly say that you're more of a synthesizer than

Speaker 1 something else.

Speaker 1 But what would you say

Speaker 1 to anybody out there listening that might be thinking about becoming a director and weighing

Speaker 1 the effort of education in that space and taking directing classes or the equal of that, whatever that is?

Speaker 1 Like how much of what you do is technique that you've learned and how much of it is, as you say, just synthesizing different elements that you've observed, liked, and then now you're just executing taste and putting together a combination of all those things and reacting on the fly.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 whenever I'm asked, should I go to film school, or some parent asks, should my child go to film school, my response is that, look,

Speaker 1 if only to be part of a gang, it's worth it. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 I don't think anybody's going to teach. If they're good, they're good.

Speaker 1 And they'll be fine. But you need a gang.
Like you need a group.

Speaker 1 I had it. I just was lucky.
I had it in high school instead of in college.

Speaker 1 So I just got lucky. But we were a gang.
We were a gang of people that wanted to make movies and were making short films, doing everything on everybody's projects.

Speaker 1 And so if that's the only thing you got out of going to film school, that's huge, actually.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I always say that about college. It's like college was more, taught me more about.
It's about socializing. Yes, exactly.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 And we will be right back.

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Speaker 1 And now, back to the show.

Speaker 1 Speaking of a gang, you often work with the same people, or you've worked with the same people a lot,

Speaker 1 two of which

Speaker 1 are past guests on

Speaker 1 this little chat show, George Clooney and Matt Damon.

Speaker 1 Why do you think those two have managed to work so much, given their limited level of talent? Especially Matt. Why

Speaker 1 wiggled through all of that? Matt was very wiggled through. Yeah, and so you're partly to blame for this.

Speaker 1 But why was it that you said yes to them so many times? Do they have stuff on you?

Speaker 1 Or

Speaker 1 what is that?

Speaker 1 It's craven.

Speaker 1 It was funny because in the case of George, you know,

Speaker 1 we met at a time

Speaker 1 where both of us were viewed as kind of question marks.

Speaker 1 It was, we hadn't.

Speaker 1 Was that out of sight? Was that when you guys were pre-out of sight. This is pre-out of sight.
So I've, after sex, after Sex Lies, I've made five things that nobody saw and not a lot of people liked.

Speaker 1 And George was becoming a giant TV star and making movies that

Speaker 1 were doing okay, but for whatever reason, didn't seem to be capturing

Speaker 1 the essence of what makes George George.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 we were both in this kind of weird, you know, transitional space.

Speaker 1 It was a thing that I was

Speaker 1 not front of line. I had to wait for people to pass.

Speaker 1 And I felt like I knew what it was. Like I just felt like I knew what it was.
And I went, George was already attached. And I said, here's what I think it is.

Speaker 1 And they agreed with that and and it was jersey films and George support that got me that job I could not have been colder at that point and

Speaker 1 you know that kind of for both of us just took the narrative in a different direction yeah you know sidebar

Speaker 1 when you go ahead I was just to say uh behind the can allowing sidebars by the way but go ahead as part of our show might be one of your really odds

Speaker 1 but go ahead sidebar

Speaker 1 No, I was going to say, Matt Damon and I were having dinner right before we started shooting behind the candelabra. And he said to me, I'm going to get this wrong, and he's going to kill me.

Speaker 1 But it was something like, Sean, I don't know what to do.

Speaker 1 What do you think about me making out with Michael Douglas in this movie?

Speaker 1 He goes, are people going to be able to lose themselves in my role? I was like, well, of course. He's like, are people going to write about like that part? Something like that.

Speaker 1 And I said, well, of course you guys are both brilliant brilliant actors, but no, the press is definitely going to take photos and

Speaker 1 you know, the stills and gonna say, Matt Damon and Michael Douglas are making out in this movie. Like, there's no, you can't avoid avoid that.
It was so funny, and I'm like, Why are you asking me?

Speaker 1 He was going to ask you, How do I really, how do I kiss a man? Yeah, show me how to. I said, You want to run lines? Like, I asked Bremen.

Speaker 1 Workshop it real quick. Do you? Um

Speaker 1 that was that the that's the end of that. No, that's just my little story.
He was like, No, well, how do I, how do we, how do I avoid

Speaker 1 the press of that? I saw him the day before we started shooting, and he said... He said, I had this terrible dinner with this actor.

Speaker 1 Sean. Sean.
Whose initials are Sean Hayes?

Speaker 1 Whose initials are shh, and that's all I hear from Jason and Will. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And he goes, I...

Speaker 1 I want to be clear about where I should be pitching this.

Speaker 1 And I said, I think tomorrow, when you

Speaker 1 put the whole thing on,

Speaker 1 you'll know exactly what it is.

Speaker 1 If you're an actor, this is why I try desperately to not engage in sort of intellectual conversations

Speaker 1 with an actor about a scene that we're trying.

Speaker 1 It's physical. If the physical stuff's right, it's going to be right.
And so that starts with the wardrobe. It literally does.
Like, what are my shoes? What about like, what? Yeah, because it helps.

Speaker 1 It helps so much.

Speaker 1 Are you happy in what you're wearing? Are you not happy in what you're wearing? Like, it's a part, in fact, I want to make it physical. And I just said, when you put that hair and the

Speaker 1 stuff on, you're going to be that guy. That's right.
Yeah, Jason, do you see yourself arguing with Stephen on set if you're working together? Because he won't intellectualize.

Speaker 1 And I know that you like to grind people to a fine nub with your stupid questions. Do you find as artists? Sorry, let me just start that again.
As an artist. I'm not further from the truth.

Speaker 1 No, that's true. I know, I know, I know.
I'm picking with you. Okay, but let me ask.
Jason, let me ask you some questions. So George,

Speaker 1 George, subsequent to us working together,

Speaker 1 then became a director. Confessions of a dangerous mind.
Great director. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And Matt would be a great director, too. I think so, too.

Speaker 1 He's waited a long time, hasn't he? It's coming.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I will not repeat what George said to me after having directed his first film about actors.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Oh, come on.
You've got to say it. You've got to say it.

Speaker 1 I just said it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I can imagine.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 He just had a very,

Speaker 1 he's like, wow,

Speaker 1 he goes, sounds obvious and... like a cliche, but I have a very, very different

Speaker 1 view now of what happens when somebody comes at me as an actor. Yeah, but yeah.
But Jay, you've said that similarly to me here and outside of here, where you're just like,

Speaker 1 you don't appreciate

Speaker 1 how helpful a helpful actor can be. Oh, dude, you can save yourself until you direct because it's between action and cut, the director is completely helpless.

Speaker 1 You are fully reliant on the operator, the dolly grip, the actor, the boom operator, everybody to not fuck it up and just try to make everything coalesce and be aware that you're dancing with other departments that might not be on camera, but like it's all got to work.

Speaker 1 And if you can kind of keep half an eye on the process and all that, like, so somebody like George or Matt, who both have like the huge, you know, set IQs, they can help while things are rolling.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 George certainly, once he started directing, probably realized that even more but he's but Jay but Jay you said something really smart though like I don't I think it was on here where you were saying something like

Speaker 1 the more

Speaker 1 and I'm looking at my calendar this year.

Speaker 1 Hopefully it's recorded

Speaker 1 You said something

Speaker 1 I share a calendar with Jason's wife

Speaker 1 No, what I was gonna say you said something about like double what it was like working with actors about like you you there's a line where you you'll have these great discussions with them, but you know where to end them because if you engage too long, you reach a point where you're just talking in circles after a while or something like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and ultimately, like, it's not up to you, director. Like, the actor's gonna do what that actor can do, the best they possibly can do it.
And

Speaker 1 I've read, Stephen, that you've said that

Speaker 1 I'm paraphrasing here, obviously, but

Speaker 1 basically

Speaker 1 the spirit of it was you have a very light touch

Speaker 1 because you realize that the best results will come from the atmosphere of comfort and confidence and safety. And you will encourage them.

Speaker 1 I think you said something like, I want to make sure everybody's okay.

Speaker 1 And then you'll keep them all on the rails, as opposed to a more sort of prescriptive version of directing, which is, you know,

Speaker 1 I see you going up on this word and maybe come back down at the end of the line and then sit down over here. Like it happens all the time.
No, but it has to be, there has to be a structure.

Speaker 1 There has to be be a decider. What

Speaker 1 my goal is to just have the process feel like it's evolving organically. But

Speaker 1 it's really a trust issue that

Speaker 1 if it all comes down to when I say, no, that doesn't work, you believe me.

Speaker 1 Right. It's not, I'm not shutting you down for any other reason than I've gamed out all the versions of this with that in it.

Speaker 1 And I'm telling you, it's an or that needs to be extracted, that doesn't fit. That we have

Speaker 1 enough of a relationship because you've usually been spot on.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? When you go like, hey, what if I do, what if this? And I go, yes, that's good, chase that.

Speaker 1 But when I go, no, that doesn't work because of X, that then we move on. And I'm sure

Speaker 1 you carry a lot more credibility than other directors do with some actors because you're actually oftentimes holding the camera and you have written it and you're going to be editing it.

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 1 you got your arms around completely around all the projects that you do in the best way.

Speaker 1 And I'm so envious that you know how to operate and that you know how to edit and know how to write and all that stuff.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was going to ask everybody.

Speaker 1 Well, I was going to ask if I could, Sean, because you've had two sidebars and three questions.

Speaker 1 You derailed the entire thing. Just a sidebar, and now we're on to loose quotes that Jason's got of even, I think you once said.

Speaker 1 Now we're actually in the middle of the morning. I mean, putting words in his mouth, this is just an absolute affront to the man.

Speaker 1 What I wanted to get back to, just

Speaker 1 because you touched on it before, you talked about when you were early on, when you and George got together and you started, and you'd been making some films that nobody knew, that nobody had seen or whatever.

Speaker 1 You're a very,

Speaker 1 as a director, you're very prolific,

Speaker 1 unusually so, I would say, to the extent that not

Speaker 1 two of the better directors, American directors in the last 30 years are you and Todd Field.

Speaker 1 And Todd's made five films. I don't, I call him Todd.
I don't know him.

Speaker 1 He's made five films, and you've made sort of 30. Maybe he's made three.
Maybe he's made three. Is it three? Maybe three.
Yeah. Wow.
In the Bedroom, Little Children, and Tar. That's it.
Is that it?

Speaker 1 Yep. Features.

Speaker 1 I mean, mean, incredible. But a thousand commercials.
Gotcha. That's really the thousand commercials.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 you've made a lot. And again,

Speaker 1 maybe 30 or 25 or something like that.

Speaker 1 But you've both made great movies.

Speaker 1 Is there something to, for you as an artist,

Speaker 1 do you enjoy that process of constantly creating content? Do you need to be constantly creating?

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 1 you don't have to do it. I guess you would just.
Well, you thought about not doing it anymore for a little while, and then

Speaker 1 it was just a hiatus, yeah? Yeah, that was, boy, that was embarrassing.

Speaker 1 You were probably misquoted or overly quoted. No, no, no.

Speaker 1 That was the problem. I was very accurately quoted.

Speaker 1 Look, I'm in the volume business.

Speaker 1 That's just my metabolism.

Speaker 1 There's a big downside to that, which is nothing you do is an event. Ah, interesting.

Speaker 1 But I just, I can't

Speaker 1 let that stop me. I can't.
No, but you still, but you still make that. Well, we'll sort that out later.
But I, I.

Speaker 1 You like doing what you do, so why not keep doing it, right? Yeah. Well, by the way, maybe it's not an event in the sense that

Speaker 1 if you release a film and you've released a film a year before to the extent that like, well, okay, he's got another, but you make a, you're consistently, you make really good films. So

Speaker 1 that's not a strike against you or a knock against you. If anything, I just, I'm just interested in the process that some people like to do, need that to do it more.

Speaker 1 Oh, I look, I would love if people were like, he's Taylor Swift. Right.

Speaker 1 He's the Taylor Swift of cinema. I would love that.

Speaker 1 Nobody is saying that. Just put a wig on.
We are going to say that. There's our tease right there.
There we go.

Speaker 1 That's that is our T's. Wait, I have a dumb, dumb thing to say about contagion.

Speaker 1 Have people in the last 20 years just been like, did you know that when you made contagion, there was going to be COVID?

Speaker 1 Wait, Sean, by the way, so Sean.

Speaker 1 Wait, how are you separating yourself from? That's what you're asking. Yeah, why do you make yourself sound like that? But where was that person from?

Speaker 1 My head.

Speaker 1 What's your hometown, Sean?

Speaker 1 Chicago. Yeah, it was,

Speaker 1 I'll bet you did a ton of research going into that film that

Speaker 1 the past administration could have benefited from.

Speaker 1 Just your pre-production notes, probably.

Speaker 1 You know what? Here,

Speaker 1 there are a couple of things we missed. The big one we missed was that the idea that the Jude Law character in Contagion would be the president.

Speaker 1 Right? That's what we missed.

Speaker 1 We presented him as this sort of note in a larger chord. We didn't imagine a world in which he's the chord.
And so that's the big thing we got wrong. But from a technical level.

Speaker 1 But you weren't out to make a comedy. No, but from a technical level, this is what everybody said.
This is how it's going to start.

Speaker 1 And were you,

Speaker 1 are you a science guy? Were you interested in any of that kind of stuff?

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, I like it.

Speaker 1 The the only reason I ask because I'm going to ask next about Magic Mic. Not that I've seen it.
Well, that's science.

Speaker 1 That's science. I mean, that shit's science.

Speaker 1 Sean, would you like Will and I to just take a 10-minute break? You go through all three of the Magic Mics? Sean,

Speaker 1 Sean wanted to, and Sean's going to be embarrassed to ask you, and he's kind of, he's got a bit of an issue. Because he once said to me, he says, I said, did you see Magic Mike? And he said, yeah.

Speaker 1 And I said, do you like it? And he says, yeah, it was okay. I go, what's wrong? And he said, there were no fucking bears in it

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 it was just slim muscle guys i was like i'm out that's i'm out i'm out

Speaker 1 you know those are so no i i asked about like you know going back to my earlier question from an hour ago which is like what what is what's the criteria for you to choose projects it's like you go from like jason was saying you go from like contagion which is a science crazy movie to remaking the oceans or whatever the order is to strippers magic mic i mean there's it's so so all over the place which is so um incredible it's so it's so uh yeah what's the thing that draws you to stuff is it is it thematics or is it just based on well who brought me the script and or who's the writer or where does it shoot is it any number of things right when i yeah when i saw you directing magic mic was like steve what wait it was so cool though yeah i don't have a i only have one rule

Speaker 1 i don't have a rule in terms of where it comes from doesn't have to be my idea i i'm really agnostic about that the only rule is if it's not not a hell yeah, it's enough. Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I love that. Well, but when you do that, and I mean a hell yeah, I mean, as you know, when you say, yeah, I'm going to direct this, you know what that means.

Speaker 1 And it's, it's, it's, that's rule number one. Like, it has to be a hell yeah.
I would do it for free.

Speaker 1 I would do it for however long it's going to take. You have to be that excited.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Don't do it. Would you ever, would you ever, what about if it was a hell to the Yiza? And and let me ask you

Speaker 1 how would uh i i'm i'm i i'm a a

Speaker 1 young director um uh haven't done a lot but i'm trying out this thing where the nothing about you is young it doesn't need to be a hell yeah

Speaker 1 um as much as just a yeah because basically a double because i feel like i can make it a triple during my work with it during pre-production and maybe even make it a home run during during shooting it and then definitely buy through through post uh through the editing and stuff so like does it need to be like a like a hell yeah at the beginning because you've got so much time with it to make it yours well two things yeah

Speaker 1 i have the luxury of taking that position which is not a small thing now

Speaker 1 that came about through a set of circumstances that were i think pretty unique the how sex lies happened yeah

Speaker 1 where some people really supported me and let me do that the way I wanted to do it yeah and then from that point forward that allowed me to do things the way I wanted them to do I had no contractual power on sex lies I only had the power of persuasion of convincing people I think this is the best version of this and they they agreed.

Speaker 1 And for my sister in Wisconsin, when you say sex lies, it's sex lies and videotape, the big movie from 1922. Do you think that's the tipping point for her?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 She's like, sex lies, sex lies, sex lies. Believe me, she likes to know these things.
She likes to know these things.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So

Speaker 1 then

Speaker 1 I take your point that depending on where you are in your life, in your career, there could be levels of hell yeah.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? Yeah. But I feel like there's at least got to be one.
Yeah. It could be the person that's the lead

Speaker 1 in the thing. And you're like, look, there's some stuff on the edges of this that are really etched in jello, but I love this person.
I've had a great experience with this person before.

Speaker 1 I feel safe. Like, you know, that could be a hell.
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 Can that be a crew member? Can that be a first AD or a anybody? Yeah, I think anybody that it has to be somebody that you feel

Speaker 1 is

Speaker 1 next to you the whole time, no matter how escalated any conversation gets about what this thing should be.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? Like, it's got to be somebody who you're, I'm like, it's not just me, it's them too.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 And back to the show.

Speaker 1 You have such an incredible eye and aesthetic and taste. And it's just you, you, it seems like you really enjoy cinematography.

Speaker 1 It would seem to me like you would really dork out in being able to hire the most incredible cinematographers available, yet you're director of photography on a lot of your own films under a different name.

Speaker 1 Do you sometimes

Speaker 1 want to maybe

Speaker 1 go call Heuter van Heutman? And like, I mean, how do you, I don't know. It's, it's a sacrifice.
I'm trading one thing for another. I'm trading that I'm not as good as them for

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 I'm not bad and the level of intimacy that it gives me with the cast. Sure.
I would trade even if I was bad. Yeah, yeah.
Like, I like that relationship.

Speaker 1 And, and so it would be impossible for me to insert a genius like Emmanuel Lubeski,

Speaker 1 who I worked with in 1994.

Speaker 1 Wow. It was his first job in the U.S.
on an anthology series for Showtime.

Speaker 1 And if you were to watch it now, it's all there. He was fully formed.

Speaker 1 He was Chivo

Speaker 1 right out of the gate. But

Speaker 1 I really need that,

Speaker 1 I need that sense of just us in the room. Right.
It takes away a layer. Once you put another person in there, and again, these are brilliant people, you feel like it removes a,

Speaker 1 it just puts yet another barrier between you and the cast in that way that you've got to constantly run.

Speaker 1 There's an added layer of dialogue that you have to have. with some other person rather than it just being you and the camera and the cast and working, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, and it's, it's not like I'm saying that should be everybody's goal. I'm just, I'm just saying

Speaker 1 this is how I came up. I was hanging out for four years of high school with these college-aspiring filmmakers.
I knew my way around a dark room. I was a photographer for the yearbook.
Like it, it...

Speaker 1 it just was a very organic thing to want to be the nodal point for a series of decisions that constitute directing. Like that was, and it just took me a while to work my way back to that.
But

Speaker 1 I feel like you make really sort of sophisticated films and you don't, and you, you have a lot of, you sort of trust that the audience can meet you there.

Speaker 1 That's one of the things that I really enjoy about your films. I feel like they're like accessible, sophisticated films.
And you're not worried about alienating the audience.

Speaker 1 In fact, I imagine that you have

Speaker 1 And tell me if I'm wrong, but that you've had conversations with studios over the years where they've been worried that your films are thematically or the way that they look or the way that they set up or

Speaker 1 that they're worried that it's not going to connect with the audience. And that I get this feeling from you that it's like, it's okay.
I know what I'm doing. I'm going to make this film.

Speaker 1 Yes, it's going to have a sophisticated elements to it. But I'm going to connect with the audience.

Speaker 1 It does seem like you're always aware that there's a big commercial center of it, that you're giving something to the audience, to the studio, but the execution is always elevated and sophisticated.

Speaker 1 Well, the films that I liked the most were

Speaker 1 both commercial and artful. I mean, that was what the American New Wave did.

Speaker 1 It fused a sort of aesthetic that came from outside of the United States of America, a sort of attention to style and character that people in other parts of the world were doing,

Speaker 1 and then blended it with this very, very American desire to tell a clear narrative. And that it was like the perfect fusion of these two.
That's what I wanted to do.

Speaker 1 So, you know, the things that I feel haven't worked have been the ones that have fallen too far into,

Speaker 1 wow, that would really work if it had subtitles.

Speaker 1 But can you explain style to Jason and Sean? Because they, they, I'm not going to say lack of it, it's just that they're under the.

Speaker 1 I got a smart list t-shirt on. Oh, there there it is.
There it is.

Speaker 1 Well, you did mention that All the President's Men is one of your favorite movies. I was going to say, what's your favorite film of all time? Well,

Speaker 1 that's impossible.

Speaker 1 But I think you ranked them at some point, and All the President's Men was number two.

Speaker 1 Very exciting. Yeah, when I was younger, I used to.
But

Speaker 1 I think, look,

Speaker 1 in the summer of 1975, when I was in St. Petersburg, Florida, visiting my grandparents alone, I saw Jaws.
Now, I was just going to bring that up. Prior to this point, my father was a cinema fanatic.

Speaker 1 He gave me the cinema bug and we watched, he took me the bug, like we all, this was part of our bond. Me too.
But that was the first time after that movie was over.

Speaker 1 Ironically, this perfect piece of entertainment now made me not think of movies as just entertainment anymore. So I had two questions.
What does directed by mean?

Speaker 1 And who is Steven Spielberg? So it turns out, you know, in any store that you walked into, there was a paperback called The Jaws Log that Carl Gottlieb wrote, and it answered both of those questions.

Speaker 1 And I carried this thing around with me and highlighted every section that mentioned Steven Spielberg.

Speaker 1 And then a year later, when we moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where my dad was dean of education at LSU, I fell in with these college film students and got my hands on a camera, and everything started to move.

Speaker 1 Wow. That's amazing.
And if you say both of your names fast, they sound the same. Oh, totally.
I was just going to say, when you were saying, talking about like,

Speaker 1 you know, Americanizing storytelling, I was literally, I swear to God, I was going to say like Jaws. I was going to say that.
But anyway,

Speaker 1 do you still go to the movie theaters now or do you just watch everything at home? No, I do both. I do, yeah.
I still, this is never going to go away.

Speaker 1 It's too fun to see something with a lot of people. Have you seen something out in the movie theaters that you love recently? I think the last thing I saw in a theater,

Speaker 1 and this is only because I've shot three things in a row in the last 12 months.

Speaker 1 Last thing I saw in a theater would have been Top Gun, which just proves that Tom Cruise has saved the movie business.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Right.

Speaker 1 Now, I want to talk about full circle, but before we do,

Speaker 1 first thing that comes to your mind, if I ask you what your favorite part of directing is.

Speaker 1 The surprise that is the result of arranging the elements in the right way that will result in a surprise.

Speaker 1 Typically, something an actor does. And where do you see that surprise? Do you you see it on the first rehearsal? Do you see it on the first take? Or do you see it

Speaker 1 when you put it all together in the editing room? I'm open to any of that.

Speaker 1 If it happens in a rehearsal,

Speaker 1 as long as it happens, we win. So you're open and excited to that which you can't imagine.

Speaker 1 There was a thing, a shot that we did in Logan Lucky where Adam Driver, something's shot out of a tube to Adam, and

Speaker 1 there's some lack of understanding whether the thing that's in his hand could actually blow up and kill all of them. And Daniel Craig is sort of reacting.

Speaker 1 He comes over and takes the thing from Adam and had a reaction on the first hate that

Speaker 1 I ruined the tape.

Speaker 1 Too much laughing? No, I just ruined the tape. Like it was something I didn't see coming.

Speaker 1 Well, how did you ruin it? It's in the movie, but I had to loop his

Speaker 1 vocalization just before he did it and his vocalization just after because I was laughing. Yeah.
But what about, have you? Was the camera shaking too? Because you were laughing? No, thank God.

Speaker 1 It was on a head. It was locked down.
There you go. So I was touching it, but I didn't shake it.
And that's a problem, as you know, that can be solved in post.

Speaker 1 But no, that's that means we all did our job and created this sort of velvet-lined velvet-lined chute that led to somebody going, What if I did this? And you're like,

Speaker 1 that's better. It's better.
How worried are you about AI?

Speaker 1 Well, that's a good question. Sorry, not just for filmmaking, just in general, because I feel too.
No, it's a good question because I think this is at the center of a lot of what's going on right now.

Speaker 1 I can only speak of it as

Speaker 1 a creative person and go, it's an iterative tool.

Speaker 1 It's never going to get you in the end zone. It hasn't experienced anything.
It's, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like, it hasn't experienced anything, even to the point of it can look into your eyes, but it has no eyes. And so therefore, it doesn't know what it means, you know, to be looked at by somebody.

Speaker 1 It's like my mom, right?

Speaker 1 That's what I was saying.

Speaker 1 And I think what you're describing potentially is what I've just sort of

Speaker 1 used the blanket term of quirk. It doesn't have the advantage of possessing any quirk because it hasn't had any experience.
Nothing's happened to it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But Jason, I think to your point, to me, it's just an iterative tool. There's that

Speaker 1 perfect explanation of how to solve things from the Ed Catmull book about Pixar Creativity Inc.,

Speaker 1 where the motto is, be wrong as fast as you can. So

Speaker 1 this is a tool to just, what I tell people all the time is just get to the end. If this helps people get to the end of something, fine.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Tell us about Full Circle. And I watched the first episode.
It is typically and predictably fantastic. Another piece of great work from you.

Speaker 1 It's by design somewhat cryptic at the beginning. And I'm imagining the future episodes, things start to slot into place.

Speaker 1 So without giving away any of those satisfying things,

Speaker 1 what is the theme? It is a kidnapping that goes wrong,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 is there a thematic there at work that you'd like to play with often or not?

Speaker 1 Oh, sure. I mean, you know, buried things never stay buried.
Yeah. I mean, that's what this is about.
And

Speaker 1 in this instance,

Speaker 1 you know, it had been buried for long enough that people had literally forgotten about it. And so it's kind of a rude awakening.
And you can run, but you can't hide, kind of. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's absolutely privileged, torture, porn.

Speaker 1 I'm a big fan of that genre.

Speaker 1 I think Ed Solomon found a really interesting

Speaker 1 take on that. And so, you know, I've got to.
And I love that non-linear storytelling

Speaker 1 and different perspectives. I can't wait to be surprised how they come together and braid at some point.
Well, first of all. You do that so well.
I don't know anything about it, Stephen.

Speaker 1 And I'm a big fan of Ed Salomon. Obviously, he wrote Bill and Ted's and Men in Black.

Speaker 1 Another guy is very prolific and done a lot of stuff that's very thematically different from the next. One that's a good thing.
And a bunch of stuff with you, Stephen, yeah.

Speaker 1 And a bunch of stuff with you, which is such a great pairing now that I think about it. Of course, you guys are both just clearly interested.

Speaker 1 Not interesting people. I'm sure you're both very interesting as well, but you're also very interested,

Speaker 1 which is great.

Speaker 1 What is Full Circle? Because I know nothing about it. It's a show that's coming on Max.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's a gigantic sort of New York

Speaker 1 Sydney Lumet style melodrama. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 There's a crime in the center of it that sort of takes you all over the city.

Speaker 1 And like I said, it's about karma. It's about something that somebody, you know, took a part in 20 years ago, forgot about it, and now it's come back.
It's grown roots and

Speaker 1 branches, and now they have to deal with it. And that's the kind of

Speaker 1 thing that I like. I like.
It was fun to make a real New York

Speaker 1 piece. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Seemed like there's a lot of night work in that, Stephen. There was a a lot of night work.

Speaker 1 If I were the studios, if I were the studios negotiating, I would give up almost everything to say, like,

Speaker 1 5%

Speaker 1 night work.

Speaker 1 No more. Yeah,

Speaker 1 we're just, we just hate it. Yeah, yeah.
Now,

Speaker 1 a little talk about sidebars, side job here for you.

Speaker 1 Signani 63 is a beverage. Are you getting into the

Speaker 1 beverage business a little bit?

Speaker 1 Yeah, Singani is a

Speaker 1 spirit

Speaker 1 from Bolivia. This is booze, guys.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's booze. It's hard stuff.

Speaker 1 Anyway, I'm going to do this really quickly. When we were making Che,

Speaker 1 our Bolivian casting director gave me a bottle as a gift. It had never been out of Bolivia.
It's the national spirit of Bolivia.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it's made from the white muscat of Alexandria grape, which is a white grape. It's grown and distilled in this one 20,000-acre area of southern Bolivia.
It's 6,000 feet.

Speaker 1 So it's a very, very, it's hard to make. And I got this stuff and I loved it.
And for the next six months, while we were shooting, I created a mule train so that we could all drink it.

Speaker 1 At the end of that, some people pressured me to bring this to America, which I did in 2014.

Speaker 1 In February of this year, the

Speaker 1 Tax and Tariff Bureau, which is part of the Treasury Department and FDA and ATF, gave Singhani its own category. This is something they don't do often.
It's something they don't like to do.

Speaker 1 But they did it because it's a unique spirit. And this solved one problem when I was doing my Willie Lohman act, taking bottles around in a backpack and going, hey, what do you think?

Speaker 1 Not a great look.

Speaker 1 It legitimizes that when people would go, well, what is it like? And I would go, well, it's not actually like anything. And now finally that's been legitimized.
But it's,

Speaker 1 let's just end with, do not

Speaker 1 go into the booze business. Sure.
Don't. Don't do it.

Speaker 1 That's not what Clooney said. Yeah, or Ryan Reynolds.
Don't do it. No, no, no.

Speaker 1 He knows how angry I am. I've told him.
It's funny because I did some, it was quite more profitable. I did some Euling out of Oblivia myself, but it was a different.

Speaker 1 Jesus.

Speaker 1 Stephen, it's such an honor to meet you. I've wanted to meet you forever, and I'm

Speaker 1 a big fan of all your movies.

Speaker 1 We so appreciate you

Speaker 1 spending some time with us. Sure, do you so happy to meet you finally? I'm going to hook up to this at the same time next week if you guys are here.

Speaker 1 Sadly, we'll be in the same scene. I want want to see you cascade down that, uh, down that staircase.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 Can't wait to meet you in person one day. And have a great rest of your day, Stephen.
Thank you for coming. Thanks.
Thank you, pal. All right.
Bye, pal.

Speaker 1 There you have Steven Soderbergh. That was a nice surprise, Jason Bateman.
This man.

Speaker 1 How'd you get that? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't, you know, I've got my ways. No, don't tell us.

Speaker 1 My God,

Speaker 1 I am very surprised. I've never, have you guys ever run into him? No, I've never run into him.
Never, never, not once.

Speaker 1 He's not a man about town. I don't think that's a good thing.
No, and I will say, I meant it too.

Speaker 1 I really admire how prolific he's been. I love the idea that he just takes so many, not just a lot of shots, so many different kinds of shots.
Like Aaron Brockovich.

Speaker 1 Aaron Brockovich on our site, sex magic and YouTube, traffic, just like Magic Might, all of those things, all by the same guy. But what about that? Not since 1938 or 39, I think it was, had a director

Speaker 1 been nominated for two films in the same year.

Speaker 1 He was nominated for Aaron Brockovich and Traffic.

Speaker 1 Best Director. And so he had two slots in the five.

Speaker 1 That's incredible. That's bananas.
That is bananas. It is bananas.
How quickly, Sean, did you go

Speaker 1 opening day to Full Frontal when that came out?

Speaker 1 That was the next year. That was the next year he did Full Frontal.
I pre-ordered tickets for that. Yeah.
Yeah. Hey, by the way, you know what I just learned yesterday, guys? Tell us, Sean.
Sean.

Speaker 1 This should be good. In Hawaii,

Speaker 1 did you know it's against

Speaker 1 pineapples? No, no,

Speaker 1 no, listen to the whole thing. In Hawaii, it's against the law to laugh really hard out loud in public.
Did you know that? That's a problem.

Speaker 1 You have to keep it to a low ha.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 man.

Speaker 1 And I would just also like to say.

Speaker 1 so i also like a lot out of me just then

Speaker 1 i would also like to say i love when i see you guys because we don't see each other and whenever we get together and we talk for a really long time you know it's like time flies

Speaker 1 bye

Speaker 1 oh will did not like that one

Speaker 1 They're just getting lazier. You're just kind of

Speaker 1 talking about time flies by is a good one. I'm just putting in a father joke, too? A dad joke? I just heard it yesterday.
I thought

Speaker 1 it was really good. His signature is just a bad joke, and then he tries to shoehorn in a buy.

Speaker 1 It's so.

Speaker 1 That was a good one. We've never used Time Flies By.

Speaker 1 No. Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart.

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Speaker 1 Smart, less.

Speaker 1 This episode was recorded on May 30th.

Speaker 3 This is a real good story about Drew, a real United Airlines customer.

Speaker 4 After almost four years of treatments, I was finally cancer-free. My mom's like, where do you want to go to celebrate? I'm like, let's go somewhere tropical.

Speaker 4 And then Pilot hopped on the intercom and started talking about me. And I was like, what is going on here?

Speaker 1 My wife beat cancer too and I wanted to celebrate his special moment.

Speaker 3 That's Bill, a real United pilot.

Speaker 1 We brought him drinks and donuts. We all signed a card.

Speaker 4 I was smiling ear to ear. Best flight ever for sure.

Speaker 1 That's how good leads the way.

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