Steven Soderbergh: Movies for Grown-Ups

Q: Speaking of movies for grown-ups, how did Traffic happen for you?

A: I was talking with a producer friend, Laura Bickford, and I learned she owned the remake rights to the BBC series. I went, "Oh, really? Boy, I think there's a movie there." So we started working on it. When we were reading writing samples to find a screenwriter, we came across something really harrowing and well-written that Steve Gaghan had worked on, about upper-class white kids in high school in Pacific Palisades who were into gangs, and it had a voice that was really clear. The problem was that Steve Gaghan had been working for a year with Ed Zwick on a drug movie.

Q: How far along were they?

A: They were still spitballing and didn't have a plot, a title or a form they wanted it to take. Steve and I got on really well and he finally said, "I can't stand it. The movie you guys have in mind is so like the one I'd like to write." So he went and asked Ed if we might combine the movies into one that Ed would produce. Ed, to his everlasting credit, graciously said, "OK." I don't know if I would have.

Q: Traffic was a huge narrative undertaking, wasn't it?

A: Getting the script into shape was tricky. What Steve and I came up with is three separate narratives. The characters cross, and a couple of them meet.

Q: The script must have been unnerving to look at, because it jumped from one studio to another and from one actor to another.

A: I'd never before been in one of those situations where there was studio hopping and actors were in and out. I'd been lucky--this is what most people go through all the time. It was really scary for me. We weren't green-lit until three weeks before we started. I was funding the prep and people were working for nothing. I just said, "I am not stopping. We are going to start shooting this thing in April if it kills me." You send a message that the train is leaving and you don't let up.

Q: Do you feel that the train almost stopped when Harrison Ford, who was set to star in the movie, backed out?

A: I had great interactions with him. I liked him enormously. The irony is that his notes turned around that role. The part wasn't there. He and I had lengthy, detailed meetings with line-by-line discussions. He had really good ideas, all of which we incorporated and all of which worked. He decided it wasn't what he wanted to do right then, but the time he put into it was invaluable to me. These things work out the way they should.

Q: So you got Michael Douglas--and Catherine Zeta-Jones. How did that work out?

A: Great. I thought it was cool that they were in the movie but not together, because they were both right for the parts and it was a good way for them to start working together. Michael and Catherine are so professional, so unpretentious. They're on time, they're prepared, they know what they're doing.

Q: She was pregnant during the shooting, right?

A: Five, six months, yeah. Not a peep. We were shooting nights. Never any indication of any problem. It's a great part she's got. The only thing I asked of her was that she not employ an accent of any kind, just use her own. I felt it was absolutely appropriate that she could be from somewhere else and have married into some money from La Jolla. I think that really loosened her up, because, say what you want, you ask an actor to do an accent and part of their brain is always working on that. She's the kind of person who would want to do an accent well. She was so loose, so present. I'm thrilled with her performance. At a certain point, you totally forget it's her.

Q: Had you been wowed by her in The Mask of Zorro?

A: I loved her in Zorro. She's really got that "movie star" thing. When we were shooting, I pulled a gag on her. We were shooting at the San Ysidro border crossing with real guards at the booth. She was pulling up in her car and I was in the passenger seat shooting across her. The guard says, "Of what country are you a citizen?" She says, "I'm an American citizen." And then I had him say, "I loved you in Zorro." Because it was a real guy, her synapses were just going "Whomp," and then she looked at me and started laughing because we'd totally set her up.

Q: How did it go with Michael Douglas?

A: I can't imagine him not doing this movie now. He's getting interesting as he's getting older. He's shifted in how he looks at himself. I don't know if he's more comfortable, but I was really impressed. As William Goldman said of him in his new book, there isn't anyone better at playing the flawed contemporary male. He's so good at playing a guy who thinks he's got it all wired and has a blind spot about something right in front of him. The whole movie is about his being put in a circumstance in which he can no longer not see what's in front of him, in which he learns that everything he thought was solid is not. Michael's not only impressive, but fun to hang out with and not concerned about anything but doing a good job and enjoying himself.

Q: Did working with this couple suggest to you why they're together?

A: They're really similar. The two of them together are really fun. Their energy is similar. There's a real joy about them. They're not happy unless everybody else is having a good time. It's not this, "As long as I'm happy, fuck it." They're very inclusive, which I admire.

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