With last spring's Erin Brockovich and the new Michael Douglas/Catherine Zeta-Jones film Traffic, former wunderkind director Steven Soderbergh has delivered on the promise of sex, lies, & videotape.
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Watching the roller-coaster career of Steven Soderbergh could give anyone a contact high. In 1989, at 26, he stormed the moviemaking world with his knowing, comically unsettling film sex, lies, & videotape, a writing/directing debut so original and self-assured the filmmaking community awarded him prizes at Cannes and gave him a screenwriting Oscar nomination. Hollywood, noting the winning combination of idiosyncratic vision and box-office popularity, eagerly awaited his next move. But Soderbergh's follow-up effort, Kafka, seemed self-consciously showy and obtuse. His third film, King of the Hill, was heartfelt and touchingly acted, but it too failed to find an audience. Then things got stranger.
In 1994, he tried his hand unsuccessfully at low-key film noir (Underneath), and in 1996 filmed a stage work by monologuist Spalding Gray, Gray's Anatomy. Those efforts were followed by Schizopolis, a surreal, satirical film he wrote, directed and starred in. Then Soderbergh suddenly emerged from his experimental period with Out of Sight, a slyly funky melodrama adapted from an Elmore Leonard novel. Pairing George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez to unmistakably sexual effect, Soderbergh gave the film a cool, improvisational edge and reminded mainstream Hollywood that he was someone to reckon with. The next year, The Limey, a smart, stylish revenge thriller, underlined his point. With Erin Brockovich, though, Soderbergh showed the Industry what they really wanted to see--the ability to take a star like Julia Roberts and connect her squarely with the ticket-buying masses. He rocketed to the A-list. Now he's about to unleash Traffic, a tough-minded, complicated drama in which Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Benicio Del Toro play out three interwoven tales of the nation's failed war on drugs. With the movie already garnering Oscar talk, Soderbergh is moving on to his next film, a head-to-toe redo of the 1960 Rat Pack heist movie Ocean's 11, which will star George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.
STEPHEN REBELLO: With the critical acclaim for Out of Sight and The Limey, the huge success of Erin Brockovich and the buzz on your new film Traffic, you're hot in a way you haven't been since sex, lies, & videotape. Did all the acclaim you got 11 years ago for sex, lies have anything to do with the long stretch of time in between hot streaks? STEVEN SODERBERGH: Let's face it, I coasted on the early success for quite a while. When you come out of the gate like that and see all the possibilities, it takes a while to narrow things down to what you ought to be doing. The good part about having your first film go over is that people want to believe it's going to happen again, so they're willing to gamble. I was lucky to be able to keep finding people like that.
Q: Didn't a lot of people assume that before Erin Brockovich, even with a big studio project like Out of Sight, you were only making the movies you wanted to make?
A: I hadn't given any indication that I wanted to do anything else, although I was approached for other, "bigger" movies.
Q: Like what?
A: I hate when people say, "Oh, I got sent that," but I was approached very early for American Beauty, as were a lot of other people. I didn't know what to do with it. I remember telling them, "The script is great. Somebody great is going to make it, but I'm just not there." When I read Being John Malkovich, Spike Jonze already had it, and I liked that script so much I had a moment of, "Can I hire somebody to kill him so that, after a proper period of mourning, I could just slip in there?" Both Sam--yeah, Sam [laughing], like he's a friend of mine-- Sam Mendes and Spike-- who I know, but who's not a friend of mine, either--made better films than what I would have come up with.
Q: Your conclusion, then?
A: [Laughing] The right people did those films. And part of the reason I got the job to direct Out of Sight was that I was convinced I was absolutely the right person to make it. I thought, "I'll go up in a 'Celebrity Deathmatch' against any director in town on this, because I know exactly what to do with it."
Q: You get a lot of credit for helping George Clooney become a movie star in Out of Sight.
A: It was obvious to me he was a movie star from the first time I saw him on "ER." He was on the project when I got there.
Q: That movie had a sexual tension and sense of fun that harked back to, say, Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest. Does chemistry like Clooney and Lopez's just happen?
A: I think of the early seduction scenes from North by Northwest all the time. I can almost recite the lines verbatim. It's the standard of sophisticated flirting. When Cary Grant says, "I'm beginning to think I'm underpaid," that's Ernest Lehman hitting them out of deep left center every 30 seconds. On Out of Sight we had a lot of really good actresses come in to read with George. He was good with the other people, but he was better, different with Jennifer. That's when it took hold. I liked the way they looked together. When I think about a movie, I don't see shots. I see faces with certain emotions on them. Those faces spoke to me.
Q: Julia Roberts's face and star quality aside, did you have the slightest doubt about her acting when you began Erin Brockovich?
A: There was no question in my mind that she had the chops. Oh, man, I'd put her up against anybody. I've worked with some world-class actors and she's as gifted as anybody. Thank God I got Albert Finney, because I needed somebody she couldn't blow off the screen. The two of them together were so much fun, personally and professionally. In fact, Erin Brockovich was so smooth from beginning to end that it was embarrassing. As it was getting ready to come out, I was looking over my shoulder, because I just thought, "It can't be this simple." Traffic made up for it [laughing].
Q: So I hear. We'll get to that. Everyone said that you and Julia Roberts were a real match.
A: We were both ready. I took most of the people from The Limey right onto that film, so it didn't feel like a big crew. We don't work like you see big movies work. I'm operating the camera and we work very quickly. The feedback is instantaneous because I'm right behind the lens and usually very close to you. I don't make the long walk across the set. You know exactly who you have to work for and you know that I'm all over it. Boy, did she respond to that. She's like me. She's all instinct. Clearly, she has a process but she's smart enough not to sit around trying to deconstruct something that so obviously works for her. You don't fuck with what works. She doesn't call attention to it and I don't.
Q: The movie has such an ease, a professionalism--like nobody broke a sweat doing good work.
A: I was happy and proud of Erin because the kind of director I needed to be to best serve that material was different from the director I'd been on other movies. I stepped back. I had as tight a grip, but it was a different sort of control. Less overtly stylish. The movie is about her. Anything I did to distract from that was going to be a mistake. That required a certain kind of discipline. Not an anti-style, but a stripping away of style in order to keep audiences emotionally where you wanted them to be. Neither Out of Sight nor Erin is what you have in mind when you're thinking "blockbuster." They're not sequels, there's no merchandising, there's no hit song, no video--all the things you want in your movie if you're a studio. They're 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.
Q: Benicio Del Toro is another of your major players. One hears he can be a tough customer.
A: I can see how in certain circumstances Benicio could be unhappy. He's extremely bright and has lots of ideas, the lion's share of which are really good. We'd meet every few weeks for a few hours, and a lot of it was, "Wouldn't it be more interesting if... ?" He had a huge influence on the story being much more emotional, more interesting and truer to the culture the character sprang from. For some people, spending time like that would be profoundly irritating. Not to me. I'll do that all day. He was totally there and "on." Man, he has so much to contribute, you'd be a moron not to take advantage of it. I can't help but be infatuated by somebody who cares that much.
Q: Does that reflect your basic approach to working with actors?
A: What I always want to do is find the best version of them. It's not that I want to glamorize them, it's just that I'm pretty good at minimizing whatever weaknesses they have. My gut instinct about that is pretty good, from how to pitch a performance tonally to how to frame, light and cut them. That's my job.
Q: Why don't more directors see it that way?
A: A lot of directors don't like actors. They don't want to talk to them, don't know how to talk to them. Some directors who work that way make good films. But I'm very impressed by what actors do. You cannot describe the kind of exposure that standing in front of a camera with a crew around means. There's no control and the rejection is very personal. I'm very sympathetic toward actors because I have a sense of what that's like. Naked doesn't begin to describe it. I have enormous respect for people who want to do it, and for people who do it well. It's a career I wouldn't wish on a lot of people--the worst.
Q: What's the stance of the movie on America's drug war?
A: Traffic is not a screed. It doesn't have an agenda. Hopefully, after watching these three stories lead to outcomes that seem inevitable, given the way the drug war is being fought, people might ask, "Is there anything else, or is there something different we could be doing?" I've been interested in this a long time, because I think it's one of the social issues that touches everyone's life.
Q: You shot Traffic yourself, right?
A: Yes. I shot my short films and I shot Schizopolis, and I've had very good directors of photography throughout my career that I've watched closely--probably too closely for them. When Traffic was taking shape, I thought it was time for me to make the leap if I was ever going to do so. Since it was three different stories, I wanted to use a different look for each section, and I knew I'd have trouble talking a d.p. into doing that. It's tough to do and they know their friends are going to see it. I don't have any friends [laughs].
Q: You're not editing this one, too, are you?
A: King of the Hill was the last movie I cut myself. I made some really bad calls in the last week of postproduction on that film. I was just worn out. I resolved, "No more cutting yourself unless you're doing something ultra-low-budget."
Q: You said earlier that this movie made up for how relatively easily Erin Brockovich went. What exactly did you mean?
A: It was a relentless shoot. It was 54 days, not a long schedule for a 165-page script with 130 speaking parts, nine cities, 110 locations. More than any other film, it was hard for me to have a sense of how the whole thing would play. I shot more footage than ever, but I was doing such little pieces all the time. It wasn't until a couple of weeks into editing that I started to feel, OK, I think this will at least succeed on the terms that I set up for myself. That was longer for me than normal, because there was just so much of it. Once we found it, things happened very quickly.
Q: So you're completing one movie while preparing the next, just like the old studio days in Hollywood.
A: I'm not good with vacations. I like to work so much that it's just not like work. I work nine to six and I don't go into overtime often on shoots. I resolved after King of the Hill that I would not do this 16-hour day shit. That's how people drive into telephone poles, creatively speaking.
Q: Remaking the Rat Pack caper movie of 1960, Ocean's 11, sounds like a departure from what you've just been through.
A: Yes, I'm ready for the dolly-and-crane world again--the more controlled visual approach of some of my earlier films married with an attitude that is loose, funky and casual. I love heist movies, and this Ocean's 11 has been totally rethought. It's basically the premise of the original, but that's it. The script was insanely entertaining, with an amazing heist and great characters. I told [producer] Jerry Weintraub, "I want to make it because I want to see it. I'd be first in line." Oceans 11 came about because Lorenzo Di Bonaventura called from Warner Bros. on a point related to the producing deal that George Clooney and I are doing, and then said, "Can I send you something?" And I said, "Look, if I get on with you guys, I'm sure I'll make a movie at Warners." When he told me he wanted to send me the Ocean's 11 script, I immediately said, "A great fucking idea to remake that." There was a good idea in the middle of that movie, which ought to have been a good movie but isn't. George and I read it simultaneously, and I told Lorenzo the next morning, "It's great. I have to call some people and do some shuffling."
Q: Besides grooving to the caper aspect, what else about it hooked you?
A: It scared me. There has to be a pocket of fear that keeps you alert, some little thing that keeps you going, "I'm pretty sure I can do this, but not totally sure." That keeps you lively. Some of this project requires a kind of filmmaking that, say, David Fincher or John McTiernan is better at shooting. Fincher's visual sense is insanely well-developed. Spielberg, too, when he's making those kinds of films. It's a different way of thinking. You'll notice in the films of people who do it well that, no matter how fast they cut, you always know where you are. It's a combination of movement and composition. I'm going to figure that out. My plan is to train myself by watching, documenting and analyzing certain sequences from those directors' films. Then I plan to come up with a hybrid style that still has my kind of casual approach to performance but is married to a very fluid and three-dimensional shooting style.
Q: Are you into Vegas?
A: The Vegas aesthetic is not mine. You could sit me in a casino for 12 hours and I'd read a book. I'm not inherently a very addictive personality and gambling just holds no appeal to me. I don't want to go to the strip club, either. But it sure is a city that can play well in a film if it's done right, if it's not the tour bus version of Vegas, but more like your experience of being there.
Q: Are you seeing this one in terms of faces, as you said earlier of Out of Sight?
A: I'm going to have great faces in this movie--George, Brad Pitt, Julia are absolutely nailed down. The other roles are still evolving and I would never ask of an actor, "I know it's not on the page. Will you do your deal anyway?" That's how you get very unhappy actors. The moments I'm seeing aren't the blowing up of a safe; they're when somebody comes through a door and goes, "We're fucked. We can't do it." That happens every 15 pages in the script, and the heist itself is 40 pages long. [Screenwriter] Ted Griffin and I want to be one step ahead, but not two steps ahead, where audiences just go, "Hey, fuck you for being too clever."
Q: The Hollywood perception of you right now is that you're at the top of your game. How does that sit with you?
A: [Laughing] It's a small game. I just feel very light on my feet right now. I feel able to be busy. But I still haven't made what I feel is an unequivocally great movie. I've not made Spirit of the Beehive, a movie that is just so shatteringly great, it kills you, or The Decalogue, the Apu trilogy or The Earrings of Madame de.... I've been watching all of Ophuls, which, are brilliant, heartbreaking, cruel and without question, the dirtiest movies ever made. All they do is fuck or talk about fucking. I'm embarrassed to say I'm watching some of these films for the first time. I don't know if in America we can make, for lack of a better word, profound works of cinema art. The culture doesn't think that way and doesn't support it.
Q: Since you seem to be on a work binge, any ideas beginning to form of what might come after Ocean's 11?
A: It took me a long time to get the rights to the John Barth novel The Sot-Weed Factor. I'm slowly starting to break down the book--which is a fucking doorstep--and it's hilarious. It's tricky, but I'm convinced it can be made into a good film. It will be a long process.
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Stephen Rebello interviewed Taylor Hackford for the November issue of Movieline.