Steven Soderbergh Is So Money

In the span of three years, Steven Soderbergh directed the stylish critics' darlings Out of Sight and The Limey, followed by the Oscar darlings Erin Brockovich and Traffic. Now, Mr. sex, lies and videotape rolls the dice with Ocean's 11, a big, fat Vegas heist flick starring such scene-stealers as George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. Will he crap out? Hit the jackpot is more like it.

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Three years ago, after nearly a decade of confounding movie pundits by following the precocious phenomenon sex, lies and videotape--which wowed critics and audiences alike and won the Palme d'Or at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival--with such off-center and commercially disappointing fare as Kafka, King of the Hill, Underneath, Gray's Anatomy and Schizopolis, Steven Soderbergh came roaring back with Out of Sight, a funky-cool crime yarn fueled by palpable sexual chemistry between George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, and The Limey, a stylish, L.A.-set revenge thriller that reinvented '60s screen icon Terence Stamp.

Last year, Soderbergh cemented his position in the pantheon of contemporary filmmaking talent with another double-barreled success: Erin Brockovich and Traffic. Erin Brockovich could have been an exceptionally well-written movie of the week, but instead it prickled with edgy energy and powerhouse performances by Julia Roberts and Albert Finney. Traffic could have been a polemic, but Soderbergh turned a strong script and an unconventional ensemble cast into an enormously human film that raised intriguing questions about America's failed drug war. Each film earned more than $100 million at the box office, and pulled down five Oscar nominations apiece. Soderbergh, nominated for both films, won Best Director for Traffic, and his Brockovich star Roberts took home Best Actress. Suddenly, all over town, it was welcome back, Soderbergh.

Where do you turn when Hollywood gives you carte blanche? Refusing to be pigeonholed, the director opted for Ocean's 11, a big-budget but highly Soderberghian take on the 1960 Las Vegas casino caper which, in place of Rat Pack hipsters Frank, Dean and Sammy, features such contemporary icons of postmodern cool as George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts. The cast alone raises expectation to an almost impossible level, and who isn't curious to see whether Soderbergh can pull off a large-scale escapist-entertainment flick without sacrificing his trippy, outsider, humanistic sensibility?

But before anyone can yell sell-out, he's already shooting a low-budget film titled, appropriately enough considering his refusal to be typecast, The Art of Negotiating a Turn, and come spring, he plans to remake Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 science-fiction masterpiece Solaris. Meanwhile, there's the production entity Section Eight that he runs with George Clooney, and he's also joined one-of-a-kind directors Spike Jonze and David Fincher to create a new production partnership.

STEPHEN REBELLO: When we last talked, when _Traffic _was about to open, you told me that for Oceans 11 you were thinking of casting Luke and Owen Wilson in the roles that eventually went to Casey Affleck and Scott Caan. The press speculated about such others as Bruce Willis, Ralph Fiennes, Johnny Depp, Ewan McGregor and Cameron Diaz. What's true?

STEVEN SODERBERGH: There were a lot of people in the mix. I don't think Cameron's name came up because I wanted Julia from the get-go. We talked for a while to Bruce Willis. Just as on Traffic, you get who you're supposed to get. We talked to Ralph Fiennes to play the heavy, but now I look at the movie and go, "I love Andy Garcia in this. He's not afraid to play the role." And, yes, we talked to the Wilson brothers, but Scott Caan and Casey Affleck kill me. I mean, those two guys were a TV series.

Q: This cast looks so light and easy together that you want to hang out with them.

A: The truth is that they're having a good time, and they're all people who are truly cool to hang out with. But before we started, I said to everyone, "Show up ready to work. If you think you're going to just walk through this, you're mistaken. If anybody gets smug, we're dead."

Q: Clooney and Pitt have great chemistry together.

A: I had this feeling about George and Brad because they have very similar attitudes about themselves and about work. They're unpretentious, they're self-deprecating, they treat people well and never want to appear as the cliché of the self-obsessed "actor." They both like to laugh. They first met when we were doing the final sound mix for Erin Brockovich. We talked about what we were thinking and Brad said, "Sounds like fun. Count me in." Later, I went to Brad's house and he said, "I don't want to rewrite or anything, but I'm trying to figure out the dynamic between my character and George's and I want to float this one idea--that Danny Ocean is the guy with the big plan in his head, the vision, but he's terrible with details. I'm the guy who remembers everything." He talked about wanting to overlap dialogue with George, to know what his character's going to say before he's finished saying it. I said, "Perfect. We can play off that dynamic constantly." His ideas were good and smart. He also came up with the idea that he should be eating all the time, and Brad is like that. He's one of those people who can eat constantly and just look the same.

Q: Jeez, another reason to resent him bitterly. How do you size up Pitt after having worked with him?

A: Like anybody who's worked with him, I've become a huge fan. At some point, it's got to be a burden being the coolest guy on the planet. I mean, we're all looking to him for guidance. But he wears it so well. I have enormous affection and respect for him. He's a really good actor. When you look like that, it's hard to get people to pay attention to what you're actually doing. He's fearless. I don't know anyone else in his position who's taken the chances he has.

Q: There's a funny scene in which the plot requires him to disguise himself as a doctor.

A: That happened right on the set when I said, "I don't know any doctor on call at a casino that looks like you. We've got to do something." Our key hair person said, "I've got the wig Mike Myers uses when he rehearses Austin Powers." There are a lot of people who would not put that thing on, but Brad couldn't get enough of it. He put on the wig and glasses and just disappeared. He kept walking around the casino with them on.

Q: You've worked with George Clooney before, and have now formed a company with him. What's the connection between you guys?

A: I like what he does, and he trusts me, I think. George and I are so alike. We have no patience for drama. We have no interest in people who are not sincere and don't care about what they're doing. That makes it easy to work together.

Q: Is there anything that annoys you about your great-looking, talented, well-liked friend and colleague?

A: [Laughing] When somebody said, "Why are you going into a production partnership with George?" I said, "He's agreed to give me 25 percent of his hairline over the next 18 months." George actually has a descending hairline. He has to shave it back to keep it from growing into his eyes. Unfair? Tell me about it.

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