Q&A: Steven Soderbergh goes ‘Full Circle’, talks DVDs, Danny Ocean and ‘Out of Sight’
If you tune in to Steven Soderbergh’s new MAX series “Full Circle,” you might want to put down your phone or tablet and have time to focus. This is not a show you can have in the background.
On Thursday, “Full Circle” debuts with a large ensemble including Claire Danes, Dennis Quaid, Jharrel Jerome and Zazie Beetz. It’s a story about the consequences of a failed kidnapping – planned for revenge – and the secrets that caused it.
“It makes one demand on the viewer, and that is that you pay attention,” says Soderbergh. It’s a story with a lot going on, especially in the first two episodes, but it will take you to a very different place from where you started.
“We were constantly working on the script until we were filming. We worked on the script while we were filming. We worked on the script after we stopped filming and then did some more shooting.”
The situation required the actors to adapt to changes and be fluid, which Soderbergh said the cast could handle, with clear communication.
“If you ask someone to do a scene and then come in and do the scene again and it’s different, you have to be very specific about why.”
The director of ‘Traffic’ and ‘Sex, Lies, & Videotape’ spoke to The Associated Press about various topics related to his career and Hollywood. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.
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AP: The Director’s Guild of America recently avoided a strike by making a deal with producers but the writers are standout and actors could be next. Are you happy with the DGA deal?
SODERBERGH: We got a good deal. I say that, but this is the most complex situation either side has ever faced. I just want everyone to go back to work. That’s the goal. The goal is to get people back to work with fair deals. You have a few players on the other side who are in a business where they don’t have to make real money. And that’s a problem. For Apple and Amazon, the entertainment industry is not their day job, so how much do they care?
AP: You’ve done some reworkings of your work and released them as limited-edition box sets. Do you think DVDs can make a comeback now that content is being removed from streamers?
SODERBERGH: I do not know. It’s a cost issue. Even in the best-case scenario of a movie that’s well-known, successful, and coming out on DVD with extras, the numbers just aren’t great. You go to iTunes and you watch a movie, they have all the stuff that would be on the DVD. For that reason, I rarely buy discs now. I have a drawer hidden where I have one physical copy of everything I’ve done and it goes up to a certain point and then stops.
AP: You are an early adopter of technology in your work, such as filming with an iPhone. Would you ever use AI?
SODERBERGH: As an aid? Certainly. But ultimately there is an immutable limit to what it can do, because it literally has no experience. The input is images and text. Nothing ever happened to it. It doesn’t know what it means to wait – like I did yesterday – 10 hours for your canceled flight to be rescheduled and rebooked. You know what I mean? For example, it doesn’t know what it means to pretend to like a meal someone has made. It has serious limitations as an iterative tool. I find it fascinating. And I think the creative community will figure out the best ways to use it very quickly, but I’m not afraid of it. It’s good for things like, “Show me a creature that’s a combination of an ant and a dolphin.” Cool. Now combine it with a buffalo.” “Show me a car that’s a combination of a Tortoise and a DeLorean.” I did an experiment with it and said, ‘Write something like Harold Pinter. What it came back with made it clear to me, “Oh, you don’t really understand Harold Pinter.” It’s just another piece of tech. Maybe it’s ultimately less transformative than some of the other pieces of technology we’re using in the entertainment industry right now. It’s still early days, but digital image capture technology is and has been seismic. I wonder if this will have so much impact on how people do their work. I don’t know, every time I say this I get attacked for not taking it seriously enough, but I’m not afraid of it.
AP: Do you have the TCM developments with his layoffs?
SODERBERGH: I say this as someone who doesn’t give in to nostalgia, but I think that channel/platform really represents an important part of our visual culture and it would be a great loss if that were to disappear, of course, or be reversed. in something less thought out than it currently is. I hope this latest round of engagements with David Zaslav and Spielberg and Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson is legitimately good news and means that TCM will continue to do what it has done so well for so long. As far as I know, this sparks more interest in TCM just because it’s being talked about. Maybe chaos is a good business scenario. Don’t know. I just hope it’s here for a long time..
AP: Talk about nostalgia. “Out of Sight” was released 25 years ago. How does it feel to have a piece of work that inspires thought pieces on anniversaries?
SODERBERGH: I feel great when that happens. I always wondered when I was younger and I met someone older than me, if it was appropriate or smart to bring up some of their work from back in the day, or whether or not they would feel like, ‘Well , why are you talking about what I just did instead of what I did 25 years ago?’ I love being on the other side. It’s what you hope for. It is what you strive for, which is to make things that are not disposable.
AP: It reminds me of an actor who is still known for a certain role years later. They may not like the association at first, but they usually come to terms with it over time.
SODERBERGH: I don’t know how that feels. If that’s a trap or it feels like a prison for people to just bring up this thing, this character that you played a long time ago that you’ve been trying to transcend. You should ask Pierce Brosnan if he feels that way about James Bond. If he thinks, “Yeah, I’ve done some other stuff too, try that.” He is very kind in every way. I’m sure he’s probably very polite to people, but playing James Bond – that’s like getting a tattoo.
AP: Are you planning to be involved in the prequel “Ocean’s”?
SODERBERGH: No, I let everyone know. ‘ Ocean’s Eight ‘, which I got involved with because (director) Gary Ross, a friend of mine, came to me with an idea that I thought was clever and said, ‘I’m happy to help.’ But after that I have Warner Bros. made clear, you know, ‘Go with God. I have no problem with (another movie).’ How could I have a problem with that when I was someone doing a remake of something that was made before? I just left it all on the field.
AP: Do you think Danny Ocean is alive or really dead?
SODERBERGH: In my universe, I think, he’s actually dead. At the end of the movie you wouldn’t pull the drawer out of that mausoleum and he’s laying there and then he’s making a joke. But it’s the movies, you know, who knows? And he’s a very smart kid and he’s got a lot of money stashed away. We have not seen the body.
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This story has been updated to include the last name spelling of David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, correct.
