Steven Soderbergh quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Steven Soderbergh

Steven Soderbergh Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Steven Soderbergh on Wise Famous Quotes.

When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead.

I'm not going to spend two years of my life on something that I'm not excited about.

In Full Frontal and K Street, I learned to take advantage of the mobility that digital provides.

Never done an explosion, but I have had explosive diarrhea, and that was very, very real. Good thing I have my trailer.

If you're sitting around thinking what other people think about your work, you'll just become paralysed.

A movie is something you see, cinema is something that's made.

I always have a plan, but then I'm always ready to throw the plan out, and everyone's ready to make a radical left turn if necessary.

In the land of ideas, you are always renting.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

The brief flashbacks are sun-kissed, summery and optimistic. It's the only place in the movie you will see red, yellow, orange, or any vibrant colors.

Jude [Law] is really good at playing an obsessive. He has a very watchable quality when he's on a quest for something.

If you're a painter and you want people to know who you are and recognize your work, you've got to build some long-term value.

You're supposed to expand your mind to fit the art, you're not supposed to chop the art down to fit your mind.

I had more fun making Traffic than either of the Ocean's films.

Maybe I'll paint, do photography, just something else. I can see that.

We [people] are a species that's wired to tell stories. We need stories. It's how we make sense of things. It's how we learn.

Nobody's talking about movies the way they're talking about their favorite TV shows.

You should never assume anything coming from a critical standpoint. You should go into everything assuming you're going to get crushed.

Usually I'm thinking about the palette. I'm thinking about the color for the most part, then I'll start thinking about composition and movement.

I'm a big believer that if there's something you really want to do, don't walk away because of the deal.

My first three movies, I didn't start editing until we were finished shooting. That's unthinkable to me now.

I think there are only two times that I've ever ended up paying somebody their quote. Like what they actually were worth in the marketplace.

Castro, without question, is one of the smartest politicians that's ever walked.

A movie that costs only $1.6 million doesn't have to be a cultural event to turn a profit.

Everything is the director's fault - you can quote me on that. There are no excuses.

The art model of problem solving is incredibly efficient because ideology has no place there.There's only the thing and what the thing needs to be.

When things go right it's hard to figure out why, but when things go wrong it's really easy.

People are sort of numb to watching violence, but sexual activity is still as strong as it ever was in terms of generating response.

I don't consider myself to be particularly gifted in the way that other filmmakers are gifted.

I love caper films.

When you're sent something and read it, either you can see it while you read it, or you can't.

Reality shows are all the rage on TV at the moment, but that's not reality, it's just another aesthetic form of fiction.

We all get outraged by things and there are things that make us angry and maybe for a while we get angry enough to actually go do something about it.

I'm still very affected and moved by their music - maybe in a way that's different from someone who grew up around it.

I suppose I could try to be some avant-garde artist if I wanted to, but that doesn't interest me as much.

Making a film that's supposed to be fun to watch is really hard - that's the weird irony of it.

Your take on things is what is either going to make you somebody people talk about or no.

A real explosion is not only much more fun to shoot, it also helps the actors and creates an energy on set and ultimately in the scene.

I recently decided that I'm not an originator. I'm a synthesist.

You can't get good at anything unless you do it day in and day out, over and over.

The ought to be a worldwide cultural taskforce that just stops you when you have ideas like combining The Red Desert with an armored car heist movie.

I like a lot of different kinds of movies, I like a lot of different kinds of paintings.

My father, who was the one who really got me hooked on movies, liked all kinds of films, and I saw all kinds of films at a very young age.

I like to make all kinds of movies. I'd do 'Ocean's Thirteen' with the right script.

I stopped reading reviews about my own movies. I read stuff about other people's movies.

In nature, if a cell gets too big, it divides. You can't come up with a set of rules that's going to work for 350 million people. You're just not.

Another thing that really excites me: I'd like to do multiple versions of the same film.

I tend to be drawn more to people than pure story ideas.

But my sense in talking to people when I travel is that the film business is not that dissimilar from a lot of other businesses.

All human interaction, you can break it down to incentives. All relationships, at some level, are transactional. They're fascinated with incentives.

What are the stories you want people to tell about you?

"A meteor hits planet Earth" - that's a story idea but that doesn't give me any indication of what the character is.

I have a friend whose theory is that you're from wherever you went to high school. I think that's mostly true.

Never had a cup of coffee in my life. Dr Pepper is my caffeine delivery system of choice.

My working life is me doing what I want to do. This is that. I've made movies that people don't go to see.

The traditional models for success are just also disappearing.

I'm probably more character-driven than plot-driven. It's rare for me to attach myself to an idea for a story.

That's why my attitude, even on my larger-scale movies, is to make them cheap. The less these things cost, the better for everybody.

It's become absolutely horrible the way the people with the money decide they can fart in the kitchen.

I'm a grinder. I'll beat you because I will not sleep.

Anytime you've got something that can take you into the political realm then you've opened up the conversation a lot.

Truth and facts have to trump partisanship. There has to be something that's true regardless of what your angle is on it.

I find myself in situations a lot where I have to say to someone, "This can be better," and it's hard to say that.

The key is, if you're not monkeying around with the script, then everything usually goes pretty well.

There's a difference between failures and things that are bad.

You're being mean to someone who's helping you. What is that? Everyone knows who the assholes are, and I avoid them.

It's a weird thing to say, but it would appear to me axiomatic that if you understood fully what I was doing and appreciated it, you would like it.

I'm always a little unnerved when I see a show that's set in the past that implies in any way that things were nicer then.

To me the director's job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.

The key is, how do you feel with the one asshole? They cannot be talked to. That's why they are assholes.

People like Chris Nolan are shooting isolated sequences in IMAX. Those cameras are the size of a Volkswagen.

I'm very comfortable with failure. I'm very comfortable being the guy who disappoints people.

I make every movie like it's the last one. "If this was the last movie, what decision would I make?" That's how I make my decisions.

I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.

I'm not a snob. If I feel like there's a star that's the best person for that role, then that's who I get.