Steven Soderbergh Quotes

I like to know where I am. I don't like the kind of cutting where you don't know where you are.

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

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

Men tend to define themselves by what they do, and so if you're dealing with a character who's trying to figure that out, or multiple characters, then there's something there for guys, too.

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

I'm obviously really opinionated, but as a producer, you don't necessarily want the person you're working with to try to impress you - you want them to just be themselves.

I want to form a political party that's based entirely on what music people listen to. To me, it's a much better barometer of what they think and feel than their political stance.

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

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

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

It's a world in which people's motives are questionable and shadowy.

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

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

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

[I watch] Fincher, Spielberg, Cameron, McTiernan. Just people who are good at staging action. I like to know where I am. I don't like the kind of cutting where you don't know where you are.

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

There's definitely a way of thinking and a way of being in the South that has its advantages and disadvantages.

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.

The muscle memory of filtering away all the wrong versions of what you're doing improves the more time you're on a film set. I feel like my problem-solving algorithm got kicked up a notch.

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

There's a technical reason why I think that frame rate is weird and it has to with your brain's ability to scan beyond a certain rate. The point is I find it looks weird.

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

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

I think about art a lot only in two contexts. One is narrative... The other thing that I'm interested in, which is tangential, but not unrelated... All art to me is about problem solving.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

It's pretty clear to me that working as a director for hire agrees with me. I like it. The films that have come out of that, I personally like better than the ones that didn't.

I don't have any kind of ideology that precludes me from moving in one direction or another. I just want creative autonomy and I want at least an opportunity that it's going to be seen.

I'm sure some people will say, 'Why do this?' And my response is, 'Why wouldn't you?' The film business in general is using a model that is outdated and, worse than that, inefficient.

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.

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

Reality shows are all the rage on TV at the moment, but thats not reality, its just another aesthetic form of fiction.

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

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

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

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.

I've found through experience that I'm only good when I'm writing something that, in essence, only I could write. The times I've written for hire, for other people, I don't think I've done very well.

There's a big difference between a movie about relationships and a movie in which people talk about relationships. It seems like a lot of people have confused the two.

The traditional models for success are just also disappearing.

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.

I think the feeling that we're going to work together again usually starts to come up before the first project's even done. The Black Keys and I have already talked about starting on something new.

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.

Sometimes I might feel like [a movie] is kind of a weird idea and if I'm going to get enough money to execute it properly I've got to get somebody in it that is going to justify the expense.

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.