Steven Soderbergh Quotes

I don't think I'll ever get tired of making films. I wish I could make so many that it would make me get tired, but I don't.

I'm not really a guy who wants to be a director, anyway.

What makes it frustrating is when a director or a studio head doesn't see me for the same part that they'll see, let's say, Drew Barrymore for. Drew's a great friend of mine. But it's like, "No, we want more of an American type of girl."

I always found something strangely paternal about the director-actor relationship. Actors want so much approval.

If everyone's comfortable, you can pretty much make any kind of movie that the director wants.

I am often asked at what point in my love affair with films I began to want to be a director or a critic. Truthfully, I don't know. All I know is that I wanted to get closer and closer to films.

You have to really be able to trust the director. It's about the filmmaker and whether or not I'm going to be able to have a relationship with them and want to follow them down that road, wherever it may lead.

When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that's not going to be me.

You can make five massive hits in a row and still not get cast by the directors who you want to work with doing little movies.

Some directors involve waiting, and if you want to work with that particular director you're going to have to hang around.

You want the film to be critically successful - you certainly want the film to be financially successful so that you can...well, because that's how movies like this are made, you know, they need to make money. But as a director, you can only make the movie that you want to make.

That's the greatest sin a director can commit; to make a film simply because he wants to make a film.

Normally, after a movie, you know, you don't want to get up and do another one right away. That kind of pretend muscle or whatever you use making movies is kind of, you know, spent. And you have other things to do.

There's a reason why actors are always dying to work with the Coens. They just set the stage for you to do their best work.

I said, ok, I'll pay the licensing fee it. And [the AP] said, no, we want to claim damages. I said damages? Because of my poster the Mannie Garcia picture is now worth more than it ever would have been.

I tend to ... if I decide to do a job, want to be able to trust my director...

When you're a producer or director, there's so much sweat that goes into any given project.

I have known Tarell Alvin McCraney for ten years but the involvement with Moonlight came more with Barry Jenkins, the director. He was a fan of the show I did called The Knick. He was also with Plan B Entertainment, who produced Selma. That is how I got involved.

I always tell the producers, if I can't get the girl at the end of the picture, at least give me more money.

He has room for people with very little sense, but He wants everyone to use what sense they have.

I love British female directors lately.

As a filmmaker, it's about surviving and lasting. So many talented people that I've known in my life - directors and writers - just haven't made it and haven't had a chance.

We can't tell particularly smart stories if we want to keep our audience big enough to pay for these big spectacle films that we want to do.

My life is about politics, a lot of about music, and a lot about things other than acting. I like traveling the world. But, what makes me want to stay in this business and keep doing this are movies when it's a true labor of love.

I even think the commercial element of new American directors is really fertile right now. There are a lot of filmmakers with very particular visions, like Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson and P.T. Anderson and Alexander Payne and Peter Sollett and Harmony Korine and Vincent Gallo. At least they're making films that they choose to make, and they're on their own. That's positive to me. This is not a dead period for American cinema at all.