S1: Hey there. I'm Osman Farooqui and this is The Drop,
S1: a culture show from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age,
S1: where we dive into the latest in the world of
S1: pop culture and entertainment. Today on the show, we're sharing
S1: a special interview. Oscar winning director Steven Soderbergh is back
S1: on the drop. Steven and I spoke earlier in the
S1: year about Magic Mike's last dance and the state of
S1: cinema more broadly. It's worth a listen if you missed it.
S1: This week, Steven's latest project, an HBO miniseries called Full Circle,
S1: starring Claire Danes, Zazie Beetz and Timothy Olyphant, drops on binge.
S2: You understand? Dear things happening to your family. You're happening
S2: for a reason.
S3: Hello? Listen to me.
S4: Who is this?
UU: We have your son.
S5: The guy on the phone. Did he have an accent?
S6: What kind?
S5: Guyanese. Guyanese? Um. Does that mean something to you?
S7: You do exactly what I've instructed you.
S1: Full circle is a crime drama about a kidnapping that
S1: goes wrong, revealing long held secrets between a big cast
S1: of characters in New York City. It's reminiscent of Stevens
S1: Oscar winning film from 2000 Traffic. Stevens, one of the
S1: busiest guys in Hollywood. And he's got a lot to
S1: say about the TV landscape right now, how streaming is
S1: fragmenting the industry and whether the current system is really
S1: working for audiences and creators like him. He's always a
S1: great interview subject, so I hope you guys enjoy today's chat.
S1: I'll be back later in the week with a regular
S1: episode of The Drop. Okay, Here's my chat with Steven Soderbergh.
S1: Steven Soderbergh, great to talk to you again. Thank you
S1: for your time.
S8: My pleasure.
S1: I want to start by asking you about the genesis
S1: of this project full circle. How long have you been
S1: working on it and was it a case of Ed
S1: Solomon approaching you with the script and basically saying, Hey,
S1: I've got this idea? Will you do it with me?
S8: Yeah, this is kind of the danger of spending too
S8: much time with the same people. My my recollection was
S8: that Ed brought this up to me while we were
S8: working on No sudden Move. I mean, the early stages
S8: of no sudden move. Ed claims that we started talking
S8: about this as far back as Mosaic. Regardless, it was
S8: a while ago. Um, and, and certainly in either case
S8: before we got very serious about no sudden move. So
S8: it was always kind of happening in the background and
S8: it was trying to fuse these two ideas that he had.
S8: One had to do with a story that he read
S8: in the news about 20 years ago that that he'd
S8: filed away as interesting, which was a an insurance scam
S8: that was put together by a group of people out
S8: in Queens to do exactly what happens in the in
S8: in the show, which is to take out these policies,
S8: pay the premiums for a couple of years and then
S8: kill these people. Then he wanted to put it together
S8: with a variation on the the idea that's in the
S8: Kurosawa film High and Low.
S1: Yeah, right. It's kidnapping as well, right? Yeah.
S8: But he he pitched a twist to me that felt new.
S8: If he'd just come to me and said, I want
S8: to do high and low, I would have said well
S8: that's everybody does. Yeah. Yeah. What's the special sauce? And
S8: he told me, don't want to spoil it for people.
S8: But he told me sort of what the new variation
S8: on that was. And I said, Oh, that's interesting. So
S8: he was working on this in the background the whole time,
S8: and it was quite a lengthy sort of process. The writing,
S8: not only because it was initially six hours, but there
S8: was also on the heels of Mosaic, we had imagined
S8: a potential branching narrative version that would be completely separate
S8: from the linear show. So unlike Mosaic, where we were
S8: using the footage for both the linear version of the
S8: show and the app version of the show, the idea
S8: here was to essentially shoot a completely different version with
S8: different cameras, different style, and that was 170 pages of
S8: just a whole other thing that we ended up not doing.
S8: So he he was generating a lot of work.
S1: So this this show is pretty complicated already. And you
S1: kind of have described how it could have been even
S1: more ambitious when you when you got this script. And
S1: I imagine it was it was, you know, upwards of
S1: 4 or 500 pages. It's like full of so many
S1: characters that are so rich and have so much detail
S1: and depth to them. Where do you start? What's the
S1: first step in tackling something like that? Is it is
S1: it the casting? Is it. Is it? Is it? Looking
S1: at what the story is really about? Where do you
S1: go from from getting that? From getting that story?
S8: Yeah, I mean initially you're you're Well, I think the
S8: real answer to that is how frustrating a document a
S8: script is, right? It is so hard to extrapolate even
S8: for people that have been doing this for a long time,
S8: what this thing is actually going to be like when
S8: you start to shoot it. And so we did the
S8: best that we could during the script stage to, you know,
S8: make sure that it was clear that you could follow it. Now, obviously,
S8: in this case, we have the studio weighing in, which
S8: is very helpful because they're in a sense, they're the
S8: first audience, you know, Ed and Ed and I have
S8: a vision of it that may be more filled out
S8: in our minds than it's actually on the page. And
S8: so that that initial engagement with the studio is really
S8: helpful for them to go, I got lost. I don't
S8: understand this. What's the connection between these two people? And
S8: so there was there was a lot of trying to
S8: distill it as much as we could before we started
S8: going out to cast. And then to be honest, there
S8: was that process continued while we were shooting and well
S8: into post-production. There was one pretty significant narrative thread that
S8: during post we completely eliminated and used that space to
S8: fill out. There were three main. I want to call
S8: them original sins. You know that that sort of generated
S8: the story. We pulled one of them out and in
S8: doing so we did that partially because we felt like
S8: it was one sin too many. But also there were
S8: a couple of characters that as we were shooting, were
S8: really registering. We felt, and the studio felt as well.
S8: So within weeks of finishing the principal photography, we went
S8: back and did some additional shooting to amplify these other
S8: characters in these other storylines that we felt were really popping.
S8: So it was fluid. Editor was remarkably sanguine about the
S8: whole thing. I mean, look, I think if he felt
S8: it wasn't getting any better, that's different. But we were,
S8: you know, and I've worked together and and it was
S8: just putting our heads together and saying moment to moment,
S8: how can this be better?
S1: I'm really curious about that process of kind of changing
S1: the story as you're shooting or perhaps just after you
S1: sort of finished, because this this show at times, particularly
S1: at the start, can feel very overwhelming. There's a lot
S1: of exposition. We're really thrown into these very fully realized
S1: worlds and characters. It's sort of like there's this show
S1: has kind of been existing for six episodes and we
S1: feel like we're entering it at a certain point and
S1: we kind of don't totally understand the motivations and what
S1: lies beneath until the story unfolds. Was it was it
S1: challenging telling that or when you were shooting? My understanding
S1: of your process on this, on this project, as it
S1: is with so many, is you edit kind of immediately
S1: after you're shooting. Did that mean that the challenges to it,
S1: whether the story was working, whether these there were too
S1: many original scenes, as you put it, was that becoming
S1: clear to you as you were moving through the production
S1: of it?
S8: Yeah, it was, because in addition to posting material that
S8: night that we'd shot that day, or at least within
S8: 24 hours of having shot something every two weeks or so.
S8: I would post everything we had for each episode so
S8: that both the Brain Trust and the studio could see,
S8: you know, episodes one through six sort of evolving and
S8: filling out and so that we could all ask these
S8: questions that we're talking about now, which is knowing that
S8: the setup is the most important thing. How how much
S8: time do we have to be, as you said, kind
S8: of parachute in and make people chase it? You know,
S8: how long can we make them chase it before they
S8: just get angry? And we've crossed over out of intrigue
S8: into something less fun. Um, but to be honest, I was.
S8: I was willing to push that a little bit because
S8: I felt we were being fair ultimately, and that I
S8: felt that the scenes themselves, even if you were trying
S8: to contextualize them, were interesting enough in the cast, was
S8: interesting enough in the milieu, was interesting enough to just
S8: keep pulling you through it. And once you get I
S8: think once you get to the end of the first
S8: episode and into the second episode, it's it's all starting
S8: to coalesce. And then of course, the structure of it
S8: is that essentially every two episodes, the show is kind
S8: of recalibrating itself, going further into the why of it all,
S8: you know, as I described to the studio. You know, go, guys,
S8: It's not a whodunit. It's a why dunnit. You know,
S8: you know who's responsible for the crime that starts the show.
S8: The question is, why is this happening?
S1: Yeah. Which is a really interesting inversion of so many
S1: of these kinds of crime thrillers. What is a body?
S1: Or there's a bad thing. And then our job is
S1: to watch someone very smart sort of piece it all together.
S1: But we know straight away who the characters are. I
S1: think that balance you're talking about, of not holding the
S1: hand of the audience too much, but making sure that
S1: they're not just left feeling angry or confused is a
S1: really fine one, I think. I think you nailed it
S1: with this show. I think I think it's also very
S1: smart that the first two episodes are coming out, I
S1: think on the same day, and then it's coming out
S1: weekly because at the end of the first episode, I'll
S1: admit I was a bit like, All right, I'm kind
S1: of in, but I'm a bit lost. But then as
S1: soon as you get into the second one, you're like, okay,
S1: now I understand where this is all going and the
S1: pieces are fitting together, but there is still so much
S1: more to be explored here that was really, really expertly
S1: put together.
S8: Well, I think the tricky part is going to be
S8: the week between 1 and 2 and three and four,
S8: because in one and two you're like, Oh, is this
S8: just a white people? Being victimized by people of color
S8: show that seems kind of regressive. And if you if
S8: you stick with it, you watch this inversion start to
S8: take place where you go, Oh, no, it's not that. Actually,
S8: there's something that happened 20 years ago that set this
S8: all in motion, that this family is responsible for, that
S8: they've refused to acknowledge. And, you know, it's payback time.
S1: Yeah. And like on that, on the themes of the show,
S1: the last time we spoke about Magic Mike, we discussed
S1: how that movie was kind of using the story of
S1: male strippers to tell a much deeper story about, you know,
S1: economic relations in the contemporary United States and around the world.
S1: I feel like this show is doing something similar, Like
S1: it's on one hand, it's got the tropes that are
S1: familiar to a genre kind of crime thriller, but it
S1: is also telling us something or showing us something about
S1: economic inequality, racial inequality. Was that something that was embedded
S1: in this show from day one, or was it something
S1: that came out during development?
S8: Oh, that was very much part of Ed's pitch to me,
S8: which is I think I've found a really interesting angle
S8: on a kind of economic colonialism that's specific to this
S8: place at this time. But it's going to be a
S8: real slow burn. And I said, that sounds that sounds good.
S8: I mean, it it kind of reminds you that in
S8: the most simple terms, the show is about karma. But
S8: what I hope it presents is another word for karma
S8: is character. You know, your, your character is your karma.
S8: And that's the ultimate point of this. And it's of
S8: all the characters Claire Danes character, Sam is the one
S8: that goes through the biggest transformation by the end of
S8: the show. You know, she starts she starts from a
S8: place that seems pretty defended and. Impenetrable. And and by
S8: the end, partially through her slow dawning of realization regarding
S8: her responsibility in this in this scenario, that that she
S8: begins to sort of unwind this on her own. And
S8: there's nobody encouraging her to do that other than her
S8: own sense of this innate sense that had been kind
S8: of suppressed of what's right. It's easy to suppress what's
S8: right when there's just money, you know, being dumped in
S8: your lap.
S1: You mentioned Claire Danes, and her performance is extraordinary. The
S1: performances across the board a fantastic and there's a bunch
S1: of actors in this. I mean, there are a few
S1: actors it feels like you haven't worked with yet, but
S1: you've managed to find a few in this one. I
S1: don't think you've you work with with Claire Danes or
S1: Dennis Quaid or Timothy Olyphant before Zazie Beetz is also
S1: great in this, but I think she was in High
S1: Flying Bird, the Netflix film that you made. What was
S1: it like putting that cast together and what was it
S1: a deliberate choice from you to sort of find some
S1: people that you hadn't collaborated with beforehand?
S8: Yeah, I mean, Denis I'd worked with before briefly in Traffic,
S8: but that was the the joke I had with him is,
S8: you know, every 22 years we're going to we're going
S8: to hook up. Um, but Claire I hadn't worked with before,
S8: and she's someone I've loved since she started acting. Tim
S8: Oliphant I've loved since I saw him in Go, you know,
S8: a long time ago. So he's always been on my list.
S8: What was really exciting were these the young people that
S8: are so central to the piece? And then this actor,
S8: Paula Sharma, who's out of the UK who's just fantastic.
S1: Yeah, who plays and he's brilliant. He's so gripping.
S8: Yeah, yeah, he's so good. He was his storyline along
S8: with Shay Cole, the Javier character. That was one of
S8: the lines of narrative that Ed and I were expanding
S8: as we were shooting and then through post-production shooting, because
S8: I really liked, first of all, I just thought that
S8: dynamic was really interesting and they were just really popping.
S8: But these, these young actors were so good and they're
S8: so smart. It's it's really interesting to a person. There
S8: are so together as people. I'm used to people that young,
S8: being talented, but not having a sort of 30,000 foot
S8: view of themselves. Their talent, the business, you know, relationships.
S8: And I was sort of in awe of just how
S8: together they were as people and how how smart they
S8: were and thinking about their work and about the business.
S8: And it was it was sort of I was like, wow,
S8: this is a new breed. You know, this is just
S8: a new breed of performer where they they understand it all.
S8: And and there is no universe in which they would
S8: derail themselves by being self destructive or treating people poorly
S8: or anything like their their understanding of being aerodynamic and
S8: focusing on doing good work was just really, really inspiring.
S8: I mean.
S1: Even in journalism, I look at the younger generation coming
S1: through and think they can do everything I can do
S1: plus 100 other things. Are you ever worried watching this
S1: next generation of creatives, you're like, Am I am I
S1: obsolete now? Do I still have to be here with
S1: what these guys can?
S8: Well, it certainly pushes you and and makes you realize
S8: if you have any sort of part of you that's
S8: complacent there, you're just going to get run over. But
S8: it's it's I think we get based on our experience
S8: of the world, which is getting more and more intense
S8: by the day. It's easy to feel like. You know, Oh,
S8: these you know, this younger generation mean every generation says this, but,
S8: you know, oh, this younger generation, their priorities are all
S8: this and that and they don't understand. And it turns out,
S8: you know, when you spend time with creative people like
S8: the ones we were working with, they've taken advantage of
S8: all of the things that we view as being a problem,
S8: namely access to all information all the time. The creative
S8: young people that I've worked with over the past ten
S8: years have taken full advantage of that. They've seen everything.
S8: They know everything. There's no reference that I can make
S8: that they don't understand. Like it's I'm like, wow, they
S8: really are the the next iteration of creative thinking and
S8: and they really have taken on the upside of the
S8: information overload that feels overwhelming to most of us. They
S8: view it as normal and and they just use it
S8: to their advantage. So yeah, you're right. It's exciting and
S8: also intimidating.
S1: In terms of that information overload. You mentioned traffic working
S1: with Dennis Quaid on that. I mean, this this show
S1: full circle shares some DNA. It would be reductive to
S1: compare them too much. But, you know, this idea of
S1: of characters from different walks of life who are all
S1: kind of linked in these ways that might not seem
S1: obvious on the surface. I've been thinking about traffic in
S1: the lead up to this conversation with you and what
S1: would be so different about telling a story like that.
S1: The age of social media, the Internet ubiquity more generally.
S1: It makes this idea that we all feel so connected
S1: all the time anyway, and technology makes some of the
S1: conceit in the kinds of stories that you would tell
S1: in a film like Traffic, a little bit more complicated
S1: because it would be so much easier to just find
S1: out who someone is or or know who that kind
S1: of person is, what kind of challenges you come up
S1: with telling a story like Full Circle in an era
S1: where everyone's got mobile phones, everyone can like Google and
S1: find out who a person is. They know who famous
S1: people are. All of that sort of stuff is so
S1: much more collapsed.
S8: Yeah, it's horrible. It's it's. It's really horrible. Every time
S8: I had to shoot an insert of a phone or
S8: a screen, it just it's just so frustrating as a
S8: filmmaker because you you feel like you're failing if you're
S8: shooting an insert, if you're shooting an insert of a phone,
S8: you just feel like you're failing. You feel like that's
S8: not cinema, but this is the world we live in
S8: and it does affect stories like this in which connections
S8: that might take somebody a while to make 20 years ago,
S8: you can make in 20s. I guess what it means
S8: is this show is six episodes. You know, 20 years
S8: ago it could have been 12 episodes. You know, that's fine.
S8: It's just you've got to you've got to acknowledge that.
S8: But I think that the trick of it is to
S8: not let it pull you from the spine of what
S8: the piece is, and in this case, the spine of
S8: it at the end of the day is the philosophical question.
S8: If you could press a button that gave you $1 million,
S8: but it was going to hurt somebody on the other
S8: side of the world that you don't know and that
S8: you will never meet. Would you do it?
S1: Remind me to start every interview with you by asking
S1: you what is the philosophical question at the heart of
S1: this show? Because that is that is so compelling. I
S1: think if people were kind of thinking about, do I
S1: want to give this a go, that sums it up.
S1: And it's a story that is told beautifully with that
S1: with that question at the heart of it. The series
S1: Stevens being released on on Macs, formerly HBO. Max, it's
S1: been a tumultuous time for the streaming for the industry
S1: in general. As someone who's made films for cinema release
S1: as an independent filmmaker for big studios, films for streamers
S1: and TV shows, the different platforms as well. How do
S1: you feel about the state of things at the moment,
S1: the kind of contraction we seem to be going through
S1: after this boom?
S8: Well, I try to put myself in two places at
S8: the same time. One one is is sort of stepping
S8: back and trying to identify the difference between a phase
S8: and and and a secular change. And then on on
S8: the micro level, just day to day going to work.
S8: I don't really worry about it like it's an artist
S8: job to adapt. And I'm the cockroach of the entertainment industry.
S8: Like I'm I'm going to keep scuttling around no matter
S8: what version gets thrown at me. So I don't I
S8: don't burn a lot of calories being upset about where
S8: it's going. In that sense, I'm interested in it and
S8: I'm fascinated by it. And I like talking to people
S8: who know more than I do about where they think
S8: this is going. But it's at the end of the day,
S8: you just have to figure it out. And I don't
S8: look back and I don't I don't feel nostalgic. I
S8: don't have nostalgia for. Oh, wow. It used to be
S8: I mean, look, I got to see the very, very
S8: tail end of the old version of Hollywood when we
S8: made the first when we made the first Ocean's movie,
S8: that was that was the last sort of vestige of
S8: the Hollywood that I think people fantasized about, which is Warners.
S8: And Warners had all these jets, and they would fly
S8: you all around. And it was, you know, you were like, Oh, shit,
S8: this is like Hollywood. And then it was over. But
S8: that's I don't it's not like, Oh, I missed that.
S8: That's just that just very quickly morphed into something else.
S8: And that's not what it is anymore. But I don't
S8: I don't see a lot of value. It's interesting to
S8: analyze the past, to look for clues toward the future.
S8: But but I don't I don't lament, you know, any
S8: prior version of the industry because what's the point? It's gone.
S1: One of the downsides of being in my kind of
S1: role where you watch too many things and you think
S1: too much about all of this sort of stuff, I
S1: think from a creative perspective, I think everything you said
S1: makes total sense and I think you have. It's so
S1: clear your ability to adapt to so many different kind
S1: of formats and models and modes of making this sort
S1: of stuff. But one thing that I do think about
S1: is from an audience perspective, right? Things are so fragmented
S1: now that you can have an amazing director and writer
S1: team like you and Ed Solomon make an incredible show.
S1: You can have incredible stuff being made Disney, Amazon, the theaters,
S1: the streamers, whatever. But there's so much choice. There's so
S1: much option for people to watch that you can have
S1: like a prestige drama that stars Julia Roberts and Sean
S1: Penn about the Watergate stuff that's watched by 0.02% of
S1: the population. And I don't like as a fan of
S1: great stuff, it makes me a little bit sad that
S1: so much amazing stuff exists that people are consuming. From
S1: your perspective. Is that something that you think about or
S1: is it just great to have this stuff existing out there?
S8: No, I know what you mean. And and I really
S8: enjoyed gaslit and and yeah, I go I look. Yeah,
S8: I look at it and go, wow, there's so much
S8: good work here, you know, why isn't this, you know,
S8: taking up more real estate? Not that people didn't know
S8: it was there, but, you know, there are other things
S8: that that suck up a lot more oxygen that maybe
S8: aren't as good. Um, I don't know, I guess. I
S8: guess I have to stay focused on working, just working
S8: and going to work and knowing that none of it
S8: is really within your control. But the thing that's really
S8: not within your control is the sort of the cultural
S8: moment at which your show appears or your movie, and
S8: whether or not it's something that people feel they've got
S8: to see at that specific point in time. And and
S8: you just you can't control that. You just never know.
S8: I'm sure everybody involved in squid game, you know, the
S8: month before that dropped on Netflix had no idea what
S8: was going to happen. It was just the thing, the
S8: right thing at the right time that everybody suddenly had
S8: to see if you could conjure that, you would. And
S8: the bottom line is they just happened. And so you've
S8: got to put your faith in your own process and
S8: your own criteria for what's good and hope that like
S8: concentric circles, that at some point, you know, the planets
S8: will line up and you'll make something really good at
S8: a moment where people were like, I really want to
S8: see that. So it's, I think trying to manufacture that
S8: it it rarely works, if ever. You just, you just
S8: got to make something good and and, you know, light
S8: a candle.
S1: Stephen, you're the busiest man in Hollywood. I'm sure there's
S1: already projects you're well in the midst of at the moment.
S1: What is what is cooking for you? Films, TV, What's next?
S8: Well, I've got something secret that's going to show up
S8: in a couple of weeks.
S1: Yeah, right. No clues?
S8: Nope. I shot. I shot it just before while we
S8: were editing Magic Mike, just before we started shooting Full circle.
S8: And so I've been working on it in the background,
S8: and it's going to emerge in a couple of weeks.
S9: Awesome.
S1: I'm very excited. Very excited to finish full circle as well. Stephen,
S1: such a pleasure to talk to you as always. Thank
S1: you so much.
S8: Yeah, to be continued.
S1: This episode of The Drop was produced by Taiwan. If
S1: you enjoyed listening to today's episode of The Drop, make
S1: sure to follow us in your favorite podcast app. Give
S1: us a review or better yet, share the episode with
S1: a friend. I'm Osman Farooqui. See you next time.