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