Steven Soderbergh Net Worth

Steven Soderbergh's Quotes

• On DVD audio commentaries: "Would I, growing up, like to have had access to stuff on DVDs like this? Oh God, yeah! It's better than any film school, I think."
• Well, I think a part of you has to be scared, it keeps you alert; otherwise you become complacent. So absolutely, I'm purposefully going after things and doing things that I'm not sure if it's going to come off or not. Certainly Full Frontal was one of those. That was pure experimentation, that's the kind of film that you make going in where you know that a lot of people are not going to like it because it's an exploration of the contract that exists between the film-maker and the audience and what happens when you violate that contract.
• There are certain directors - Spielberg, David Fincher, John McTiernan - who sort of see things in three dimensions, and I was watching their films and sort of breaking them down to see how they laid sequences out, and how they paid attention to things like lens length, where the eyelines were, when the camera moved, how they cut, how they led your eye from one part of the frame to another.
• ...there've been a lot of questions about commercial films and non-commercial films, and I've never really made that separation in my mind. There's no question that when you read a piece of material, you have ideas about how it should be realised ... certainly when I read the script for Ocean's Eleven, I thought if this was realised the way it should, then it would appeal to a lot of people. Then you get involved in a film like Solaris and if you realise it the way it should be realised, then it won't appeal to a lot of people. But what are you going to do? You have to go at it...
• I learned from Richard Lester that as your career goes on, you learn more about how things can go wrong, but you never learn how things can go right. And it's really disorienting.

Interesting Facts about Steven Soderbergh

1. Son of Peter Soderbergh, a professor and dean of the College of Education at Louisiana State University where Steven took some classes.
2. Steven's paternal grandfather was a Swedish immigrant ("Soderbergh" is a Swedish surname), while Steven's paternal grandmother had Irish ancestry. All of Steven's maternal great-grandparents were Italian immigrants. His mother's surname was changed from "Bernardi" to "Bernard".
3. In 2001, he became the first director in 62 years to have twin Best Director Oscar nominations for Erin Brockovich (2000) and Traffic (2000). The last director to do that was Michael Curtiz with twin nominations for Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and Four Daughters (1938). Soderbergh topped Curtiz by going on to win the Oscar for Traffic (2000).
4. Became the youngest winner ever of the Palme d'Or at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival for Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), his feature film directorial debut. He was 26.
5. Father, with Betsy Brantley, of Sarah Soderbergh (b. February 1990).
6. Elected first vice president of the Directors Guild of America in March 2002.
7. Ranked #39 in Premiere's 2003 annual Power 100 List. Had ranked #35 in 2002.
8. Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2003
9. Was offered the chance to direct Quiz Show (1994), with Tim Robbins in the role of Charles Van Doren.
10. Has directed three actors to Oscar nominations: Julia Roberts, Albert Finney and Benicio Del Toro. Roberts and Del Toro won the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor Oscars, respectively, for Erin Brockovich (2000) and Traffic (2000).
11. Was a member of the dramatic jury at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival in Utah in 1990, just one year after he had apologetically unveiled Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), his directorial debut, which he then considered to be unpolished and technically incomplete.
12. At one point, was interested in directing Fantastic Four (2005).
13. He and his producing partner George Clooney have decided to close down their Section Eight production company after six years of working partnership. [August 2006].
14. Is the only director to have had two films (Traffic (2000) and Erin Brockovich (2000)) receive Best Director nominations in the same year for the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, and the Directors' Guild of America.
15. During his early days in Los Angeles, he rented an above-garage room from the Gyllenhaal family: director Stephen Gyllenhaal, screenwriter Naomi Foner and their young children, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jake Gyllenhaal.
16. Is a member of the advisory council for Brooklyn College's Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema.
17. Along with Ernst Lubitsch, Jack Conway, Michael Curtiz, Victor Fleming, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Sam Wood, Francis Ford Coppola and Herbert Ross, he is one of ten directors to have more than one film nominated for Best Picture in the same year. Erin Brockovich (2000) and Traffic (2000) were both so nominated at the 73rd Academy Awards in 2001.
18. Lives in New York City.
19. He doesn't read reviews of his films.
20. Former brother-in-law of Alison Brantley and Duncan Brantley.