{"id":387146,"date":"2026-04-11T19:05:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T19:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/387146\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T19:05:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T19:05:07","slug":"steven-soderbergh-on-the-christophers-and-controversial-ai-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/387146\/","title":{"rendered":"Steven Soderbergh on ‘The Christophers’ and Controversial AI Comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cThe Christophers<\/a>,\u201d the story of a past-his-prime painter (Ian McKellen) and the mysterious assistant (Michaela Coel) he hires to destroy some priceless works of his half-finished art, defies easy categorization. It\u2019s funny and sad, veering between a crime thriller and a character drama, as it examines the precarious nature of talent. Why, it asks, do some artists lose their creative spark?<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe didn\u2019t really think about genre,\u201d says Steven Soderbergh<\/a>, the film\u2019s director. \u201cHuman behavior was our compass. Our characters\u2019 evolution as people determined the film\u2019s trajectory.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tSoderbergh is scrunched next to Ed Solomon<\/a>, the writer of \u201cThe Christophers,\u201d at a comically small desk at the Warren Street Hotel in Manhattan. The two have worked together previously on the noir thriller \u201cNo Sudden Move\u201d and the twisty mysteries \u201cMosaic\u201d and \u201cFull Circle.\u201d It\u2019s the day before \u201cThe Christophers,\u201d their latest collaboration, opens in limited release on April 10, and the men are finishing off the promotional rounds for the low-budget indie. <\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a press tour that courted controversy<\/a> after Soderbergh, one of the most candid and thoughtful A-list directors in Hollywood, was open about using AI on an upcoming documentary about John Lennon and talked about its creative possibilities. His remarks sparked a torrent of criticism on social media, where some commentators faulted him for embracing technology that could kill jobs in the entertainment industry.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Soderbergh is never one to shy away from a debate. In our discussion, he doubled down on his views about AI\u2019s potential, while also talking about his working relationship with Solomon, the artistic anxieties that \u201cThe Christophers\u201d explores and the \u201cStar Wars\u201d project he was forced to abandon.<\/p>\n

\t\tWho came up with the idea for \u201cThe Christophers\u201d?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSteven Soderbergh: It started with a one-sentence pitch to Ed over drinks. Basically it was, there\u2019s an older artist at the end of his career, and a young apprentice-type rolls up, and there\u2019s something not on the level about her presence. In my mind, she was more of a Tom Ripley character. Ed immediately started filling that idea out. He was like: \u201cWhat if there are children? What if there\u2019s some issue about the value of the estate?\u201d Over time he shoved these deeper themes of mentorship, insecurity and ego into it. It really became about asking the question, what is a legacy?<\/p>\n

\n\tEd Solomon: I hadn\u2019t even planned to write something. It emerged after I asked, what are you thinking about? And then we just started throwing stuff around. I drew on the emotional relationships I\u2019d had with quite a few different artists \u2014 directors, writers, comedians \u2014 and how fame could turn into a prison for them. But sometimes there are things that enter from the subconscious. Like two weeks ago, I turned to Steven and said, \u201cOh my God, my mom\u2019s a painter!\u201d It\u2019s funny how sometimes you don\u2019t realize what you\u2019re writing about.<\/p>\n

\t\tJulian, the character that Ian McKellen plays, was a major painter who squandered his talent after becoming a reality show judge. Have you seen people who achieved at a very high level and then lost their creative way?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSoderbergh: That\u2019s the terror for every creative person. I call it the slackening. It\u2019s night sweat material for me. I\u2019m very interested in the lives of artists. How can somebody maintain their output right up to the end? What is it about their personality that enabled them to keep their level high? And why does the opposite happen? What makes someone incapable of sustaining that quality? Nobody wants to be described as an artist whose stuff fell off. But also, how do you determine that? Sometimes critics are wrong. Sometimes your work showed up too soon, and you were ahead of the audience. I focus on what I can control, which is the method of making things. I set up circumstances and environments with trusted collaborators that allow for the alchemy that creates good stuff to take place. All I can do is bring the ingredients together in a pot. That\u2019s the best chance you\u2019ve got of making something that tastes good.<\/p>\n

\t\tLast year, you released the spy thriller \u201cBlack Bag.\u201d It had two big stars in Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. Critics loved it, but it struggled at the box office. Did its commercial failure<\/a> make you recalibrate anything about how you choose projects?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSoderbergh: Well, yeah. It made me realize I need to find material that I like and that has a shot of reaching a sizable audience. \u201cThe Christophers\u201d is a very accessible movie, but it\u2019s not going to turn into \u201cWeapons,\u201d right? But going forward, I want to find something that has scale, because it\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve made a movie of real size, and has a hook that gets people to go to the theaters in big numbers. I want to find something that I can event-ize, that I also love.<\/p>\n

\t\tEd, your previous collaborations with Steven, like \u201cNo Sudden Move\u201d and \u201cFull Circle,\u201d were intricately plotted. \u201cThe Christophers\u201d feels more like a chamber piece where two razor-sharp characters circle each other, often jousting verbally. Do you find it easier to work out the plot of the film or to write the dialogue? \t<\/p>\n

\n\tSolomon: When it works best, everything is intertwined and coming together at the same time. What I\u2019m interested in is finding truthful moments that are surprising. To do that, I have to constantly go back to the question, what would actually happen here, and what would this character say or do that feels truthful and not stock? That requires getting into the emotional space of a person. Once I feel what they\u2019re feeling, I know where they need to go. When I get too plot-oriented, characters start to become little more than chess pieces you\u2019re moving around. That\u2019s a problem with how they teach screenwriting. More and more, they teach it as a structural event. Now, there is an inherent structure in movies. You need a beginning, a middle and an end. But the more time I spend doing this, the more I go back to the most basic questions, why is this person here? What do they want? And what\u2019s the truth of the situation?<\/p>\n

\t\tIan McKellen is so wonderful in this film \u2014 he\u2019s vibrant and larger-than-life, but also vulnerable and insecure. He had a terrible accident<\/a> in 2024 and injured himself falling off the stage. Do you think that experience influenced his performance?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSoderbergh: I didn\u2019t see any lingering physical manifestation from the fall. But it\u2019s a type of event that anybody would be affected by. There\u2019s a sense of precarity that it must conjure up. <\/p>\n

\n\tSolomon: Before we started filming, there was this moment when Ian said, \u201cI don\u2019t know what I would do if I weren\u2019t acting.\u201d We were talking about how meaning and purpose get funneled through a creative person\u2019s work. He didn\u2019t say anything explicitly about the fall, but he did admit how scared he would be if he couldn\u2019t perform any longer. I\u2019m guessing that an accident like that puts everything in stark relief and that the feelings he was having were, in some way, related to the character of Julian. They both were asking, \u201cWho am I if I don\u2019t have my art?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tSteven, what made you think of Michaela Coel for this film?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSoderbergh: I was just blown away by her show, \u201cI May Destroy You.\u201d It was an entirely new thing. She\u2019s a thoroughbred. She\u2019s got all the tools. It\u2019s kind of ridiculous how talented she is. <\/p>\n

\t\tI\u2019ve seen the movie twice. The first time, Julian\u2019s children (James Corden, Jessica Gunning) seemed like miserable, greedy wretches. The second time, I felt a lot of sympathy for them. They obviously had no love growing up. \t<\/p>\n

\n\tSoderbergh: In the film, Julian glibly dismisses their upbringing. It is indicative of what they experienced. As a child, you\u2019re wired to seek the approval of your parents and at no stage of their lives were they given any approbation or affection from him. And that corrodes you. They\u2019re feral because nobody taught them to be different.<\/p>\n

\n\tSolomon: My heart breaks for them in a strange way. At the same time, we didn\u2019t want to do the typical, let\u2019s resolve that relationship thing, because we also wanted it to stay honest. We wanted the changes these characters experience to be internal, and not overt and tectonic.<\/p>\n

\n\tSoderbergh: The same thing is true with Julian. He hasn\u2019t changed much by the end of the film. He\u2019s only come to a place where his behavior has changed around Michaela\u2019s character. He can be with her in a way that he isn\u2019t with other people, and probably never has been. That\u2019s as far as he\u2019s able to go. He\u2019s still a jerk. <\/p>\n

\t\tSteven, congratulations on getting into Cannes with your documentary \u201cJohn Lennon: The Last Interview.\u201d Your recent comments about using AI on the film have been heavily criticized. What do you make of the debate?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSoderbergh: [Pauses] This is mystifying to me.<\/p>\n

\t\tAre you unaware of the blowback?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSoderbergh: No, I\u2019m aware. I found out from people looking at me like they\u2019d seen my chest X-ray. I was like, \u201cWhat\u2019s up?\u201d And they\u2019re like, \u201cThese AI comments!\u201d And they read me back what I had said, and I honestly felt, \u201cWhere\u2019s the smoke here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tYou used AI on that film and said you are going to use it on an upcoming film about the Spanish-American War. Clearly, you see it as a useful tool?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSoderbergh: I\u2019m just not threatened by it. I\u2019m only scared of things I don\u2019t understand. So I felt obligated to engage with it, to figure out what it is and what it can do. It turned out to be a very good tool for certain passages of the Lennon documentary where I needed surrealistic imagery that was impossible to shoot. It allowed me to solve a creative problem about how to visualize what John and Yoko are speaking about philosophically. Ten years ago, I would have needed to engage a visual effects house at an unbelievable cost to come up with this stuff. No longer. My job is to deliver a good movie, period. And this tool showed up at a moment when I needed it. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s the solution to everything, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s the death of everything. We\u2019re in the very early stages. Five years from now, we all may be going, \u201cThat was a fun phase.\u201d We may end up not using it as much as we thought we were going to. There are some people that I have absolute love and respect for that refuse to engage with it. That\u2019s their privilege. But I\u2019m not built that way. You show me a new tool. I want to get my hands on it and see what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

\t\tEd, as a writer, what do you think of AI?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSolomon: I\u2019m not interested in using it as a writing tool because it takes away from what I love about what I do, which is the process. It makes it result-oriented. I\u2019m not scared of it. I just don\u2019t see myself using it in any kind of a significant creative way.<\/p>\n

\t\tSteven, your \u201cStar Wars\u201d film, \u201cThe Hunt for Ben Solo,\u201d got cancelled<\/a>. What did you learn from the process of trying to get that movie made?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSoderbergh: That there\u2019s no such thing as wasted creative time. It was great to work on that with Adam Driver and [writers] Rebecca Blunt and Scott Burns. Sometimes that\u2019s just the way things go. I know what we came up with was good. I think it would have excited audiences. Working with smart people, trying to solve shit, is how you get better. Adam felt bad for having gotten me into it. I think he felt like he wasted my time, and I made it clear to him, \u201cDude, that was not wasted time.\u201d It\u2019s a problem solving experience that will get applied to everything I do going forward. I\u2019m not upset. I feel positive about everything that we did together.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat movie would you recommend someone watch to get in the right frame of mind for \u201cThe Christophers\u201d?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSoderbergh: Making this, I thought a lot about the great John Schlesinger. His film, \u201cSunday, Bloody Sunday,\u201d is one of my favorites. It\u2019s a great London film. And I was influenced by his treatment of the characters. They\u2019re so complex and he has this willingness in his movies to allow all the various shades of people to be expressed. He never judges his characters, and that\u2019s what we tried to do with \u201cThe Christophers.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Christophers,\u201d the story of a past-his-prime painter (Ian McKellen) and the mysterious assistant (Michaela Coel) he hires…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,184524,146,85,46,6588,6589],"class_list":{"0":"post-387146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-ed-solomon","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-steven-soderbergh","14":"tag-the-christophers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}