Let's just call Steven Soderbergh lucky and leave it at that. At this stage of the game, it's presumptuous to say he's a visionary, a cinematic savant misunderstood in his own time, a resourceful architect who built an oeuvre with the most unlikely of materials: second (sometimes third) echelon actors and actresses, unfashionable genres, filmed monologues, self-referential gags, and no interest whatsoever, in political currents and popular tableaus. To assert that his roundabout career path, with its eccentric affectations and knee-jerk detouring, was a tangentially orchestrated play for what other, more blatantly successful filmmakers only dream about—namely, studio money and creative autonomy—would be both futile and redundant in an age when genius is seen everywhere and in every coincidence. He's only 35, for heaven's sake, a mere nine years from the wing-and-a-prayer theatrics that marked his debut. It remains to be seen whether his subsequent stabs at perky subversion will grow on us like caffeinated renditions of Citizen Kane, whether we will someday slap our heads, as we did over Welles, and say, "How did we overlook this guy?" One thing's for certain: if Soderbergh ever is the recipient of such recognition, it won't be the result of any posturing or salesmanship on his part.

In conversation, he's introspective and curt, as it plugging himself and his new film Out of Sight demands unerring precision and honesty. "I was told that we have a half-hour interview scheduled for 11:00," he says shortly after answering the phone. "Is that a lie?" It's the kind of wry greeting one expects from the author of sex, lies, and videotape, vaguely disingenuous, thrifty and off-putting. But it's also the clearest indication that Soderbergh is on foreign ground. Unlike his past films, Out of Sight has too many things going for it to have a small release as an option; there will be no hasty retreat to the video rack this time around. It's another version of an Elmore Leonard novel as scripted by Scott Frank who also adapted Get Shorty, a love story revolving around an escaped bank robber and the Federal Marshall sent to retrieve him—and it features George Clooney. It's not as Hollywood as Titanic, but you can still see Spago's from here which makes it unfamiliar territory for the patron saint of do-it-yourself. "Is that a lie?" the novice palm-pusher asks. Well, at least he's learning.

Not that Soderbergh hasn't seen cash before. After sex, lies (1989), his paean to human vagary and voyeurism, won several prizes at Cannes and established him as a gifted filmmaker with a gentle hand, he was rewarded with Jeremy Irons, yards of black-and-white film stock and a smattering of special effects. Kafka (1991) however, was hardly a sell-out. Rather, it was brooding and philosophical, a bold conglomeration of literary biography, gothic fantasy and Hitchcockian suspense, a movie about Franz Kafka as Kafka himself would have written it. In short, it was everything that your average filmmaker wouldn't want to see. He followed this up with the period piece King of the Hill (1993). Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by A. E. Hotchner, it was the story of a young boy forced to care for himself after being separated from his family by the Great Depression. To stark and morose to be a children's movie, it was nevertheless perceived as some sort of lost sequel to Home Alone and died a quick, inequitable death. The Underneath (1994), a misguided heist film with the look and feel of a Columbo episode, suffered a similar fate, although it, too, had its moments (effective use was made of a blue filter and there were some interesting variants on the flashback). Then came Gray's Anatomy and Schizopolis (1996), experimental—almost seditious—outings that catered to no one. Gray's took a rambling yarn by the brilliant monologuist Spalding Gray and subjected it to erratic camera angles, while Schizopolis, a movie that dealt only peripherally with the self-help revolution, did away with narrative altogether, opting instead for hallucinatory dream sequences and passages of pure gibberish.

None of these films made money—sex, lies, and videotape aside—but they weren't mistakes in the usual sense. Soderbergh has yet to make a movie he didn't want to make and that, alone, distinguishes him from most of his peers, a generation weaned in equal parts on the surly filmmaking of the '70s and the bottom-line mentality of the '80s (exhibit A: Quentin Tarantino). No, Soderbergh is a true original and, some would say, a lucky one. For somehow, despite his integrity and unwavering commitment to those things odd and unmarketable, he has been cut loose in la-la land. It may be luck—and since Out of Sight wasn't available for a screening at press time, we'll call it that for now—but it's luck of the most intelligent and suspiciously contrived variety.

I just finished reading your sex, lies, and videotape diary. What struck me about it most was your modesty, this unassuming attitude which basically said, "I'm just lucky to be here." Do you still feel this way or have you come to terms with your talent as a filmmaker?

SS: I feel very lucky. Out of Sight is a good example of the kind of luck I have. To be presented with another opportunity to make a movie, having just released five bombs in row, is a pretty neat thing. If I weren't competent at what I do, I'm sure I wouldn't get such opportunities. Still, I feel extremely fortunate.

You say bombs, but that's from a financial perspective. Your past films also comprise a compelling body of work. Do you ascribe to the auteur theory—the idea that meaning should be derived from all that a director has done—or should each film be taken outside the context of past and future efforts?

The auteur theory is an excuse to indulge in vanity. Do I believe that the director should be the ultimate, primary, creative force on a movie? Yes, this seems to be the case, more often than not, with the films I've liked the most. At the end of the day, however, I don't even know if it's relevant.

Your films have run the gamut in terms of genre. How would you characterize Out of Sight?

Hmmm. How can I put this so it will sound appealing to your readers? (Laughs) What I like about it is that it feels like a '70s movie—in the best sense. And it has a great group of characters. Part of its initial appeal was that it seemed to play to the things I can do. It was character-driven but definitely needed a style to push it across. When I read it, I guess I just knew what it needed. It's hard for me to place it in a particular genre, thought. Clearly, it's a crime film to some extent. I think it will be interesting for people to look at Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, and this film and see how directors interpret material differently. The three films are very, very diverse.

Included in the cast are Ving Rhames, Albert Brooks and Don Cheadle—these are some talented actors. And you've also worked with James Spader, Jeremy Irons and Sir Alec Guinness. Which actor or actress have you enjoyed directing the most?

It's hard to say. First of all, I've been really lucky, again, in that I've never had one of those nightmare experiences with a cast member we seem always to be reading about either specifically or in veiled terms. Part of this stems from avoiding people who are notorious troublemakers. Life is too short and there are a lot of good actors out there who aren't trouble. Another part of it, I think, is the atmosphere you set up when making a movie. I like talking to them and get along with them pretty well. The atmosphere is loose and low key on my sets, and so there isn't as much opportunity for people to act up.

In both sex, lies, and The Underneath, there was this homecoming theme which dealt with returning to a place that knows you only as you once were. Was this a theme taken from personal experience?

Not in a literal sense. I have a tendency to want to emotionally return to the scene of the crime, so to speak, which drives a lot of people nuts. It's a pattern I fall into sometimes. The Underneath was, for me, a companion piece of sorts to sex, lies. It was the dark side to that whole movie, the film that said, "You probably shouldn't go back." I felt like finish of sex, lies, was appropriate, but something in my experience as I got older made me feel like there was another ending.

Do you feel haunted by the success of sex, lies?

Oh, God, no. I've been coasting on it for nine years. And I don't feel like people are waiting for me to make the next sex, lies, it that's what you're asking. I knew that I wanted to make a lot of different kinds of films and that it might take people awhile to stop trying to anticipate what I was going to do next. I think that has finally happened. People have finally given up on me. It's a good place to be.

What about Kafka? What did that experience teach you?

In retrospect, the tension of that film—directorially—wasn't the right one. I think it needed a looser, freer style than it had. I took the wrong path that culminated in The Underneath, a movie that was creatively frustrating through nobody's fault but my own. Kafka was an example of the problems with that path. It was maddenly controlled and constructed, and feels too polished. It needed to be rougher. It was a physically challenging movie to make, very worthwhile, and I learned a lot. But it was also a young man's movie. Lem Dobbs (the screenwriter) told me that he read a review from Canada which essentially said, "This is the kind of mistake intelligent people make." I felt that was fair. Looking back on it, though, I admire the hubris of it. I don't know a lot of people who would make that kind of film coming off something like sex, lies.

You're generally considered one of the instigators behind the independent movement in filmmaking. What is your overall reaction to what has been happening in independent film?

If sex, lies has an influence, it was strictly financial. If it had come out and made $500,000, I don't think people would have been so attracted to the independent route. Fortunately for all of us, it made some money and the idea became palatable that you could make a commercially successful independent film, or successful enough to have some of the larger companies take it seriously. I happen to believe that there's a finite number of good movies to be had in year. Whether there are 500 of them made or 100, this figure won't rise exponentially. Just because there are more independent films being made today than ten years ago doesn't necessarily mean there are a lot of good films out there. It's certainly easier to get one made today, but harder to get it released.

One thing that's not often touched upon with regard to your films is their soundtracks, but they're very inventive and unusual. I know the temporary track for sex, lies, and videotape was backed by Brian Eno. Is this the kind of music you listen to at home?

Sometimes. I have fairly eclectic tastes. Here's the thing: if you own everything that Eno has released, you've got a really great source of temp music for your movies. I guess I do use him a lot. Not so much with Kafka because it had a different feel. On King of the Hill, I temped with Philip Glass and Richard Rogers. The Underneath has a lot of Eno on it and so does the temp track for Out of Sight. He's just great. I've always liked him, and his stuff is very cinematic. I think soundtracks are the most confused aspect of films these days. I tend toward not wanting to hit the audience over the head with music, so Cliff Martinez and I usually work very closely together to make sure that we're supporting an emotion as opposed to evoking one. I used a little rock & roll in Schizopolis, but must of the time I find rock very transparent. It makes your film sound like it's trying to sell an album.

Speaking of Schizopolis, I've watched it three times now trying to figure it out.

Oops!

Tell me a little about the history behind that film and your motivation in writing it.

It grew from a dissatisfaction that really took hold while I was making The Underneath. I felt like I wasn't pushing myself enough. I needed to reestablish my status as an amateur because I had lost my enjoyment of working, a terrifying think for me because I assumed it would never happen. To sit on a set—age 31—and feel like I didn't want to do this anymore was very sobering. I realized that I had to start over, tear everything apart. So while I was shooting and finishing The Underneath, I hatched the plan to go and make Schizopolis or something like it. As is so often the case, you learn a lot when things don't go right. And while I may have been displeased with The Underneath in terms of product or my own performance, it pushed me into another area. Had I not made Schizopolis or Gray's Anatomy, I don't think I would have done a good job with Out of Sight.

Schizopolis also marked your debut as an actor. Are you interested in doing more acting?

No, it's a job I wouldn't wish on anybody. You have no control at all unless you're Warren Beatty.

Let's talk about Gray's Anatomy for a moment. You've worked with Spalding Gray a number of times now. What's the allure there?

He's such a unique character. I like his wit, his sense of irony. I was really impressed by his ability to take a large number of seemingly disparate ideas and wrap them up into a coherent story, which is a lot harder than it looks. I found him very compelling. When I had the opportunity to use him in King of the Hill, I really went after it. And Gray's was a blast to make. We had to shoot completely out of sequence and Spalding's ability to remember the emotion and cadence of a given section of the monologue was remarkable. He had performed it hundreds of times, literally, but I didn't know whether he would be able to work in a random access fashion. When I started putting that whole thing together, I was astonished at how fluid it was.

So far your career has been anything but typical. But when I saw that George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez were going to star in Out of Sight, I wondered if maybe this wasn't your first stab at something a little more conventional. Is this the case?

I would have made this film if it had cost $4 million and there was nobody in it. I really liked the material. It was a type of movie that interested me, just like all the other movies I've made. Lucky for me, from the practical standpoint, directing it was not dissimilar from other movies I've done for Universal; I was allowed to make the film I wanted. If I had felt going in that this wasn't going to be the case, I wouldn't have involved myself with it. What I like about films from the '60s and '70s is their meshing of Hollywood with a filmic sensibility that clearly made them something more than your typical studio fare. All of my favorite directors from that period were making Hollywood movies. And a lot of filmmakers from my generation have lamented that this just isn't the case anymore.

Did the Out of Sight experience help you decide to stick with filmmaking?

Yes. If I had been offered this right after The Underneath, I would have screwed it up. But I doubt I would have even accepted it. At the time, it would have seemed like the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. Anybody who has been through the independent experience will confirm this: it's very, very hard to make movies for $300,000—backbreaking hard, from beginning to end. Don't get me wrong; it's also extremely gratifying. But when John Hardy, my producing partner, and I finished Schizopolis and Gray's, we both looked at each other and said, "We have to get real jobs. We need a break from having to do everything ourselves. We would like to make a movie now where we can actually put the focus on making it." Luckily one came around.