Slant Magazine

Slant: You've mentioned that finding Gina is what incited the making of this movie. Yet, The Girlfriend Experience is another recent movie of yours with a nonprofessional actress playing a woman off the grid with an offbeat career. That's not just something you're interested in right now? It's more about stumbling upon her?

SS: Yeah, that's just chance. And taking the attitude that, when an opportunity arises, or you hear an idea, that you need to act quickly, or decisively, and will it into existence as soon as you can. Magic Mike is a perfect example of that. Channing Tatum came to me and said, "You know, I'm developing this movie about when I was a stripper." And I thought, "Ooh, that needs to happen right now. Like, right now." And that movie is fun. It's a party. It's an Altman movie, in that sense?a comedy. Not like, jokes, but the people are funny. If you're fortunate enough to be in a position to make certain things happen on a certain scale, and quickly, then I feel like you should do that. Why wouldn't you?

Slant: You've shot a number of your films under the pseudonym Peter Andrews, but you've edited fewer of them as Mary Ann Bernard. Is there something specific that determines whether or not you'll edit one of your films?

SS: No, it just depends on the circumstances. Sometimes it depends on the budget. But then, sometimes, like in a movie like Contagion, I know I'm going to benefit from having another set of eyes on that, because the canvas is big and there's a lot of moving parts. So to have Stephen Mirrione there, kind of keeping the macro of it straight, was really, really important. But with other things, smaller things, when you're after something so specific, it seems stupid to dictate to somebody what to do, like on Bubble. That would be a waste. Because I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and it was super low budget.

Slant: Do you have a lot of input on your films' trailers?

SS: Oh, all the time, but unless you're going to sit down and cut something yourself, it's just impossible to get something distinctive out of that process. If it's too distinctive...well, the thing is that everything's about testing now. I don't mind testing movies, but the point is, what is that for? I want to know two things: I want to know how people feel about the pacing of the film, and I want to know if they're confused. When you start getting into discussions about numbers, and if you're a filmmaker who doesn't have contractual control over the content of the film, those can be ugly conversations. It becomes a hammer. You can feel like a real idiot when someone has a stack of paper and says, "Don't you see?! They don't like so-and-so! Look, there's 400 people, they don't like him!" And you're going, "They're not supposed to like him." There was a lot of discussion about Jude Law's character in Contagion, a movie that did not score well that I thought was going to be fine. And Warner has never hammered me on that shit, but the one thing that came up was, "People don't know how to feel about Jude." And I said, "Yeah, I know." There's a difference between ambiguity and confusion. I said, "He's an ambiguous character. He's a polarizing character." These are movies, not cereal.

Slant: Is there a movie genre you wouldn't attempt?

SS: Western. I don't like horses. I mean, I think they're beautiful, I just don't want to stand next to one.

Slant: There's a suggestion in the film that Mallory relaxes with a glass of wine while cleaning her guns. What do you do to relax?

SS: Umm...read, probably. Given free time, I'll read. That's the first thing I'll do. When I go on vacation, I have a stack of books and I just go right to it. I can sit down for eight hours and just read. That's pure pleasure for me. Or listen to music, though I'm unfortunately so old that I can't do both, unlike my daughter.

Slant: What about all the talk of your retirement?

SS: What about it?

Slant: Well, you keep coming out with new movies, but...

SS: Yeah, but my out date is still the same. A year from now I'll be done. What I've said is, I need to break down my process and start over again if I'm going to come back. Because I'm not gonna come back unless I've figured out a new way to do this, by my definition. I don't know if that's gonna happen or not. We'll see. I've got ideas for stuff that isn't movies, whether it's painting or photography or books. With movies, I'll miss two things: the specific camaraderie that develops around the core shooting team—a kind of language, and inside jokes and running gags that make no sense to anyone who's not in that group; and I'll miss editing, but I can still do that on my own, just edit to edit. I've been planning this for a while. It was a series of things, all leading to me feeling like I need a change. A radical change. The primary reason was just feeling frustrated at my knowledge being at a standstill. I feel like there's another kind of movie out there and I've got to see if I can figure out what it is. This is one of those things that come up every once in a while in your life, where you just feel like, "I gotta tear it down."