STEVEN SODERBERGH IS a romantic. At 62, the Academy Award-winning director has been helming major motion pictures for more than half of his life, and while his subject matter has widely varied since sex, lies, and videotape came out to much acclaim in 1989 (covering heists, revolutionary leaders, environmental distress, and just about everything in between along the way) there’s been one consistent throughline: relationships, for better and for worse.
Think about it: sex, lies, and videotape is about the way an outsider disrupts an already decaying relationship. Out of Sight is a crime thriller, but also centers on one of the sexiest courtships in cinema history, between George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Ocean’s Eleven is the coolest heist movie you’ll ever see, but it’s also about George Clooney (again!) winning his ex-wife’s trust back. Even Erin Brockovich, ostensibly a legal drama, wouldn’t be the same if Julia Roberts wasn’t being smooth-talked by Aaron Eckhart throughout the proceedings.
Soderbergh’s newest film, the spy thriller Black Bag (his third collaboration with writer David Koepp, and their second of 2025 after January’s Presence), puts his mash-up skills to the test, as we learn the conflict from the very first scene: Super-spy George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is given a list of possible traitors—and his wife, fellow spy Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) is on it. And so we’re faced with a dilemma: How does a potential betrayal of the country balance with bedroom pillow talk? Black Bag is an espionage thriller of the highest order, but is also a deeply thoughtful drama about the nature of romance and entanglement; it examines not only the relationship between George and Kathryn, but two other sets of spy couples along the way as well.
“There’s a component to every successful relationship that involves keeping something for yourself and keeping some things to yourself,” Soderbergh says on a sunny Sunday in March. In a suite in Manhattan’s Whitby Hotel, he’s wearing his signature black-framed glasses and a suit jacket over a T-shirt paying tribute to the late Italian director Lina Wertmuller. Black Bag, he explains, provided a new context for him to explore what makes a relationship work. “At the same time, I think the metric of a successful relationship is: If something happens to me today, my experience of it isn’t complete until I’ve described it to my wife. It’s only half complete until I’ve told her about it and gotten her take on it.”
Black Bag explores this nuance and more through the twisty whodunit plot at its center—and its cast, along with Soderbergh returnees Fasssbender and Blanchett, also includes tremendous turns from newcomers Tom Burke, Marisa Abela, Rege Jean-Page, Naomie Harris, and Pierce Brosnan. Soderbergh has spent much of the past decade making experimental movies; Unsane and High Flying Bird were shot on an iPhone, Kimi was decisively a Covid film, and Presence takes place entirely from the POV of a ghost. Black Bag, in contrast, feels like a return to the capers and thrillers the director has long been known for.
“We’ve got a lot of great, artful movies out there,” he says. “What I wish we had more of are mainstream, broad audience appeal movies that are smart, and don’t make you feel like taking a shower afterwards. The next day, you’re not embarrassed. They’re not guilty pleasures, they’re just pleasures.”
And if Black Bag is anything, like almost all of Soderbergh’s other movies, it’s a pleasure. Men’s Health had a chance to talk with the director about not only Black Bag, but what makes a great leading man, all those movies you love, and the one (he thinks) everyone hates.
MEN’S HEALTH: As someone who’s worked with so many of them: What makes a great leading man?
STEVEN SODERBERGH: We can talk about it in two ways. One is the person, the performer, and what qualities they have that makes them watchable—which you cannot conjure. That’s just something people are born with, in the same way some people can run really quickly, or sink a three-pointer. And to me, it’s pretty self-evident on first blush. I remember seeing ER when it came on, and I was like, “That guy’s a movie star.” And so it is with Michael as well.
The second part of it is that proficiency is really compelling to watch on screen. Watching somebody who’s really good at something is really pleasurable for an audience. So, someone who has the inherent qualities of a leading man has to be matched with a character that allows for that quality to be amplified. One of the reasons Out of Sight was such a critical movie for both me and for George was we both were viewed as having potential that hadn’t been realized. And we needed each other. I knew that was the part where people would look at him and go, “Okay, he is a movie star.” And I knew how to make that movie. I felt I understood that movie very clearly. So, we kind of met at a very opportune moment, and delivered for each other.
It’s interesting to think about how you make a movie star now, because movies aren’t the same as they were 25 years ago. Leading men, or people who become stars, do so by getting opportunities and making good on them. A lot of the conversation now, if you talk to filmmakers in terms of casting, is using people who have already established themselves and who everybody’s chasing. So, it would appear Timothée Chalamet is a movie star. Like, this guy can make movies hits, and they’re a wide range of movies. So, everybody’s chasing him. I don’t know him, but he seems to be making interesting choices.
Even the stuff he’s got coming up sounds and looks interesting. He seems to be pretty savvy about finding things that allow him to build out a range that people will accept, which is smart.
MH: Some recent movies, like Dune: Part Two last year, seem to have started to usher in a new generation of stars that includes not only Timothée Chalamet, but Austin Butler, and women like Zendaya and Florence Pugh as well.
SS: They’re all talented—the challenge becomes finding parts that work for them. And by that, I mean that showcase their talents, and are hits. When you look at what’s working lately, it tends to be either something in the franchise fantasy spectacle mode, or low-budget horror movies, with the occasional comedy thrown in. It’s more restrictive for young casts, because Black Bag is the kind of film I made my career on, which is a mid-level budgeted movie for adults. And they’re not making a lot of those for theater release.
I feel for them in the sense that there aren’t as many options as there were for the previous generation. Here’s what I know from talking to Focus Features, and people at A24, and Neon: Young people, 25 and under, are going to the movies, and are very director-oriented.
That’s a really good sign. If that continues, they will identify certain performers as their favorites, and those people will become stars. But it’s a funny thing, because you can have somebody that for whatever reason can get you money, but in pure kind of financial ledger terms, and not necessarily someone you’d define as a movie star. Often, they can be somebody who has a rabid fan base in a different part of the world. The parlor game of trying to attract cast is always fascinating to me.
MH: Are these all things you consider when casting?
SS: Yeah. I mean, people say no to me all the time. It’s so important—You have to be careful. I know people who’ve been in situations in which having a certain person in the movie gets them the money to make the movie, but the person’s not really right for that part. And that can be a really difficult scenario, because… The excitement at somebody going, “We’re going to write the check and make this movie.” It’s hard to put the brakes on that by going, “I’m not sure this is the right call.” And if somebody’s in that scenario, all I can say is if you don’t feel like they’re right, if you have any question about that, don’t do it.
MH: Have you ever found yourself in that situation?
SS: I don’t feel like I’ve ever cast somebody feeling they’re not a great fit. I’ve been lucky in that regard. The problem is that casting mistakes are fatal, and so I take that very, very seriously. If I found myself like, I can make the movie with somebody who’s not really right for it, or not make the movie, I wouldn’t make it.
MH: In this film, you’ve worked with Michael and Cate before, but the rest of the cast are all new faces. What’s that like?
SS: I like the mix. And in this case, what’s really helpful is that Michael and Cate can help contextualize the way I work for the people who haven’t worked for me before. Because it can be a little… It’s just not typical, in terms of the way things are shot. I don’t like to talk a lot to the actors. I don’t want to get in their head. I don’t want them thinking about me, actually, is the thing. And I don’t want to distract them from what they’re there to do, which is to embody this character, and to be that character. That to me is a physical thing, not an intellectual thing.
And so the last thing I want to do is start talking to them. And since I’m acting as my own director of photography, camera operator, and editor, a lot of things are just going on in my head that don’t get said out loud. These are conversations I’m having with myself. There aren’t a lot of ‘Attaboy!’s after every take. You know that I got what I want because suddenly I’m on the other side of the room with another angle ready to go. And so it’s helpful to have Michael and Cate go, “He’s happy. Just because he’s not clapping and jumping up and down… If he moves on, it’s because he’s happy and he’s thinking about the next thing.”
MH: So they’re like unofficial director whisperers.
SS: Yeah, they’re just like, “You’re going to be fine.” Once actors fall into that rhythm, because it moves very quickly, they enjoy it. Because you’re rolling all day. The days are not long; you come onto set, and we are rolling. And we stay on set. Nobody leaves until that scene is done. And then you go away. You’re doing the good stuff, which is performing. And you’re not waiting around.
That used to be a real frustration of mine, years ago, before I started shooting myself—losing that energy. Like, okay, turning around, half an hour, and they would disappear into their trailers or wherever. And I’d have to get everybody, and I’d have to be the fluffer, and get everybody excited again. I wasn’t enjoying that. So, now to have a process in which we’re shooting all the time, just gives it more energy. You can feel it.
MH: Is there something you still haven’t gotten to do that you want to? Do you want to do, like, a slasher film or something?
SS: No, probably not. I had this shock comedy that I was trying to get made that nobody wanted to touch. That was frustrating.
MH: What was so shocking about it?
SS: It’s hard to describe, but it was deliberately outrageous and provocative. And all the people that read it that could potentially pay for it, whether it be companies or wealthy individuals, said, “This is too hot.” So, that was a bummer.
I was really interested in making something that was like a full-on comedy, like Blazing Saddles. Not a subtle comedy. That still appeals to me; it’s just apparent that it’s not going to be that script. But I like the idea of trying to make what would be the equivalent now of Team America or Blazing Saddles. Just something completely batshit crazy.
MH: Something with a bit of satire too, then.
SS: Yeah, I want it to be outrageous, and to have people laughing at it, and other people going like, “I’m not sure you’re allowed to do that.” That kind of thing.
MH: I’m counting Black Bag as your 36th film. That’s with Che as one, and no Behind the Candelabra, which aired on HBO.
SS: Well, that’s a mistake. Che is two films, and Behind the Candelabra is a movie that outside of this country was released theatrically.
MH: I see.
SS: There’s also a movie I made in Australia when I was doing a play down there that nobody has seen, called The Last Time I Saw Michael Gregg. And that is a movie. So, I think this is actually 39.
MH: 39. So, of those, is there one that you feel is under-appreciated, or perhaps under-seen? Something you wish people would take a trip back to check out?
SS: It would be really bad form for me to pretend to be under-appreciated. But there is no question that The Good German remains the most reviled thing I’ve ever made, which I’m kind of baffled by. I just… Wow. Like, people were really angry. And it was just odd, because of all the things I’ve done, that might have been the closest I got to getting what I saw in my imagination, you know? And then it just, it really made people angry. Yeah, that was interesting.
Other stuff I’ve made—stuff that when it came out people were unhappy with—almost everything else has gone through a kind of cycle. People are like, “Oh, I saw Solaris.” And, “Ocean’s Twelve is actually not that bad.” That kind of thing. Nobody brings this movie up. Nobody has ever said, “Hey, I watched The Good German again. And actually…” Nobody has ever written that sentence.
MH: Well, now that Cate is in Black Bag, maybe it’s time to bring it back.
SS: There’s just something about that one. I don’t know what to attribute it to, other than the possibility that a character who is a victim and a monster is something that really was unnerving to people. And so people are like, “That was supposed to be The Good War. Why are you making me feel bad?” I don’t know. It’s funny.
MH: I read your Seen/Read log, where you note every movie and show you watched, and book you read, every year, and I’m always impressed by how much you read. Do you have any tips for anyone who wants to lock in like that?
SS: If I look at a year and there’s a high volume of reading that’s been done, what that says to me is that was a stressful year. Because reading is my go-to sort of meditative space. And I will dedicate 30 minutes, 40 minutes, where I just go off in a corner, without my phone. I’m not reachable. I read to just calm down and reset. And so it’s partially because I like to read and I like to learn things and have new experiences and see how other people see the world, but it’s also… It’s kind of a mental health hack.
It really calms me down. It’s rare even on a shoot day, or a work day, that I don’t find a way to carve out 30 or 45 minutes to read, just to decompress.
MH: Do you ever bring a book on set?
SS: No.
MH: No?
SS: No. But driving to and from work, for sure. I feel bad—I have friends who can’t read in the car, or they get motion sickness. And I feel bad for them. On the last movie I made, it was a 40 minute drive to and from the studio. I got two sessions in and it was great.
MH: One last thing I noticed in your log, not from this year, but the previous—you watched David Fincher’s The Killer way before it was released. Do you share notes with fellow filmmakers often?
SS: It happens occasionally. David and I are in that rhythm. I send him the first cut of stuff that I’m doing, and he sends me early cuts of his stuff. It’s fun just to chat back and forth. And it’s easier to hear comments from somebody who you know is rooting for you.
They want you to win. And so if they’re bumping on something, you’re like, “Okay, I need to really think about that.” I enjoy it when it happens. But there are only a couple people that I do that with. There has to be a lot of trust. You know what mean? Because it’s a very vulnerable thing to do—to show something that’s really not finished. I mean, David’s stuff is pretty polished by the time I’ve seen it, just because of the way he works. But he’s very open. He is not precious.
MH: And you guys have known each other for a long time.
SS: Yeah. A long time.
This interview has been edited for content and clarity.
