“I’m Surprised When Anybody Likes It”: Soderbergh On His “Girlfriend Experience”

Steven Soderbergh and “Medicine for Melancholy” director Barry Jenkins at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, where “Girlfriend Experience” had a sneak preview. Photo by Brian Brooks.

IW: Not much.  But it’s an honor to listen to you, a privilege to listen to you.

SS: At one point Chelsea says, Well, what are you looking for?  And the guy says, I’ve been feeling stressed out, maybe I should go see a shrink, but it seems like more fun to see you.

IW: Wouldn’t you expect a “regular” relationship to at least provide an ear?

SS: I don’t have any desire to define what people should be getting out of a relationship.  It really just comes down to how far we’re willing to dictate the terms for the way other people live.

iW: I’m not judging it.

SS: I’m not either.  Somebody can live a life that I would never live and that I won’t condone.  But unless we’re talking about sex with children, it’s really not my place to legislate how people please themselves.

IW: Yet what I took away from the film is that everything’s commodified - sex, companionship, sportswear - it’s all on the same spectrum.

SS: Absolutely.

IW: At the two screenings I attended, I laughed a lot, though I was almost the only one.

SS: I think a lot of it’s funny too.  Just the way people try and get what they want.  Y’know, in real life we repeat ourselves.  When you read a transcript of a conversation you’ve had with somebody it’s really alarming.  And the film sounds like that to me.  Like the breakup scene.  Everybody’s been through that scene.  They keep circling the same thing over and over.  And they think, if I just say it a little different I’m going to get a different response or result.  It’s both funny and painful at the same time.  He keeps thinking I’m gonna say something that’s going to turn her.  And she keeps thinking I’m gonna say something that’s gonna make him go, oh okay.  And it doesn’t.  It just keeps going.

iW: I saw a moment of emotional truthfulness in that scene, when Chris says you’re out fucking guys all day.  Till then he seems content with the arrangment.

SS: When we were setting up that scene that was an example of what can be interesting about this process.  Because nothing’s written down.  I pull her [Sasha] aside and I say, Whatever you do, do not let him talk you into staying here tonight, you are going on this trip.  Separately I pull him aside and say, Whatever you do, do not let her out of this apartment to go on this trip.  Then you turn ‘em loose.  I had a sense, knowing the two of them, that at some point he’s just going to pop.  And that eventually he would have to SAY THE THING THAT YOU DON’T WANT TO SAY, THAT’S BEEN THERE ALL ALONG.  For me part of the tension was if it takes 12 minutes, I’m going to wait until he pops.  And it took about 5