Some Hollywood scandals come from leaked scripts, secret affairs, or courtroom drama. Steven Soderbergh‘s came from a bar stool, a few beers, and his old friend Matt Damon, who apparently can’t keep a secret.
The two have one of the longest-running partnerships in modern film. Soderbergh directed Damon through the whole ‘Ocean’s‘ trilogy, cast him in ‘Contagion‘, and put him alongside Michael Douglas in ‘Behind the Candelabra‘. It’s a friendship that’s made both men money and won them awards. But according to Soderbergh, one loose night of talking nearly cost him his reputation in the industry.
Inside Soderbergh’s 2013 Semi-Retirement From Directing
Soderbergh explained it in a conversation with The Guardian. He said it started with a private complaint he never meant to share with anyone else. He told Damon, over drinks, that he was burned out and needed a break from directing. Damon didn’t treat that as something to keep quiet. “Since he blurted that out, I’m cast as a traitor to cinema,” Soderbergh said, describing how the comment took on a life of its own once it left the bar.
Related: The Brilliant Mind Game Francis Ford Coppola Played on Matt Damon During ‘The Rainmaker’
The timing matches one of the bigger chapters of his career, his semi-retirement announced around 2013. For years before that, he’d been telling interviewers he felt worn down by the studio system and that the creative freedom he once had was disappearing. He said he still felt like a teenager on set, chasing the same instincts he had early on, but that the business around him made it harder to keep going that way.
“That’s what pisses me off,” he said back then. “I’m not bored, but I am frustrated.“
He talked openly about stepping back from projects and turning down offers, telling people not to bother sending him scripts. He even joked about whether the industry would take him back if he changed his mind, saying he hadn’t really thought it through, but that if the door was closed, he would just go make cheap films on his own.
How One Bar Story Shaped Soderbergh’s Public Image In Hollywood
Whatever rumors were already floating around about Soderbergh being unhappy, Damon’s retelling at the bar apparently turned them into a full story: the acclaimed director was fed up, disillusioned, maybe finished for good.
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Soderbergh ended up being painted as someone walking away from filmmaking altogether, a label he never chose and couldn’t really shake once it spread.
Soderbergh’s Comeback With ‘Logan Lucky’ And His Ongoing Friendship With Damon
Turns out the retirement didn’t last. Soderbergh came back in 2017 with the heist comedy ‘Logan Lucky‘ and hasn’t really slowed down since, putting out close to a movie a year. Damon hasn’t led any of those comeback films, though he’s shown up in smaller parts, including 2018’s ‘Unsane‘ and 2021’s ‘No Sudden Move‘, which suggests the friendship survived the bar story just fine.
Still, the whole thing is a reminder of how easily reputation can slip in an industry built on image. One unguarded sentence, repeated by the wrong person to the wrong crowd, was enough to make one of America’s most respected directors look disenchanted with his own work. it is not because he wrote an essay about it or sat down for a tell-all interview, but because his friend couldn’t help sharing what he had heard over a drink.
Soderbergh seems to have made peace with it by now. But it’s a safe bet he thinks twice before saying anything to Matt Damon after a couple of beers.
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