How Steven Soderberg gave Christopher Nolan his big break
By now, we know that Christopher Nolan is one of the undoubted cinematic auteurs of the 21st century and has delivered works of the highest quality time after time, from his unique take on the superhero film The Dark Knight to the awe-inspiring science fiction of Interstellar to the mind-bending nature of Inception.
Quite simply, there isn’t a thing that Nolan can’t do with a camera and a microphone, and he has consistently delivered. Even going back to his early work, Nolan has produced quality movies, beginning with his debut feature Following, released in 1999, followed by 2000’s Memento, which saw an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ arrive with aplomb.
While Nolan certainly deserves all the plaudits that have come his way so far and will likely continue to arrive, he also might not have enjoyed such success were it not for his fellow film director Steven Soderbergh, who once contacted Warner Bros and suggested that Nolan direct the 2002 thriller Insomnia.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Soderbergh humbly rejected the suggestions that he was essential in Nolan’s career rise, but upon closer inspection, it does appear that the American auteur played an essential role in getting his counterpart’s relationship with the legendary movie studio up off the ground.
Discussing how things went down, Soderbergh noted: “I got a call from Chris’ agent, who I had known because he screened Memento for me after Memento couldn’t find a distributor after being on the festival circuit for a year. Dan calls me up out of the blue and says, ‘Could you watch this movie? I have this client of mine who has this movie, and we think it’s really good, but nobody will pick it up, and we don’t understand why.'”
After Soderbergh saw Memento, he called it a “fucking instant classic” and felt “depressed” and “upset” that no one had picked it up. Eventually, the film’s financiers, Newmarket, started their own distribution arm and released the film to a generous box office of $25million.
However, when it came time for Nolan to direct Insomnia, Warner Bros did not have the same respect for Memento as Soderbergh did. Nolan was interested in the new project, set to star Al Pacino, Hilary Swank, and Robin Williams, but the relatively new director did not entirely convince the studio.
Queue a phone call from Soderbergh to the Warner executives to convince them to meet with Nolan. The director noted, “So, I called that executive, and I said, ‘Take the meeting. You’ve got to take the meeting.’ And he goes, ‘But I didn’t like the movie.’ And I go, ‘Well, did you like the movie-making?’ And he goes, ‘Well, yeah, it’s brilliantly made.’ And I go, ‘Take the meeting.'”
Nolan went on to make Insomnia, his first big break studio movie, and he never looked back, going on to make some of the finest pieces of cinema in the 21st century. Soderbergh concluded, though, by claiming that even if Nolan hadn’t made Insomnia, “He’d have made something else and still had the career he has. That was just a fortunate set of circumstances where I could get on the phone and advocate for him.”
