Stephen Gaghan
Stephen Gaghan
Stephen Gaghanis an American screenwriter and director. He is noted for writing the screenplay for Steven Soderbergh's film Traffic, based on a Channel 4 series, for which he won the Academy Award, as well as Syriana which he wrote and directed...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth6 May 1965
CityLouisville, KY
CountryUnited States of America
believe bending cross feeling good inside kids life line moment ourselves people point quite rules tried
And they may even believe it most of the time, ... But I do think there's a point that we all have a feeling inside of us that we know - I mean, most people know - when you're just bending the rules a little bit, or you just cross the line a little bit, or you're doing something that doesn't feel quite right. In that moment you tell yourself, 'It's for my family, it's so that I can be set for life so my kids can go to the good colleges.' You give yourself an out, and it's that little out that we give ourselves that I think that I tried to get in the film.
adapting families hopefully oil talking terror war
It tackles, hopefully in an interesting way, things that are going on right now. We're talking about oil and oil politics, about the war on terror and about how families are adapting
guy selfless sort
It's remarkable. The guy I started with in the end was the only person that I thought actually had a sort of selfless motivation.
evil intelligence support
See No Evil. We had support in the intelligence sectors.
canvas certainly disposable easier east entire george last life piece point scene seems several simple turn west
I could have concentrated on George Clooney's character. I could have had him in every scene and told the entire story from his point of view. That certainly would have made my life a lot easier over the last several years. But the canvas was too large. These days, if you make a movie about East and West and turn it into a simple piece of disposable entertainment, that seems to me criminal.
canvas certainly disposable easier east entire george last life piece point scene seems several simple turn west
I could have concentrated on George Clooney's character, ... I could have had him in every scene and told the entire story from his point of view. That certainly would have made my life a lot easier over the last several years. But the canvas was too large. These days, if you make a movie about East and West and turn it into a simple piece of disposable entertainment, that seems to me criminal.
field greatest trip
the greatest field trip I ever got to go on.
life-lesson character reflection
We are living in complex, difficult times and I wanted Syriana to reflect this complexity in a visceral way, to embrace it narratively. There are no good guys and no bad guys and there are no easy answers. The characters do not have traditional character arcs; the stories don't wrap up in neat little life lessons, the questions remain open. The hope was that by not wrapping everything up, the film will get under your skin in a different way and stay with you longer. This seemed like the most honest reflection of this post 9-11 world we all find ourselves in.
average years development
The average development time for a Hollywood movie is nine years. Nine years for a studio film. And a lot of what you do is abstract.
writing hollywood comedy
I came to Hollywood originally writing comedy and writing satire.
views interesting people
Starting in 98 when I was researching Traffic, I got to meet really serious people in Washington, which for a screenwriter was kind of a great gift. And I really valued these guys; I stayed in touch with them, and I find their point-of-view quite interesting.
war thinking creating
I think the War on Terror has succeeded in creating more terror, more terrorists, a less safe America, and a less safe world.
art writing class
When I moved to Los Angeles, I wrote spec screenplays. I was really poor, and I thought I was just gonna do this for a while to make a little money so I could write novels. I thought movies were a second-class art form. I condescended to it - I didnt know enough to know it was really gonna be hard.
book reading hippie
As I got into my teens, I started reading better books, beginning with the Beats and then the hippie writers, people like Wallace Stegner up in Northern California, and all the political New Journalism stuff, the Boys on the Bus dudes and Ken Kesey.