Steven Soderbergh Planning to Retire From Filmmaking

Steven Soderbergh says he's done with Hollywood.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker -- whose credits include Traffic, Erin Brockovich and Ocean's Eleven and its two sequels -- said in an interview with Studio 360's Kurt Andersen that after he shoots his next two films he's planning to retire from filmmaking.

"When you reach the point where you're like if I have to get into a van to do anther scout I'm just going to shoot myself, it's time to let somebody else who's still excited about getting in the van, get in the van," he said in the interview that airs on Studio 360 Friday night. "And so it's just time. For the last three years, I've been turning down everything that comes my way, so you're not going to have Steven Soderbergh to kick around anymore," he quipped.

Andersen played a clip from a previous interview he conducted with Damon, star of Soderbergh's upcoming Contagion, who said the director had told him he was planning to retire to possibly become a painter or photographer.

"It's just a sense of having been there before," Soderbergh said. "The making of any art is problem solving, and as you work at it, you're able to eliminate the versions that aren't any good faster, but at a certain point the salves sort of become the same. And when I started feeling like I've done this shot before, I've dpne a scene that’s about this before, that's when I started thinking seriously about a shift. But also I don't want to leave you know, when you see those athletes hang on one or two seasons too long, it's kind of sad."

Soderbergh said he's got two more movies to shoot -- Liberace, starring Matt Damon and Michael Douglas, and Man From U.N.C.L.E., starring George Clooney -- and then he's going to call it quits.

"That's a great way to sort of step off," he said.

On the same episode, Andersen interviews Roger Waters of Pink Floyd and Todd Robbins who plays Teller on Penn and Teller.

Listen to the full interview here