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
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
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.
love pages people substitute york
I love the op-ed pages of the 'L.A. Times,' the 'Washington Post' and the 'New York Times.' There's just no substitute for the people who are thinking and writing on those pages.
bob cia met seen together
I just wanted to get together with him. I wanted to see, what is a Bob Baer? I'd never met a CIA officer. I'd only seen them in movies.
evil intelligence support
See No Evil. We had support in the intelligence sectors.
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.
gun views people
It's rare in Hollywood to get the chance to work on something that you actually care about. The tragedy of the place is all these talented people trying to get excited about stuff they themselves would only view at gun point.
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.
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.
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.
along business came devoured dollars dvd enormous suddenly watching
The movie business has been in enormous flux. It's always changing, and you've got to scramble. The Internet came along and devoured the DVD backend of the movie business. Suddenly you're watching dollars turn into nickels, and that's interesting to me.
great meet people quite serious starting stayed valued
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.
life serves
Life serves up satire. Unfortunately. Or fortunately. I don't know. You have to reel it in to drama.
best equal everybody fighting gets main possible time
At the beginning, everything's possible and everybody gets equal time, all the characters, all the ideas. You don't know who's going to be the main characters; they're all fighting it out. It's like kind of the best time in a way.