The Christopher Family defies easy categorization, telling the story of a former leading painter (Ian McKellen) and his mysterious assistant (Michaela Coel), who he hires to destroy his precious unfinished work. It’s both funny and sad, moving between crime thriller and character drama as it examines the volatile nature of talent. This article asks why some artists lose their creative spark.
“We didn’t really think about genre,” says director Steven Soderbergh. “Human behavior was our compass. The evolution of the human characters determined the trajectory of the film.”
Soderbergh is cowering next to Christopher’s author Ed Solomon at a comically small desk in Manhattan’s Warren Street Hotel. The two have previously co-starred in the noir thriller No Sudden Move and the twisty mysteries Mosaic and Full Circle. It’s the day before their latest collaboration, The Christophers, opens in limited release on April 10th, and they’re wrapping up promotion for the low-budget indie film.
The press tour sparked controversy after Soderbergh, one of Hollywood’s most outspoken and thoughtful A-list directors, opened up about using AI in his upcoming documentary about John Lennon and talked about its creative possibilities. His comments sparked heavy criticism on social media, with some commentators accusing him of embracing technology that could cost the entertainment industry jobs.
But Soderbergh has never been one to shy away from controversy. In our discussion, he further emphasized his views on the potential of AI, as well as speaking about his working relationship with Solomon, the artistic anxieties that Christopher’s explores, and the Star Wars project he was forced to abandon.
Who came up with the idea for “Christopher’s”?
Steven Soderbergh: It all started when I pitched it to Ed over drinks. That’s basically what happened, you have an older artist who’s at the end of his career, and a younger artist who’s like an apprentice rolls in, and there’s something about her presence that isn’t on that level. In my mind, she was more of a Tom Ripley character. Ed immediately started working on the idea. He said, “What if I have kids? What if I have a problem with the value of real estate?” Over time, he pushed deeper themes into his work, such as mentoring, anxiety, and ego. This led me to ask the question, “What is heritage?”
Ed Solomon: I wasn’t even planning on writing anything. It came to me after I asked, “What are you thinking?” And we just started throwing stuff. I depicted the emotional relationships I had with various artists, including directors, screenwriters, and comedians, and how fame became a prison for them. However, some things come from the subconscious. Just like two weeks ago, I turned to Stephen and said, “Oh my god, my mom is a painter!” Funny thing is, sometimes I can’t understand what I’m writing.
Ian McKellen plays Julian, a master painter who squanders his talent after becoming a judge on a reality show. Have you ever met someone who achieved at a very high level but lost their creativity?
Soderbergh: That’s the fear of every creative person. I call it slackness. For me, it’s night sweat material. I’m very interested in the life of an artist. How can they maintain their accomplishments to the end? What was it about their personalities that allowed them to keep their level high? And why does the opposite occur? Why can’t some people maintain that quality? No one wants theirs to be described as a failed artist. But how do you know? Sometimes the critics are wrong. Sometimes your work is presented too quickly and you get ahead of the audience. I focus on what I can control: how I make things. Together with trusted collaborators, we create the conditions and environment in which the alchemy that produces good things takes place. All I can do is put the ingredients in the pot. That’s the best chance to make something delicious.
Last year, you released the spy thriller “Black Bag.” Two big stars, Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, were in the cast. It was well received by critics, but struggled at the box office. Did the commercial failure cause you to readjust the way you choose projects?
Soderbergh: Yeah. As a result, I realized that I needed to find material that I liked and that had the potential to reach a large audience. Christopher’s is a very accessible movie, but it’s not going to be Weapons, right? But from now on, I’ll be making a full-scale movie for the first time in a while, so I’d like to find something that has a sense of scale and has a hook that will draw a lot of people to the theater. I want to find something that I love and can turn into an event.
Ed, your previous collaborations with Stephen, such as “No Sudden Move” and “Full Circle,” had complex plots. “The Christophers” feels more like a chamber piece with two sharp characters circling each other, often at war with words. Which do you think is easier: coming up with a plot for a movie or writing dialogue?
Solomon: When it works best, everything intertwines and comes together at the same time. What I’m interested in is finding surprising moments of truth. To do that, we have to keep coming back to the question of what actually happens here, and what is this character saying or doing that feels true yet unrealistic? It requires getting into people’s emotional space. Once you feel what they are feeling, you will know where they are going. If you focus too much on the plot, your characters will start to seem like mere chess pieces. That’s a problem with the way screenwriting is taught. Increasingly, they teach it as a structural event. Now, movies have an inherent structure. It needs a beginning, middle, and end. But the more time you spend on this, the more you come back to the most basic question: why is this person here? what do they want? And what is the truth of the situation?
Ian McKellen is great in this movie. He is a lively, larger-than-life figure, yet vulnerable and insecure. He had a terrible accident in 2024, falling off the stage and sustaining injuries. Do you think that experience influenced his performance?
Soderbergh: I didn’t have any physical symptoms left from the fall. But it’s the kind of event that can affect anyone. There’s a sense of instability that it must evoke.
SOLOMON: There was a moment before we started filming where Ian said, “You know what? “If I wasn’t acting, I don’t know what I would be doing.” We were talking about how meaning and purpose are infused through the work of creative people. He didn’t talk specifically about the fall, but admitted how scary it would be if he couldn’t perform any longer. An accident like that brought everything into sharp focus, and I suspect that the feelings he was having were related to Julian’s personality in some way. We were both asking, “Who am I without my art?”
Stephen, why did you come up with Michaela Coel for this film?
Soderbergh: Her show “I May Destroy You” really blew me away. That was completely new. She is a thoroughbred. She has all the tools. It’s kind of ridiculous how talented she is.
I saw that movie twice. For the first time, Julian’s children (James Corden, Jessica Gunning) seemed like miserable, greedy wretches. The second time around, I felt a lot of empathy for them. They clearly didn’t grow up loving.
Soderbergh: In the movie, Julianne casually denies their background. It shows what they went through. As children, people are hardwired to seek the approval of their parents, and at no stage in their lives have they ever given them approval or love. And it eats away at you. They are wild because no one taught them to be different.
SOLOMON: It’s strangely heartbreaking for them. At the same time, we wanted to keep the relationship honest, so we didn’t want to do the typical “let’s work it out” thing. We wanted the changes these characters go through to be internal rather than overt and seismic.
Soderbergh: Same goes for Julian. He hasn’t changed much by the end of the movie. He just got to the point where his behavior changed around Michaela’s personality. He can be with her in a different way than he is with anyone else, and probably never has been. That’s all he can do. He’s still an idiot.
Congratulations, Stephen, on your entry to Cannes with your documentary “John Lennon: The Last Interview.” Your recent comments regarding the use of AI in movies have been highly criticized. What do you think about this discussion?
Soderbergh: (pauses) This is puzzling to me.
Haven’t you noticed the blowback?
Soderbergh: No, I do. I found out because people were looking at me like they were looking at my chest x-ray. I was like, “What’s wrong?” And they’re like, “This AI comment!” And they read out what I said, and I honestly felt, “Where’s the smoke here?”
You used AI in that movie, and you said you’re going to use AI in a future movie about the Spanish-American War. Is it clearly a useful tool?
Soderbergh: I’m not threatened by that. I’m only afraid of what I don’t understand. Therefore, I felt an obligation to get involved with it and understand what it is and what it can do. This proved to be a great tool for certain parts of the John Lennon documentary when we needed surreal images that would have been impossible to capture. That allowed me to solve the creative problem of how to visualize what John and Yoko were talking about philosophically. Ten years ago, you would have had to hire an incredibly expensive visual effects company to come up with something like this. no longer. My job is to deliver good movies. And this tool appeared at the moment I needed it. I don’t think it’s the answer to everything, and I don’t think it’s the death of everything. We are in the very early stages. Five years from now, we may all be thinking, “Those were the fun times.” You may end up not using it as much as you thought. Some people I have absolute love and respect for refuse to have anything to do with it. That is their privilege. But I’m not built like that. I was shown a new tool. I want to pick it up and see what’s going on.
Ed, as a writer, what do you think about AI?
Solomon: I’m not interested in using this as a writing tool. Because it takes away from my job, what I love about the process. It becomes result-oriented. It’s not scary. However, I don’t see myself using it in any meaningful creative way.
Stephen, your Star Wars movie, The Hunt for Ben Solo, has been canceled. What did you learn from the process of trying to make that film?
Soderbergh: There’s no such thing as wasted creative time. It was really great to work on this with Adam Driver,[screenwriters]Rebecca Blunt and Scott Burns. Sometimes that’s how things go. I know what we came up with was good. I think it excited the audience. You get better when you try to solve problems by collaborating with smart people. Adam felt bad for involving me. I think he felt like he wasted my time. And I clearly told him, “Hey, that wasn’t a waste of time.” This is a problem-solving experience that applies to everything I do from now on. I’m not upset. I feel positive about everything we’ve done together.
What movie would you recommend someone watch to properly understand “The Christopher Family”?
Soderbergh: I thought a lot about the great John Schlesinger while making this. His movie “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” is one of my favorites. A great London movie. And I was influenced by his treatment of characters. They are so complex and he has this drive to be able to represent all the different shades of people in his films. He never criticizes his characters. That’s what we tried to do with “Christopher’s.”
