Daily Inspiration Quote by Steven Soderbergh

Soderbergh is framing directing as a kind of calibrated boost-and-buffer job, not the auteur-as-demigod fantasy. The telling verb is "amplifying": he is not claiming to invent greatness so much as to build an environment where what an actor already does well reads louder on screen. Paired with "minimizing", it suggests a director who thinks in negative space - what the audience must not notice is just as important as what they should.

The subtext is a quiet rebuke to the obsession with transformation and "range" as the only credible metric of acting. Soderbergh is saying: the smart move isn't to force every performer into the same prestige template; it's to cast precisely, then shape the material, blocking, coverage, pacing, and even edit rhythms so that a performer lands in their sweet spot. That can mean rewriting lines to fit a voice, shooting to protect a limitation, cutting a beat that exposes strain, or designing the scene so vulnerability reads as character rather than inadequacy.

"And they all have strengths and weaknesses" is the democratizing kicker. It flattens the star system and deflates the myth of the flawless actor. Coming from a director known for elastic genre-hopping and a pragmatic, often experimental production style, the line also doubles as a self-portrait: Soderbergh positions himself less as a sculptor of performances than as an arranger, someone whose taste shows in the choices that let other people shine. It's craft disguised as modesty, and it's also a philosophy of empathy: protect the person, serve the story, and let the camera do the bragging.