Steven Soderbergh is getting inspiration from Taylor Swift’s style.

“People laugh that there is a college class being taught about her, and I go, ‘There should be,'” the director tells Variety during a roundtable interview at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. “What she is doing and how she is doing it… Nobody has done this before. The extent to which she has gained control. “She is unrelenting.”

He goes on, “These stories about running the entire concert on a treadmill to ensure she can do it?! It’s a success story, and I find it fascinating. [Screenwriter] David Koepp took his daughter to watch the show and stated, ‘You cannot believe what it’s like to be there.’ I’d go if I could. There are no tickets! “But I saw the film.”

“I’ve been thinking of doing a project where I analyse successful large-scale cooperative endeavours. Airports. Why do airports work? “Or AA?” he asks. “Look at Taylor Swift’s show and the entire tour; it works. So, why can’t we resolve Syria or any other conflict?  

“Humour is a terrific method to convey an idea, and nothing lights up the brain like music, therefore this project should be amusing and include some musical elements to open people up. I want you to feel different after seeing it.

Meanwhile, he will follow Swift’s 2008 smash with the upcoming film “Black Bag.”

“It’s a love story,” he explains.

“It’s about two people from the intelligence community, and it’s quite personal. When we were working on [ghost movie] ‘Presence,’ David Koepp said: ‘It may be fascinating to create ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ with George and Martha in the intelligence community.’ What would it be like? One month later, he had a draft.”

Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender will star, alongside Regé-Jean Page, Marisa Abela, Naomie Harris, Pierce Brosnan, and “Furiosa’s” Tom Burke.

“It’s a really specific perspective on people who also have complicated personal lives. It was unnerving because there was a 12-page meal scenario and no one moved from their seats. That kept me awake.”

However, don’t expect any risqué scenes.

“People mistake physical sexuality for love and affection. [They believe that] if you’re making a charming movie, there must be sex. “Well, no,” he says. “We all understand how that component works. What’s different is everything that came before it and everything that follows it. I’m trying to remember the last time I photographed two actors faking sex, and it just seems silly and impossible. Nobody looks good. When discussing a project, a writer recently said, ‘And then there is this underwater section.’ Have we met? I despise them; they are so boring. “I feel the same way about sex scenes.”

Soderbergh had time to reflect on his previous work while in Karlovy Vary presenting “Kafka” and its recut version “Mr. Kneff” as part of the “The Wish to Be a Red Indian: Kafka and Cinema” retrospective. He also got rid of some of it.

“I recently burned 44 years’ worth of notes and journals. I needed to let go of the past. “It was very cathartic,” he admits. Interestingly, an old “urban musical set in Indianapolis” made it through the purge.

“Kafka,” which followed the triumph of “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” was not warmly received when it originally aired.

“I wasn’t satisfied with it either. It was not a typical biopic; it makes no attempt to portray ‘the genuine Franz Kafka.’ That’s what I liked about it, but people said, ‘It doesn’t tell us anything about Kafka!’ No, it does not. But that was an important step for me, and I learned a lot.

He also learned that when a celebrity offers you a jumper, you should always accept.

“Alec Guinness was simply lovely.” I didn’t prepare adequately for the weather. It was winter. He observed this and handed me his jumper. ‘Please put it on,’ he instructed. Later, I returned it, and he instructed me to retain it. I answered, ‘I can’t. I cannot. Alec, I can’t take the jumper! What was I thinking! I refused Alec Guinness’ jumper! I must have been so stressed that I couldn’t think clearly.

Although “everything about ‘Kafka’ was confusing to people,” it enabled him to pursue the projects he was interested in.

“By the time I released ‘Out of Sight,’ many had given up on figuring out what I was going to do next. It took five films for them to say, ‘I quit,'” he laughs.

“There are directors with style; a Ridley Scott film looks just like a Ridley Scott film. I am the opposite. I look at the material and, if I like it, I wonder, ‘What director do I need to be to get everything out of it?’ They are all my children, and my experience on the set of ‘Ocean’s’ is identical to that of ‘Bubble.'”