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“We did 11 hours to Munich, two hours to Milan, and then a two-hour drive,” veteran producer Stacey Sher explained this afternoon as she sat weary-eyed in a glass hotel suite at the Locarno Film Festival.
There are no direct flights from Los Angeles to the quaint Swiss town where Sher will be the guest of honor as she receives the festival’s Raimondo Rezzonico Award for career achievement.
Best known as one of the enduring names of American independent cinema, Sher’s credits include 90s classics such as Pulp Fiction (1994), Get Shorty (1995), Matilda (1996), Gattaca (1997), and Out of Sight (1998). She has also produced series like Reno 911! and the Emmy award-winning Mrs. America (2020). In 2021, she produced the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony alongside Steven Soderbergh.
Twice nominated for the Best Picture Oscar with Erin Brockovich and Django Unchained — both of which will screen this week in Locarno — Sher’s most recent credits include the Aretha Franklin biopic Respect and Chris Pine’s feature debut Poolman.
Below Sher speaks with us about her decades-long career, collaborating with Tarantino and Soderbergh, what happened with Tarantino’s now-binned 10th film The Movie Critic, and why she believes film producing has been “devalued.” Sher also gives an update on her long-gestating limited series The Devil in the White City, which also has Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio on board as producers.
The Locarno Film Festival runs from August 7 – 17.
DEADLINE: Congrats on the award. These festivals don’t tend to honor producers, so how does it feel?
STACEY SHER: Thank you for saying that. It’s encouraging and overwhelming. The work that we do has become invisible. I can’t only blame the industry but the main reasons are there’s not a lot of opportunity for people to get trained the way I did. There’s even less opportunity to bring people along the way I did. At times it’s a credit that just gets handed out. So it’s been devalued. But I’ll say that even when I started producing I had to explain to family members what it was. But there certainly has been a great Hollywood tradition.
DEADLINE: What would you say is your description of a producer?
SHER: My approach is no job is too big or too small. It’s different on every film and with every filmmaker. Sometimes it’s finding the idea, finding the filmmaker, developing the script, packaging, or marketing. Sometimes it’s reminding everybody what they signed up for because the process itself can be overwhelming. For me, it’s really never giving up. Another thing I’m particularly focused on is being very mindful about the safety of the crew. That’s on my shoulders on every level.
DEADLINE: Were you involved in picking ‘Erin Brockovich’ and ‘Django’ for the screenings here? And if so, why those two?
SHER: I was. They’re my two Oscar nominations. And I knew I wanted to choose films where I worked with Quentin and Steven since they’re the two filmmakers I’ve worked with the most. And they’re important films in my growth. Erin was a specific example of a vision from a filmmaker paired with what I always thought was a commercial idea. Even though every studio in town passed on it. And Steven understood exactly how to take the biggest movie star in the world at that time and make you forget you were watching her. It holds up honestly, as does Django, which was a wild adventure. I’ve loved having the great privilege of working with Quentin and Steven.
DEADLINE: It’s funny you mention Steven taking Julia Roberts and making you forget she was the world’s biggest star. Many people have used that mold since with much less success.
SHER: There was one thing Steven said in a meeting during the production. He said he was going to shoot the film like it was a Ken Loach film. We all said ‘That’s genius, but don’t tell the studio.’
DEADLINE: Speaking about Quentin Tarantino, what happened with ‘The Movie Critic.’ Why did he scrap the project?
SHER: He’d kill me if I told you why.
DEADLINE: Can you tell me anything?
SHER: I can tell you tons of things but I won’t.
DEADLINE: Do you think we’ll ever see the project in any form? Maybe literary?
SHER: Maybe he’ll do a novel. I loved the Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood novel. He started writing that originally as a novel when we were working on Django. Who knows. He’s a great writer and filmmaker who listens to his muses. It works out well for him and those of us who love him will never second-guess that.
DEADLINE: How do you pick projects?
SHER: You have to fall in love with the project. I’ve tried so many times to be strategic but that’s never worked out for me. It’s just never been my thing. Sometimes the films I make happen to hit the zeitgeist and sometimes they don’t. But then they become cult classics.
DEADLINE: You’ve never worked with a streamer. Why is that?
SHER: I took a position at a large video game company for three years when my kids were at a certain age where I couldn’t be on the road and then I came back with the Aretha Franklin film Respect and then made Mrs. America. So I was just late to streaming. I’m developing some stuff for streaming with 20th Century. That’s a bunch of fun. We’re in an exciting time where storytelling finds where the story is meant to be told.
DEADLINE: Devil In The White City, is that still happening and are you still involved?
SHER: I’m still involved. I never give up.
DEADLINE: So we can expect to see it sometime soon?
SHER: I mean, I hope so. It’s not imminent, but it is not ever far from my mind.
DEADLINE: Is the rest of the gang still involved?
SHER: Yes, that would be Rick [Yorn], Leo [DiCaprio], Jen [Davisson], and Mr. Scorsese. We’re all still involved.
