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Steven Soderbergh’s ‘The Girlfriend Experience’ Picked Up as a TV Show on Starz

Steven Soderbergh's 'The Girlfriend Experience' Picked Up as a TV Show on Starz

By Eric Eidelstein

Steven Soderbergh's 'The Girlfriend Experience' Picked Up TV Show on Starz

Eric Eidelstein

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June 23, 2014 1:56 pm

Last year Steven Soderbergh brought us his Liberace vision with HBO’s “Behind the Candelabra.” This year, his dark medical drama “The Knick” will hit Cinemax. And now, the acclaimed director is adding another TV project to his slate, a 13-episode Starz adaptation of his 2009 experimental film, “The Girlfriend Experience.”

The film, which is situated around the time of the 2008 presidential election, chronicles the life of a call girl, who must balance her personal life and her professional one. It starred mainstream porn-star Sasha Grey. The show, however, will further expand upon this profession, looking at the people who provide a service much more complicated than most believe.

This time around, Soderbergh will serve as executive producer alongside Phillip Fleishman, who helped produce the director’s concert film about the band “Yes.” The show will be directed and written by Lodge Kerrigan and AMy Seimetz, the former has directed episodes of “The Killing” and “Homeland” and the latter is a writer and actress best known for her role in “Upstream Color.”

“We’re in an exciting period of auteur-driven television right now,” said Soderbergh. “When Philip floated the idea of a ‘Girlfriend Experience’-inspired television show, I thought: ‘let’s make it a different woman in a different city, let’s pair two independent writer/directors, one male and one female, and let them do the whole thing.’ I’ve known Lodge for 20 years and I became a fan of Amy’s when I saw her first feature last summer. We went to Chris Albrecht because he and I have been trying to find something to do together since we did ‘K Street’ 11 years ago. He responded without hesitation to both the idea of the show and the approach.”

“We are all such fans of the movie that the idea of exploring this world through many different characters, voices and points of view was especially intriguing,” said Starz CEO Chris Albreacht. “Steven and Philip’s approach to the format is unique and not something seen on the entertainment landscape today. Working with Steven is always a thrill, and we are excited to break the mold with this project yet again.”

The first season will be made up of 13 half-hour episodes, a noted departure from the hour-long format Starz has been working on more recently. though their upcoming series from “Bored to Death” Jonathan Ames, “Blunt Talk,” will be a half-hour comedy.