Soup Questions from Finding Forrester
First of all, let me tell you how much I love the movie Finding Forrester 2000. It is a movie that is about writing camouflaged as a basketball movie. I know Connery has done a ton of great movies, (Untouchables anyone?) but this is my favorite of his. The character he plays mirrors who he was in real life at that point; a master of his craft, but clearly in the winter of his life - Connery only did two more movies after this one ending a 50 year career in acting. Juxtapose that with the fact that Rob Brown had never acted and was trying to get hired as an extra thinking that it would help him pay off a $300 phone bill. Gus Van Sant of Good Will Hunting fame saw something in him obviously and the rest is history.
One of the very best concepts to come out of this movie is the idea of ‘soup questions.’ Watch the scene below.
So, soup questions. The first time William Forrester and Jamal Wallace talk about ‘soup questions,’ the conversation feels almost throwaway—two people circling an abstract idea in a cluttered Bronx apartment. But literarily, this moment is a quiet thesis statement for the entire film. When William tells him to stir the soup, Jamal asks why their soup never gets anything on it. Jamal asks why he needs to do this and William explains that he doesn’t want a skin to form on his soup. Jamal then asks a personal question. To which Forrester responds, ‘That is not a soup question.’
A soup question is a question which will benefit the person asking. Jamal understands now that there are various ways to make soup, benefitting him and his knowledge ticked up. When he follows that with a question about whether or not Forrester ever goes outside, William explains that details about his life do not benefit him and therefore it was a bad question.
Jamal listens more than he speaks. This is crucial. The scene establishes Jamal not as a prodigy eager to display brilliance, but as a thinker absorbing a worldview. Forrester is not teaching him what to think about soup questions; he is teaching him how to see them. The lesson is perceptual, not informational.
Stylistically, the apartment setting reinforces the theme. The conversation occurs outside institutional space—no classroom, no desks, no grades. Knowledge here is intimate, almost domestic. This contrast matters because it frames genuine learning as something that happens in private.
I went on a deep dive regarding soup questions. I learned about appreciative inquiry which is a method that I think closely follows Forrester’s ideal format for questioning.
“...an approach that values all voices, seeks to inspire generative theories and possibility thinking, opens our world to new possibilities, challenges assumptions of the status quo, and serves to inspire new options for better living.”
This is a concept that if I could apply to every facet of my life, from personal to professional, there would be tremendous benefits. Point of fact, I believe every single relationship that I engage in would improve dramatically. If two people engaged in a conversation with this mindset it would be one where the refinement of beliefs and ideas could explode in such a way as to potentially, and perhaps dramatically, further their personal evolutions.
This is incredibly hard to do. Once I thought about it, I started trying to ask only ‘soup questions’ and quickly discovered that I pollute the world with banal inquiry quite a bit. I also began listening to whether or not other people were asking ‘soup questions’ and rapidly discovered that I am not alone in bringing inaneness to the world.
But is that a bad thing? If I ask someone how their day is going - not soup. Inquire as to how someone’s family is - no soup there either. Are those questions stupidly just filling up the quiet, or are they demonstrating true interest in another person’s life? I know my wife is a stickler for asking questions about other people’s jobs and lives. (and she notices when other people do not show interest in her life as well) They are not ‘soupy questions.’ They seem to engage the person she is conversing with and engages with them on a personal level. How would anyone ever get to know another person without asking ‘non-soup questions?’ Is the line crossed if someone were to ask too personal a question? I think so, but isn’t nuance exciting?