YouSaid · the spoken record

Robert Rodriguez

lines on the record: 320
first: 2025-04-17
most recent: 2025-04-17
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I appreciate that honor to talk to you, brother. So great talking with you. Great questions. You're going to change your life. Thank you, brother.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can't even convey. There was no internet and stuff back then. This was like literal press reviews, public. It was like, why are they targeting this guy? You know, they just did not like, he just had unprecedented success and was a really great guy and was making amazing shit. So it was the triple thread of make people jealous, pissed off.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Domplink, no matter how many that dude was getting so much thrown at him. I wish you knew that time period because he wouldn't, you would go like, yeah, that's right. It's incredible. It was unbelievable.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, if you think of it that way, why are we here? We're here for a reason. We're going to get nudged along. Listen to the signs. Own who you're supposed to be because you are that person. Don't let your human doubt get in the way. That's like the guy closing the pipe. I don't know if I'm really creative. I don't know if I'm really a businessman. And you're just closing the pipe. You're not going to let it flow. Just be a good pipe. Just say, I just want to be a good pipe, clean, open. That's when the magic happens.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going to be rich and famous in four years based on what I read. Really? Flight 17 or 18. Four years later, Den Mariachi, and I went to him later at a reunion. And I said, you called it. You said I was going to be, why did you say that? And he's like, I said that. It looked like he would never say that to somebody. You think he would own it and say, oh yeah, I knew it. And I told you. No, he was like. He looked like he didn't even know who that was. He was acting like he never would have said that in a million years. So again, sometimes things come out of our mouth that's not us, it comes through us.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Telling you for a reason. Anytime you got pushed, like if you go back to your life at your really critical moments in your life where you went that way instead of that way, there was probably somebody there who said something to you that kind of pushed you. There was one guy when I was in high school. It was like senior year, I wrote a paper, and I wasn't a great writer at all. I wrote a paper for Latin American Studies class, gave it to the teacher, and he said, wow, you.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's how powerful that decision is. So when you walk out of here, it's going to be with a complete commitment. I'm a technical and creative person, like my first boss. I'm unstoppable. My boss told me that, and he was right. I became technical and creative, and you're just unstoppable. You can just keep going. And just go, I'm unstoppable. That doesn't mean you're going to use your powers for bad, but you've just changed your life by just declaring that. And I'm also a creative person who lives his life creatively. I'm going to find creative ways to use that technology. If somebody says you're not the same kind of artist, I was expecting, that's their own opinion. Don't blink. Just keep going. All these things that you've learned that people were supposed to tell you along the way.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They now know that they were always supposed to be like this creative person, and now they can double down on it because they know that's who they were supposed to be. They don't have to have any doubt anymore. They don't have to wonder, well, am I supposed to be more business-minded or can I be creative? Isn't that some kind of frivolous? Is that a real job? Can I do that? Then I realized, no, you're supposed to be doing that for these, these, these, these reasons. And now they can double down. You can skip all that and just decide, I feel like I want to be that person. So I'm just going to declare I am that person. And as soon as you say it, you are that. And tomorrow your activities will conform to that.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's like, because when you have a kid, you realize right away this isn't my kid. This is not my, I'm just in charge of him. It's a completely different soul. He's a different soul that ended up in my hands. There's physical characteristics that get passed on because of just how biology works, even sometimes posture and movement is the same. But the actual person is somebody else. And all the kids, I have five kids and I had nine brothers and sisters. They're all different. And you realize we made a pact in a past life to gather together because every time it's like so good you were born in this family because you were given free reign to go find who you're really supposed to be and you and you find out everyone is doing what they were supposed to be doing. But what's cool, almost like this clarity you get by just saying it.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I really feel like my kids and I were just talking about this last night. We were just blown away. We did this a starian astrology thing. It was the oldest form of astrology. Just nails each person.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Until the next fish, we have fish next. But yeah, yeah, it feels like I'm almost sad about it, but then it just makes you even more double down to be precious about the life you're in now.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And oh well, I'm gonna go be a fish now that way. And it's like that's what past lives are. They're like distant memories like a dream that's faded away. That's why you barely feel remnants of it. Do I feel sad about that? When I tell people, they flip out when I tell them that. I want a character to be like that. Like he's dying. He's like, I don't want to forget this dream. I don't want to forget. Don't let me wake up. Don't let me wake up.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Had this theory, I'm going to put this in a movie. I don't think I've ever seen this before because I was woke up from a dream and it was like trying to remember it, you know, you're like, God, I'm so real. If you don't write it down right away, write it kind of fades away. But while you're dreaming it, it's really real. I must see the walls. By the time I went to go tell somebody, it's like, shit, I forgot most of it, but I wonder if that's what it's like when you wake up and your consciousness after you die. You wake up and your next consciousness getting ready to move into whatever your next body is. And you're like, wow, I was a filmmaker, had five kids?”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To go They go like, I kind of remember that, but I don't remember being that tiny. It had that memory. It's like wild how time moves. And it makes them feel Much more precious about how quick time moves and how important every little moment is because you see the fragility of it too, you know.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Stuff like that. Yeah. And then they show them like Like that. Ten years later, and they're like, whoa, to see it talking to them and saying. And I would do this thing where I would film them watching it. and then pan off. So that 10 years later I could get. Hey, Rebel, him reacting. Pen off to the new Rebel watching it. It just like keeps going. So I have one like that where just keeps panning and they're watching themselves within the movie, within the movie, within the movie. It's like an ongoing project. It's just so fun to just play with memory and make you realize how fast time moves.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would film stuff like that with my kids. I couldn't do it. I would film my kids saying, hey, turn to the camera now and say, hey, Rebel, it's me, Rebel. Rebel in the future”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, sometimes it's just, I just want to mark that we had this conversation. I had to go do something at five. I did that, met somebody that I know last night I met somebody that's going to be life changing. I'm going to write a little bit more on that because I could just now I know But I'm going to just record it so later if I look it up.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like we're there. It's like, wow, I was always afraid they would see this old footage and go, ah, this is dog shit kind of camera was that. So the limitations of, you know, you put up one of those files on your screen, it's like this big on your laptop. That's how low res shit was back then. But that didn't matter. It's like compared to our memories, that stuff, living is reliving, like pull up that, shoot as much as you can, take as many pictures, but write the journal because you'll have a picture. I swear you're not going to know what it's from, even 10 years from now. You want to know what that picture's from. You read the diary, you go, oh, that's what that is. Oh my God, you can piece together all these things that are important to you or that become more important with time, actually. And you know what's important later compared to what's then happening at the time.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just watching the old one, everybody was like, oh my God, look how young everybody was, look how small the niece, nieces and nephew were. She starts bawling as soon as she gets the key, the gift of the key in the video, because she realizes now what it's going to mean that she's going to get this car. And so it's like, wow, let's just play the old tapes. We don't even have to do anything anymore. We banked so much amazing stuff that we've all forgotten that, you know, my kids just love watching their old home movies. They hardly remember any of it. Even a VHS to them is virtual reality because compared to our memories, it is virtual reality. They're like leaning into the screen to see what's around the corner and they're remembering the place and the sounds. And they say, oh, we left the living room.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Reliving, like that was one of my favorite ones, just yeah, my mom turned 75 and not wanting to do anything for a 75th birthday. I said, why not? She goes, the whole family's going to have 10 kids. They're all going to want to do something for your 75th birthday. Nothing can top my 65th. I was like, what would we do on your 65th? I didn't remember even. I'm the one who orchestrated it all. She goes, oh, you flew everyone in from all over the country. You gave me a car. Gotta have a journal of that. I'm sure I have video. I go back 10 years, I see what tape I had it on, find the tape, pop the tape in. Forgot about all this stuff. So I cut together a 10-minute version of it, showed it at our 75th birthday.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can't take a time machine. Closest thing is telling your kid because then they can take that information and process so many times they've come back and said, wow, Dad, the lesson you taught us about this is really become big in our minds. Yeah, what was that? And they tell me, I'm like, I never told you that. They said, yeah, you told us, well, I told you maybe 10% of that. All the rest, you added, oh, yeah, well, we embellished it over like they turned it into something else. And it's like, wow, that's so cool. But yeah, that thing about”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About stuff I wrote in there, and I'm like, I wrote that in that book. Shit, I was smart back then. What happened? I don't remember half of that. But I think it's the same thing. When you go to teach someone Your mouth opens and stuff comes out. I'm always taping myself when I go to give a talk because that's also the pipe working. Someone else is talking to you sometimes. So the act of sharing, that's why I've always liked to share information because the feedback loop is insane. Like me inspiring Daisy DJ to go right. He writes the script in three days, comes back, tells me, no, I'm doing that method. And it's like, wow, people come back with their version. And I love telling my kids. Stuff that I learned that I wish I could tell myself”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's crazy. Yeah, you didn't, and so much I figured out then I'm talking like a professor by the end of that. Like people come up to me and they're asking me all these questions.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The moment I asked him that question to the success at Cannes was very quick, so it was a lost moment in time where I had it recorded down to the time, down to the hour, when I asked them that question. He thought it wasn't. He didn't think that was the one for him.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two hands, three hands. I couldn't believe it. It's like, man, you guys, if there's anything I can impart on you is Jerona. Your life is way more interesting than you think because it's not going to feel like anything while it's going by. But in retrospect, you look back. Like I can just go through, I keep a journal. one file per year. So I started a new one in 2025. If I'm going to look up, like I'm going to do a director's chair episode. I look up Michael Man, Michael Man, Michael Mann. All the conversations we had since 94 that I wrote down that I felt, and it's like, oh my God, I can't believe we said that. That's how I knew about that thing with Quentin. I had forgotten about that story with Quentin saying, ah, pulp fiction. I had forgotten that because.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Makes it iconic. It makes it iconic in your life and part of your life, otherwise, it just went by. Went by. Like, I'll ask people, we just had a really fun. What did we do last week? What did we do last Wednesday? And they're like, I can tell you because I wrote it down, but I'm not going to remember. And then when you see, when you go through your journal, I go back and I find, wow, life-changing thing happened Friday. Another life-changing thing I didn't know at the time until now I know that that really set me on happened Saturday. And another big freaking thing happened on Sunday. Like they come in threes sometime. You start being able to predict the future a little bit because you see the patterns. And it's pretty wild to do that. And I swear, I've talked to people, big group of people, 500 people. How many people here journal”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Their brain doesn't remember. But when I pull up old home movies and show my kids that I just found and they're like, they don't remember it. I don't remember filming it. And it's like new adventures of it becomes iconic and it sticks in our head and all our jokes are based on old things that we used to do and say so living is reliving. So keeping a journal is very important because I found that anything it passed 15 years, it's like I'm reading someone else's journal. I'm like, I didn't even know that's where I got that guitar. I thought I bought that guitar. It was given to me. It's like a $10,000 Santana. It was given to me my birthday by the studio that I made that movie. I did not remember that. It's like crazy what you don't remember. And it's the brain is very, it's not a very reliable computer. It's made out of freaking butter.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Came up with that because it's like wow, I see so many people who get after you for like filming a concert and they go live in the moment. I'm like, dude, counterintuitive. The moment goes by like this. We're not going to remember any of this. The fact that we taped it, thank God, because later on it's going to be a file photo of me remembering you, three pound me computer. All I'm going to have is a file photo of you maybe in a suit and you picturing me in maybe a black t-shirt The metadata narrative is going to say had a great talk about if we remember creativity.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We weren't as into it as we had just done it. It felt like the second take. You know, it just didn't have the magic. And that's the one that's recorded. And we're like, oh, kicking ourselves, we didn't film both nights. We should have filmed both nights.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You go on a stage and you bum. It's not going to be the first stage. And it's one of those you can talk about so that when you do the next one and it all, sometimes they all go right. I've had a couple of shows. We did a couple shows where we had video cameras set up for the second day. Listen, let's not film the first day because we're going to be just finding our feet. Let's film the second day. First day is fucking flawless. Flawless because no cameras, it's like you just go second day.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't have to have doubts. Why would you have a doubt? Because you know the process now. It's like, if I don't know how to do something, I know how to figure it out. I didn't know how I was going to do that scene with him jumping and flipping. I didn't know that. But do I have doubt that I'm going to go in there and be able to do it? If you say that you do, you now you're a doubtful person. That's how powerful that is. But if you say, no, I don't have any doubt because I know I'm going to figure it out when I get there. Somehow it'll fall in my lap. I trust the process. You don't have to know. So if you trust the process that you'll figure it out.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're literally doing this to yourself. I'm not mean just you, I mean anybody who's just like who pauses, who hesitates.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I think if you can really. Just lean into it more, really work on the identity part because you've got the desire. You want to play guitar. But as soon as you say, yeah, but I can't play live. You just chopped off your leg at the start of the race. If you say, I don't know, you just chopped off your other leg. You're doing this to yourself.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and I mess up a bunch of times, but you don't want to focus on that. And you just go, like, okay, I got it through it because when you're up there, It's not that you're screaming nervous, but your hands just won't work anymore. Something will happen. But that happens to everybody. If you really watch even the best Their live performances watch really close and you see they screw up a couple things, but you just want notes. They just go right through it. It's like it's about the life performance. And that's why you know it's real.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I should be freaking Santana by now because I've had a guitar on my hands since I was a kid, but since I'm not a full-time musician, I don't get to play it that often. So I'm not as good as I should be. But, you know, when you apply yourself to just rehearse for, you know, a couple shows, you book some shows this. This is me just like playing our first arena show opening for George Lopez. That was crazy to be on the stages where you heroes that you saw them and now you're seeing what their point of view was. It blows my. You need to just get on stage Get on stage once and you'll see that it's not as bad as you think”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The double R or the label you just gave yourself. Like I changed my label. My label was I hate working out. I'm an athlete. I'm not a non athlete anymore. I'm changing my label. And you get so inspired because now you know what to do because you can't help but conform to your identity. You're always going to conform to your identity. So just change your identity. And you'll change your life. And it's not that hard. I have to go get hypnotized or anything. It was literally, I just told myself, if I could do that, go from a guy who doesn't want to work out, hates it, hates it. I had the desire. I was already hiring the guy. I lacked the identity. As soon as I changed my identity, boom.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Weird, but it's kind of nice to know that you can do that, but you have to just have that conviction and just say, Start with a label”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So when I say, hey, are you going to be a creative person? You go, Yeah. Because then if you say that, what do you do? You're going to do more creative stuff. That's what a creative person does”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Loves An athlete will make time to work out They'll eat right. I was, I would never be the person that would calm themselves an athlete. But that's how much it can change your life by changing your identity. So if you want to be more creative, you've already got that in that desire. You've got enough of that. You don't need more desire. Need more identity. So you got to say I'm a creative person with a straight face.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The last thing I would ever call myself all through my entire life. This was 2012. I'm an athlete. By the next day, not only did my life completely change, It's easier if it's opposite day. Like, if you're just doing it by degrees, that's bullshit. You got to go complete opposite. Because if there's like a donut, you know, if you say, Well, I'm going to only half of it, you got to go, no, I'm going to get an apple. Oppedace is much easier. Not only did I change my life working out, I didn't ever needed a trainer. I have not had a trainer since all those years. Because I'm an athlete, I'll just do it. What does an athlete do?”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You got to get the identity up, and then suddenly you're making shit. So a friend of mine from Mexico, she comes over. I have to stop smoking. My doctor said, I have to stop smoking for my health, so I'm not smoking right now. So I've been smoking since I was eight years old. So, what you're going to go back to smoking because you just told me your identity is a smoker. So right now you're a smoker who's not smoking. What's going to happen eventually? You have to say, I'm a non-smoker, you know, like just that lesson I had forgotten. You have to say I'm a non-smoker. I'm a non-smoker. It's what did a non-smoker do? If you believe you're a non-smoker, you hate smoke. Start choking at the smell of smoke. Okay, I'll try that. She walks off. I go, shit, I forgot about my own. I wonder where in my life I got to apply that working out. Of course, my God, I hate working out. No wonder I am so miserable. I'll tell my trainer and anyone who will listen. I can't stand working out. I don't understand sports. So that day I said.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He goes, get the trainer. Anyone who ever saw in Hollywood got in shape, they had a trainer. Is that even you? Anybody? Oh, I need a trainer. He has a trainer. So, no, I need a trainer. I can't train. It's like, well, shit, if you can't even train on your own, then what us mortal men have? So I got a trainer. And guess what happened? Hated it. I would feel sick when he's coming over because it hates sport. I hate working at it. And then some years of doing that, I just can't stand it. But I know it's good for my health. So the desire's there. So if you can't accomplish something in your life, it's not a lack of desire. Like if you want to be more creative, it's not a lack of desire. It's a lack of identity. Like the fact that you were comfortable about saying creative, it's because there's a lack of identity there. You have lots of desire”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Elijah Wood character because that's the guy I identified with. He's there with his camera, and that was me. So I hated it. And then because I was a cartoonist, you know, drawing like this for hours, four hours, my back would go out, like out for a month. It would just go out from being so tall and crunched over. And then when I started making movies, operating the camera, doing steady cam, every year would go out where I would need cortisode shots to get up again from filming or just be out for a month. And on Spy Kids 2, Ricardo Montalban had bad back surgery that went wrong and he was in a wheelchair. So he's in a wheelchair and I'm in a walker. And he's like, I'm 84. What's your excuse? And I was like, I don't know. I just was operating steady. He goes, you have to work out, Robert. You have to work out. I was like, okay, yeah, I know, I know. And so then I thought, okay, next year I'm working with Stallone, last Stallone, Last Stallone. How do you get in shape? Because I need to get in shape. My back's always going out.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a shitty movie, and everyone hated it, so it must not be good. Then 10 years later, it's a masterpiece. So don't judge it because words we use on ourselves are very powerful. So if you say, well, you know, I'm kind of an artist sometimes and I make a lot of shitty stuff. Well, that's kind of be your lot in life. I'm pretty good shape for a director. It's not because I'm operating the camera, because I work out, right? But I always hated working out. I was not into sports. I was a filmmaker, I was a cartoonist. In high school, I was really tall. They would say, come work, come be in our team. We need a small school. We need you. And I'm like, I don't need a lot of play any of these things. I'm an artist. There's a line in the faculty that was my line to my coaches when they would say, you got to come run with everybody. I would say.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I like the creative limitations that come from less money. That's why I like brass knuckle films. Like, we're going to make them for less so that they are better. Not because not to make them shitty. So many people have come up to me and said, you know what part I love in your movie? They'll tell me some scene. I'm like, oh, well, that's because we ran out of sun. And we had to like do that jump with just him jumping on a pad three times or whatever it is. It's something that you fumbled together. And that's what they're drawn to. They're drawn to that imperfect thing. And so I wouldn't judge it because somebody's. If you called your movie shitty, that's like John Carpenter saying, Yeah, nobody liked the thing”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, I have so many people. That's why I like making movies on purpose that have less money and less time. On purpose, like the biggest movie it said of all time on Netflix is we can be heroes. I told them, I don't want to spend more than $50 million. I know you all want to give me 80, but I want to be a hero and come in 50 because one of it will make it better. And then to you, you'll make three of them instead of just one. I don't want to just go spend the farm. And how many filmmakers would do that? Don't try to get as much money as they can. But when they're spending less, it's a win-win situation. And you have more creative freedom because they're going to leave you alone. You can do whatever you want.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a lot of people that go, you're not an artist, you're not a creator. But I'm not saying I'm an artist. I'm saying I'm a creative person, but that's an artist too, isn't it? Artists aren't necessarily a guy with a... French mustache and the funny hat. That's not necessarily what artists are regular people. Regular people relate to art that's imperfect. If you can make art that's perfect, no one will relate to it. So when you think about it like that, you go, well, I can make imperfect art. So, yeah, I am an artist. And if you have doubt, you're an artist. That's an artist. Artist, real artists always wonder if they're good enough. So you are an artist just by the fact that you had uncomfortable saying it, you're a real artist.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really shows how avant-garde you can get with that you can never have done that on film. And so by me versing myself in that technology early, I was able to make a movie like that. And then everyone had to play catch up. So you should always just follow your, that's why people say don't use those curtains as ain't going to work. Just blow past those guys. Go innovate your own thing. Sometimes not knowing is better, you know, being too naive to. Like, don't you know you shouldn't have been able to make that move that way? People would say like that all the How did you make marsh for $7,000? You know, it's impossible. Like, why do you keep using that word? Because it can't be impossible if I did it because I'm not that smart. And it's like saying, how did you get to the topic Mount Everest? It's impossible. Well, I just kept walking.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we'd put fluorescent tape in there, hit that with a light, then we could turn it white later. The black and white really helps. And then just up in the contrast. But, I mean, it's just something that you have a feeling for, but you're able to try it. In fact, when I took it to George Lucas, who George Lucas said this to me early on because I was, we're the only guy shooting digital. He said, man, it's so good. You live in Austin. That's why I'm in Marin County. Because when you live outside of this box of L8, Hollywood, you think outside of the box automatically. You're just going to stumble upon innovations. And he was right. It was like, why aren't we shooting digital? Let's shoot digital. Why aren't we shooting digital 3D? Let's do that. Why don't we just use green screen for the background? You just start innovating because you're away from anyone saying, hey, you can't do it that way, which they would say if I was in LA. So we just came up with a whole other method. So I took them sin city to check out the first thing I was going to show at Comic-Con. He said, now this will really show people what digital is capable of.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This phase, but then this would be completely black, but you would still see my eye Which is like impossible, right? But you believe it when you see it because it's there. So things like that, where a lot of the tricks I tried first because I like that about it. It's like you have a guy completely backlit, so there's no light on his face. But yet his glasses are glowing white.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source