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

“Artwork they did, very photorealistic. And he goes, curious to see how photoreal it'll be when we're finally done with this process, because you don't get to see it till it's almost done. And I was like, wow, he's just shooting blind. He's really, talk about me shooting mariachi, not seeing the footage. He's making this whole movie, not even knowing what the end result's going to look like at all. Because you're not going to know till you get there. And when you get there, if you don't like it, there's not a lot you can do.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Pushed to the side, and they ended up doing it, which ended up becoming such a journey to make that movie, to get the technology, to build it, to make it. Because I remember visiting him on the set. I mean, I've known him so long. I was on the set of Titanic. That's how long I've been around this guy. I was on the set of Titanic. I was on the set with Sarah Connor and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Eddie Furlong for the 3D ride he made for Universal a few years later. So, I mean, I feel like I've been around him a lot of his career. And to be able to visit the set you know, avatar and remember him showing me like.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Doing stuff that didn't exist. I was reading it going, like, this is a great story. He was like, I don't know how the fuck's gonna do this. It's impossible. He'd just done, you know, Terminator 2 a few years before. It's like that was state of the art. So Alita was going to be the movie he did first to prepare for Avatar. And so he had already done some prep work on it. It was based on a manga. Before they did that, they just started doing some tests for Avatar. And then as they got deeper into the test for Avatar to prepare for Alita, they went, I guess we're making Avatar first. So Alita got kind of.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. I mean, why not? I never would have attempted if it wasn't Jim because Jim has figured all this out. So just to get, again, remember, like I said, hey, Jim, I'm operating a steady cam. What do you think of that? Well, I'm designing a new system. That's always how it is between him and I. So when I went to show him Desperado and it was done. You might not want to sit through if you don't want to sit through it while I'm watching it, it's fine. Do you want to read any of my scriptments, my treatment scripts, you know, called scriptments? I said, sure. He goes, I have Spider-Man. And I got Avatar. This was in 95. He was showing me the scriptman for Avatar, which there was no technology for that. He was already...”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's the beauty of doing a project. Nothing ever goes to waste. So many ideas that were sitting around that I'd come up with and put a lot of time in are now like, oh, I can do these now. I know how to finish it now.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You have no choice. You have to get out of the way and open the pipe. And it just comes out, and you're shocked. You're like, oh my God, I should do everything at the last minute. Well, no, you don't have to. But if you just learn how to open that pipe earlier, you wouldn't be in a rush. But you had to get out of your way because your deadline was up and you had to come up with it. So many people are going to come up with all these extra great ideas at the last minute. It looks like everyone who's already signing on because they didn't, it's cool. They don't know when the deadline is. They keep writing in saying, when is the deadline for this? And we say, well, when we close the funding in May, but we didn't say when still I think that gives them like a sense of a deadline, like, shit, it might be May 1st or maybe May 2nd. We better get my idea going. So I think it works in your favor because then you come up with stuff. And you're going to feel so enriched by doing the idea that you're not going to care if it gets picked or not. You're going to love this idea so much. It could turn into 10 other things you never even thought about.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Makes you do things and make decisions really quickly. And it was the biggest of the three. Deadlines are good. And it's hard for us to self-impose a deadline sometimes because we know it's a bullshit deadline and your brain knows it's bullshit. But why do deadlines work? Because when the deadline's coming up, what do you do?”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Companies to make that, we realized, oh, I shot it with two cameras. That means each effect shot has to be done twice from a different angle. So I went to the studio midway through that and said, there's not going to be a movie in the theaters in time. You're going to have to push the date back. And they said, okay, we've never heard you panic. We'll push the date back for you. They called back 10 minutes later. I was like, oh, thank God because it's really complicated. I know it was going to be this complicated, but I wanted a challenge. And they said McDonald's will sue us for $20 million if you move the date. You have to have a movie at the theater. We started shooting that movie in January of 2003. It was in 3D in theaters by July. That's the fastest any effects movie has ever been done. That's insane. Because you had no choice. So deadline.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Dries you in and it makes you go now think of ideas you never would have thought of before, mainly because it has a filter. Well, now I don't have to think of all these ideas. I actually have like that like me on that set. There's only very few things I can actually come up with that are just action driven first that have a great character. You'll get to it a lot faster with a filter. That's the beauty of a filter. And so now you've just shrunk your target. And now you can hit that target. And people are coming up with ideas because now they've got proximity and they've got a reason to come up with the idea and they've got a deadline, which is the best thing you can do is have a deadline. Because when you have a deadline, you can freaking move mountains. You know, I had a spy kids in the theater every year, three years in a row, not being pre-planned. Every year there was a spy kids. Now the third one was the biggest one. Biggest cast, mostly green screen, video game, and the first digital 3D movie ever. So getting visual.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll probably direct more than one because there's already several that I want to do, but I'm going to direct at least one, but I'm producing all three. They're at my studio.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sound is everything. That's what I was really lucky in Mariachi that my camera didn't work for sound because then I got really good sound that I would have gotten with a shitty mic out of frame. Because that's the first telltale sign of a low budget movie is bad sound. Bad sound right away. You can already hear all this hiss and all this mic was too far and you're like low budget movie. Before your eyes even tell you the sound gives it away. Isn't that amazing?”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then we're playing with these little cars, filming ourselves, playing with the cars. But then I replaced it with real car sounds. And it just your brain links the reality of the real thing crazy, and you realize how unimportant the visual is and how important the sound is, actually.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like being a chef, you're cooking and you're going, like, I know the recipe says this, but I think it really could use jalapenos and some extra feffer and maybe a little more salt. And then it needs an acid of some kind. So I'm going to add some lemon juice.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've been laying in post a lot. So I have a whole library of sound effects from all my movies so I can pull up like the gun sound we created for Bruce Willis and Sincity and use that and mix it with Antonio's gun from Desperado. I remember in four rooms there's a scene where the Billhop goes into the hotel room, jams his key into it, and clicks it. I used all gun sounds for the sounds of the key. Instead of key sounds, because it wasn't sound close up enough. So you listen to it, you hear, you hear like all these sounds from gun to do the key because it's like that conveys the sound better. You know, I'll use different kinds of sounds that just have impact and put it somewhere like when he hits the ground or so I like playing with all that in post. When I'm editing because it makes my editing job easier. Sometimes it's like, oh, the sound is covering me. I don't need to keep trying to massage this. The sound is actually selling it. And so I keep those sound effects into the final movie. So it's just all part necessary. It's like.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All the other sound dropped away, and all you hear is the mic's right on that thing. So that you hear it so big in your ear that you swear it was in close-up too, but just the sound was close up.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's why that's so important because if you don't know that, you'll be on the set shooting 10 takes of that because you're like, no, he didn't know I didn't see him click it back. He didn't see and didn't see him click it back. That's really needed. I can do that with sound. Let's just go. Let's just keep moving.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The sound too. The sound is so important. Sound is half the picture And if you cut sound, you realize how important sound is. I would learn so much by doing those movies like Despero action movies where you go, wow, the sound, I can add an extra sound effect of an extra punch. He didn't even throw. And it sounds like he's beaten the shit out of this guy. You only need to see one or two hits and you can hear five. You know, you don't know where you can push your limits because you've done it. You've done it and you've got experience.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You hear it, like I know you can get away with that because I know editing and I like, I thought I'm going to play this down. I can go ahead and milk that shot as long as I want. I'll make him be in the air longer, even though he's actually touching the ground by not playing the sound. And that's comes from, you said directing, but it's not directing like people can direct and say, this is what I want. But to actually execute it, you need to be a craftsman. And to be a craftsman, you have to learn all those crafts.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You think you saw it, but He's already finished. You don't really see him do it, you know. But you swear you saw it in a close-up because the sound is in a close-up. I put the sound in a close-up. Now, here's another thing you didn't notice. He hits this ground in the first shot watch. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. You didn't even notice it because I didn't play the sound there. So if you don't hear it, you don't see it. And if you don't see it, but you play a sound, you hear it, then you see it in your mind, right? So check that out now with the sound on, and you'll see both those parts play completely different now.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you're drying it through sound through picture. I'm going to show you. If you notice without the sound, you don't really see him.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have done enough times to know that if you don't do it just right, you're going to lose the image. You're not going to know where to follow and you'll miss the point.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You could have gotten all those people together and they never would have figured that out. You had one person had to see it all the way through.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it's not like you have this whole plan figured out ahead. You're literally in the moment, it's coming through you, but you're seeing, right? I'm seeing it because I've done it enough. That's why you really want to learn all those jobs because it comes to a moment like this when the shit's fucking hitting the fan. You got to know how to pull it out.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The bullet in this frame, and the next frame is here because I used to animate, and the next frame it's there, then it hits the barrel, and then it starts bouncing this way. I want it that clear so we can follow that a bullet was supposed to go in and that it bounced way over there. And then this bullet bounced way over there. And they send it back and a bunch of bullets come down. No, guys, listen to this. I'm going to show you again. I'm going to draw it to you again. The sound will play like there's multiple bullets flying. I don't need to see all those bullets or the eye's not going to know where to go. So then they got it right. Brilliant. And then check this out. I'm going to show you twice because you're not going to believe it. Changes direction.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that you're like, I wonder if he's going to make it right. So I go home, I cut it. Before I even have the visual effects in, I just cut it that night because I cut my own sound effects. I cut my sound effects in. You can already tell it's going to work. You can already see even with a bullet's not there, you can tell by the sound where they're going to be. It's going to work. I call them up and said, dude, this is going to work great. So then I go to the effects guys and I go, okay”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've got to go do everything now. I got to cut it. I got to add the sound effects myself. I got to put the music in myself because music guys would just end up filling it with music and ruin it. Sound effects guys would just fill it full of sound effects and ruin it. I went all the sound to drop out. So as he's jumping all you hear is the wind in his jacket, the clinking of the bullets as they're bouncing off. So you'd have this breathless moment. No music. Cut the music. And that moment you cut it”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right? Okay. Now, last jump. I bury a thin. I said, just bring me a thin mattress because I want him to do all the stunts. I don't want a stun guy. Because he does this himself. He just did it in three jumps. If the audience went, no, they'll just be like, we believe that this guy can do anything. I want you just to finish by turning and cocking the hammer back and firing before you hit the ground. I'll give you two takes for that. Almost gets it there. Then we do a second take. Boom. That other one was probably a little better, even though you don't really see it.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now, second jump. When you do the next jump as if we just pass those other moments, you've caught a bullet already, so now you're going to snap it closed and start your turn. That's all you'll get before you hit the pad. Snap turn, right? So like, okay, this is, I want the cameras to feel like they're dropping with them. That'll give you more of the sensation. So let's actually lower that steady cam shot, flip it upside down, and get a low angle. See how look at the sun's right there hasn't gone behind the building yet. That and then my camera, I lowered my camera down and I got that.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm operating the camera and I'm cutting this in my head I'm saying just do it again. And he's like, what is it? Rock up. And then as you go down, it's going to look like you're falling bullets. Okay. Well done. You've caught a bullet. One”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can already tell. Going to look like bullets are missing, right? Okay, now I need this part though. I need the part where he's catching the bullet. This little window there. How am I going to do that? The lens that long, it's going to be all out of focus. It's not going to be slow motion enough. He even knows me, and he's like, what the hell am I doing? So just lay on the pad and rock up and down. And as you're coming down, that'll look like you're falling as I'm zooming in.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Each angle so that they know what it's supposed to look like so they can match that. Otherwise, it'll look phony. Now, first jump, I just want you to commit to just jumping out and just look at the barrel. Just look at the barrel on your hands when you're jumping because that'll look like you're looking at the bullets. And just don't even think about that you're going to catch a bullet. Don't think about that you're going to start turning. Just stretch your body out. Get a really graphic look at how cool that looks. And then the side view shot this at the same time.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going to do three jumps, and I'm going to cut it to look like one jump. All the bullets are going to miss. The only one's going to go in. So here, just follow what I'm saying because we don't have time. What cameras do we have? What's on the A camera? A long lens. Oh, yeah, that's my camera. I'll operate that. What's on the B camera? Steady cam. Leave it on SteadyCam. No time to divert it. At one point, I wanted to lower it. So just flip it upside down. We'll flop it later. Give me the main camera. Okay, DJ, start running towards that bullets and grab it and pretend like it gets shot out of your hand. I shoot it in a slow motion, but I'm showing you how it would look on the set. Okay, now the bullets are flying. I'm going to add those digitally. I'm going to hold the bullets up to the light.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Where are you getting the bullets from that body? Okay, bring that body closer. Okay, stunt guy, bring a pad over. I want to see you just jump and start to twist as if you're turning. I just want to see how much airtime you can get to get any action before you hit the pad. He starts to jump. He barely starts jumping. He's already hitting the pad. So I was like, okay, that ain't going to work. You get out of here. DJ, you're going to do it. I have no idea how I'm going to do this. I hadn't thought about it before, but now you're there. And now the options are very limited. You're very limited. Look at the sun. You're going to see the sun not move. You see, that's the point where the sun starts getting lost. I have to shoot this in 20 minutes.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you'll just never get it. You won't even get it in a film schedule, you know, in a regular movie schedule. It's just too crazy. You need somebody with a vision to do the whole thing. So this is what it would look like if you're on the set. I'm going to show you the footage and I'm going to show you the scene. I have to show it to you a couple times because you're not going to believe what you're about to see. So if you were on the set, this is what it would look like. So I get there. They say, we're ready for that scene. So I get over there to the set and I go, okay, where are you coming out of? He goes, this building.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everyone on the crew will have a different idea on how to do that. Stunt guy who will put you on wires because you have to do all that action or DP isn't even operating the camera. It's a camera. The director doesn't know how to shoot. He's not operating the camera. Your editors in a room somewhere. VFX guys aren't there. She's not going to be able to ask them how to do it. But in my own VFX, I came up with how we do it, all the shots in Sin City and all the spike games. We need one guy to come do it. I'll come do it for you. I'll come do it because I'm already going to be there because I have to shoot a second unit fight scene for the other actor who wanted a cool fight scene. So I was already doing that.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fix it later, but does three days it's going to be pure pipe? It's just going to be coming through because you're just going to be picking up the pen. So anyway, he came to me with this idea. He said, oh man, I was hoping you'd do the last episode of Dustold Dawn because I had this great idea for a scene. We're in a zombie town, western town. We have those guns where you have to pull the trigger, you know, the hammer back before you can fire. So I thought, what if I have a gun that's empty? And I got bullets in the other hand. And I pump into a zombie, the bullets go flying. I jump and I catch all the bullets and shoot the guy before I hit the ground. Okay, that's kind of real cool desperado type thing, but dude, this is a seven-day shoot for these episodes.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I read it and I go, you read it in three days? And go, Well, I wrote some of it before, but I just kept thinking I wasn't ready. And then you told me the thing about not being ready. And you said that it really resonated. I went and I finished it in three days. I go, man, I'm going to do that. I'm going to go do the DK method. I called the DJ method. I have a bunch of half-baked ideas that I'm just going to go turn off the phone and finish the thing in three days.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Time we got to the third season, I was doing Alito, so I couldn't do the big finale episode. And my actor who plays the George Clooney character, DJ Katrona, he's somebody who fucking wanted her to be a writer, was writing. He wrote fight and flight. This is a movie that's going to come out with Josh Harnett. That's his, he wrote it. After doing this, he was like, man, hearing you talk, you know what? I got, this is what I love about you inspire people, the feedback loop inspires you back. He said, man, hearing your talk for Red 11 and the cards and I've got a script that's partially written, I'm just going to go crank it out in 3D. I'm going to cut off the phone in 3D. I'm going to finish that thing in three fucking days. And he came back and he said, I finished the script.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you don't need to know. You just need to do. You just need to be the hands. So this is like what you can do with no time or money when you know all those jobs. It's the benefit of knowing those jobs. Like I said, the more you know those jobs, the more you know your main job, which is being creative. But on the day thinking on your feet. So I'm going to show you this test. Okay, so for Dustold Dawn the TV series, I would always shoot the first episode and the last episode of like a seven or eight episode season. There's three seasons.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then years later, I'm making Sin City. I shot Mickey not knowing who the other actor was going to be until I cast him eight months later. And it was Rudger. I'm cutting them together to look like they're in the same movie, and it's in black and white. Done this before. Oh my god, I found that old video. It's like, oh my God, I already made a movie in black and white. That's weird shit, right? That's the magic of creativity. It's like sometimes when you have a vision, it's not clear, but it's coming to you from the future. So you got to just follow the voice. No matter what anyone says about your curtains, just follow the voice you got in your head. Because you don't know and you're not smart enough to know.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What's weird is like editing exercises are like I used to do these editing exercises where I went to my VCRs together and I would cut my movies but sometimes I would just cut a music video and I cut a music video once because I was a big fan of Rudger Hauer and a big fan of Mickey Rourke. So I said I want to make it look like they're in a movie together. So I cut this music video together so it shows like lightning on Rudger and the Hitcher and then lightning on Mickey from Rumblefish. But Rumblefish is black and white. So I made the whole thing black and white. I was like 19. I was 19 years old when I did that.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Brittany Murphy's in all three stories. One day, Benisa La Toro three days. It's just like you're just shooting this stuff. Mickey Roarke is in a sequence with Red Grower. We shot eight months apart. I didn't have Redgraard's laws doing Sharkborne Lava Girl. So I just shot Mickey acting with me and then I shot Redgar acting with me and I just come together.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It could be 150, 200 people on the crew. And I swear not one of them knows how to edit. Not one. So they're getting the wrong stuff. They're having to reshoot shit. The editor is in a room somewhere useless Calling after the fact. We still need to get this close up, or you got to reshoot that because it doesn't match because no one knows editing. So, if you just know that, you're already miles ahead of 99% of Hollywood, that's just how I learned by accident. So I kind of stumbled upon it. And I realized that's what the problem is, because across the board, I'm watching them going, that's not going to match. You guys are just spending money, sending crews out, shooting stuff for this. It's just, it's a cluster fuck. Let me show you. That's how it's in city, Bruce Willis, nine days.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have to edit your own movie. I have this analogy. A food analogy that works really well. Script is like your grocery list. Filming is like grocery shopping, getting the best performances, getting the best, getting the mess ingredients, right? Editing is like the cooking. Too much of this and not enough of that. You fuck the whole thing up. So there's so many filmmakers did not edit. They give it to some other guy whom I look at all your ingredients and go, this is all great, but I'm gonna go make a fucking souffle. And he makes something else. So by doing that job, I mean, like I've worked on some big stuff and I realized finally after many years, because I've always edited, I realize this is why movies cost so much.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She's like, okay, so she shows up. I had all the sets, like a conveyor belt right next to each other. Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. She's in the car. That's why she had me do her music video for Rain on me later. She said, we should just go to Austin. Robert, put me on a grease. I was throughout that whole movie. I don't know how we did that. It was half a day. She was there half a day. I did the same for Sin City too. I was like, I have a set here waiting for you if you're on tour in Houston just drive into Austin. I'll shoot you out in half a day. You could be in a scene with Joseph Gordon Levitt. Sure. She came down.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because after machete, she said publicly, she said, I saw machete and my song Americano should have been in machete. I thought, she saw machete. So I called her up and I said, hey, I'm making a sequel. And I would certainly use your music. But have you ever thought about acting? Because you're an amazing performer. I think I've worked with a lot of actors who are also musicians and they're always great because I already know how to be a persona, be on stage, be in front of a bunch of people, which most actors can't do. And she said, actually, I studied acting before I became a singer. So, well, you'll never be able to be in a movie because you know what? They don't know how to shoot people out to want six months of your time. And you're always on tour. But if you come be here, I have a part for you. I can shoot you out in half a day. This whole section of a movie, and I'll shoot you a movie poster.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. That's their scent. It's real. You don't have to dress it, and it's just right there. All you do is put like a little tube there, you know, like for his IV, and then you have a couple of nurses, and it looks like. But I said, You're going to think about me when you're on your next Meet the Fuckers movie and you're on there for six months where they have you sitting in a trailer. I don't like to do that. So, you know, I gave Lady Gaga her first two movies.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we had to save time. We only have four days. So everything had to be very thought out to be like boom, boom, boom. Let's shoot the money, get them out of this. We don't have to spend a lot of money on him.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm the editor. I'm the cameraman. I'm the DP. And so when I call them and say, I've got you as the villain in this whole movie, but I swear, I'm going to shoot you out in four days. Come down four days. In fact, there's a scene where he's in the hospital. He's just smiling. He's having such a good time because he couldn't believe it. I said, guess what? When you wake up from your hotel room at the Stephen F. Austin, you just cross the hallway. That's the set. The room next to yours, we turned into the hospital set.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Threw a bunch of cards out basically with that trailer. And now you got to go make a movie using all those cards. That's like a creative exercise that I thought so satisfying, so fun.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source