YouSaid · the spoken record

Robert Rodriguez

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

  1. “Famous one. So for five years, five years people would come to us and say, where's machete? Where's the, when's that movie coming out? Or like, it's not a real movie. When it looks real, we want to see that movie. So we finally made the movie because people just asked for it. And I used, I wanted to, I was adamant about being resourceful again. All those shots that are in the trailer are really great. I got a reverse engineer the trailer into a movie so that I can use that shot that's in the trailer like this girl in the waterfall. Why would this girl be in the waterfall? I thought of a really clever way that he gets the bad guy. Her hair's kind of, her face is kind of covered by this hair. Well, Cass Lindsay Lohann there or the senator will switch it out for Robert De Niro. Well, I just reversed engineer it so every time there's a shot in the trailer, it's in the movie, but I shot all the footage around to lead up to it. That's another fun creative exercise is to reverse engineer something you just did like this on the day.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “People were screaming at the premiere. You couldn't even hear it. They just wanted that movie so badly because there was black exploitation in the 70s. There was never exploitation. It felt like this should have existed, but it didn't. It's Mexican superhero. They just never seen anything like that. You know, now you know. But like even his mom calls him a shade. Like he just became this guy and I've 250 movies that he's been in. Machetes is most.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “What trailer I want to do for the movie I never got to make with Danny called Machete. That'll be so fun to finally get that out of her system. And doing a trailer is so fun. It's two days of shooting. Just still being that resourceful guy, we asked this company that had a digital camera we wanted to use. Can you let us send it to us for a couple of day screen tests? I mean, camera test. Instead of shooting a camera test, we shot the trailers. We got a free camera, shot the trailer with him. And it's just the money shots, him opening his vest full of machetes, him aiming that gun, him in a waterfall with two gals. And I just came up with this really funny trailer and we shot it.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “I needed to create my own Latin star system because all my scripts, because when you write in your own voice, you're going to write probably somebody that's Latin. So you need to have a star system that matches that so that you don't have trouble casting. And people are like, well, you can't hire this person. So I built up my own star system. So Danny was one of my stars. So after we're doing Grindhouse, we had to do fake trailers for Grindhouse. And I told Quentin.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “But he's not doing it for the money. It turns out he has to get this guy that escaped Mexico. And that's the twist. So that was the original story I had. So we're going to do this someday. And we talked about it for years and never did it. Never had it got around to doing it. So when I did spy kids, I put them in spy kids and I said, hey, let's pay tribute to that character we never got to make. And you'll be Uncle Machete. He's a gadget guy, but he's got a mysterious past. Then a few years later, Quentin and I were doing Grindhouse He'd already done Dustal Dom with me. You know, I was building my own Latin star system. Salma showed up in a bunch of my movies. Cheats shows up in every movie. Danny shows up. I brought Chich out of retirement, put him in my”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I went to him and I said, I got a movie we're going to do someday. This was 94. We didn't make this movie for 15 years, machete. You're going to be machete. I had an idea from a machete then. It wasn't the same story. I had seen a story, actually Morayachi, the guy from March, sent me this funny story. He said, hey, look at this story. The USDA and FBI sometimes would hire a Mexican federal to come do a job for 25 grand that they didn't want to get their own guys killed on. I said, that's machete. The guy that they pay.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “He walks out filming. We get to the set. He kept saying, put me in coach, give me a line, give me a line. It's like, no, no, you're such a nice guy. You're going to blow the whole mystique. I want this guy to feel like the most evil, scary guy of all. And you're such a nice guy. I didn't let him talk till dust hold on. But one thing I noticed was that the town were shot in, the Mexican town, which is the same town I shot Mariachi. We went back there because I wanted to pay back the city. So we had this big movie there. They didn't really know Antonio because he was in European movies. Salma hadn't come to the set yet, but they saw Danny Trejo there in his vest looking like a Mexican icon. They would go like this. Everyone thought he was the star. And I just know magnetism when I see it. And I went, this guy's got something.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Danny Trail. We're doing Esperado now. I'm casting all kinds of people. Now I have this character that I want to have a bunch of knives. He opens up his vest and there's a bunch of knives. So bring me all the coolest looking Latin actors we can find. And before he even walked in, there's a picture of him. He already looked like the guy, but he was younger. He always just played prison inmates. It was a picture of him as an inmate in a prison. I want to give him a cool role, you know, just wherever this actor is. He walks in and I see him. It's Danny Trejo. He sits down and I had the prop knife already made. And I say, you need to have this in your hand and look like you sleep with it. Like just practice flipping it around your hand. And I gave it to him. You got the role to start practicing with that. He gets up and walks out. You don't have to say things. There's no dialogue.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “It where we create our own destiny, we go, Hey, we're going to make a movie, we're going to make it for this budget so we can make it, and the story is going to be so character driven and cool. We're going to be able to get big actors to be in it because they're going to want to be in it. So Danny Traill, you asked me about Danny Trail.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Studios like, okay, you can hire reluctantly like that, right? But once they saw the footage come as we're shooting and they saw it on the big screen when they're watching the dailies, then they were like, oh my God, then they saw it. Then they saw what I saw when I met her. But sometimes you say, what do you do when people are like, hey, how come you're using these? Just know that not everyone's going to see it. You may have the only vision. Just keep going. There's an instinct that tells you to keep going that way. You'll get proved right or wrong, or maybe you're slipping on the first two rocks or whatever, but follow your instinct because you get everyone's going to have an opinion. And it's not necessarily the right one. And when you're an independent filmmaker, you can make those decisions to change people's career, that change the world. And that's why you want to remain independent. That's why what's happening now in the industry is great, because I have to make movies like the way I started, which is why I've always liked to do, which is just doing.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Screen test and we worked on the scene, which is the best scene where she's operating on his arm and they've got all this chemistry. And I was just directing her through it like completely down to when you pick up the water and you handle the water. Don't scream, oh, hot water, just be like hot water. And while he's spitting it out and it's going to be a big dramatic action with like a very light delivery. And so we got it down to a science. The next day we show up. Antonio does a scene with all the girls come in. He does it with her. Clearly, they've got amazing chemistry. She just nails it. He's great. He loves her too”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Passion and funny. She became instant friends with my wife. Before they walked over, your wife and I are best friends. She already was like part of the family. She's godmother to my kids. And I thought I'm going to help you. You're going to help me. I need to have a Mexican actress in this and you're going to be phenomenal. The studio didn't see it. They were like, what? She hasn't done anything. Why don't you just hire somebody else who already has a name? So if we just give her one movie, then she'll be someone who's in a movie and then you can keep casting. So I made a whole other movie with her in English called Road Racers. It was my second film for Showtime. Really cool little rebel without a cause type movie. And she's, and I give her a role. And that's we have an example of her doing English. And they still were like, we need a screen test. We need to have a screen test with a bunch of other actresses, you know. So I said, sure, let's do that. So I went over to her house the night before this.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “And I went, I think this is the girl. So I called her to my office and I videotaped our first meeting together. So I have that somewhere.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “I would try to speak Spanish and say let's record and they'd be looking at me like that means let's remember the record doesn't mean record that means cordowad Now I know back then I didn't know. So I'm watching Univision and then there's Sama. As a guest, and she's a big soap star down there in Mexico, and she comes out, she's beautiful, she's funny, everyone's laughing. She saw everyone that we know now. And she starts talking about, you know, what I gather from what she's saying, that she's having trouble finding any work in the US because of her accent. And then Pauber Jiga says, well, say something in English. And then she says, then she sounds just like she does now. And he goes, that's great. She goes, I know, I know”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “So I was watching Paul Rodriguez show on Univision because I was trying to practice my Spanish because I was having to do all these Spanish interviews because Mariachi was in Spanish. That was the only part I didn't tell you. I didn't speak Spanish when I made that movie. We didn't grow up with it. So I left that part out of the Mariachi story because I thought people already didn't believe I made the movie by myself. They knew I made it in a language I didn't speak. I should have said it because it'd be even more inspiring. Like now you have no excuse.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “One of the best stories I was really determined to hire a real Latin, especially Hispanic, and then she's Mexican actress to be the Mexican character that's like as authentic as you can get. And there was no one who was getting any jobs because no one was creating any. So there was no one that had any movies under their name because there was no one, it was a whole systemic problem, right? This was 94, 93.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “So I called them when we were doing desperado and I said, Would you ever consider doing an action? Oh man, I'd love to do action. So I said, I got a movie for you. I got a movie for you. It was a sequel to Mariachi. And so Salma, I found in Mexico television, you know, doing, she couldn't get work in the U.S. because of the roles.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “What was exciting about desperados? I went to go make it, and there were no Latin actors working in Hollywood because no one was creating roles for them. So I thought, wow, I got to go create my own stars. We'll bring Antonio from Europe because they kind of know his name from the Motivar movies. And I saw him and tie me up, tie me down when I was in the hospital writing Mariachi or watching TV while I was a patient. And there's a scene where you like headbutts Victoria Abrille. You know, he just gives her headbutts. That I was like, whoa, I bet that guy would want to be in an action movie. He's got something inside”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Think that's why sometimes people need to go to school for stuff like that because then now, while I just did four years of school, so now I must know. Now you've given yourself permission. But you could give yourself permission right away and it's going to come through.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “You're seen, there isn't a trick. I thought he had a trick, and that's why I couldn't get any further. He's using the same brush and the same paint. Well, how come I can't do that? And you go, you do it. I go, I'm going to try and do something realistic. I've never done realistic before because I'm a cartoonist and everything I was cartoony. And that was just easier for me because I thought I would need too much training. I did another Trejo. I started doing a realistic. I finished out just one section of his face and put the pen down because I did that Same day. Got out of my way because seeing him get out of his own way.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Go, what paints are you using? And he's like, it was regular acrylic paint. What brushes do you have? Regular brushes. Mine doesn't look like yours. Well, let me try what he's doing. You start with a midtone. I'm going to do that, Danny again. With a midtone, I'll start adding some highlights. And I did that. And everybody kept coming over going, like, Just do that, and I was like, Yeah, I don't know how, but it's very cartoony still. He's doing a very realistic jagger. How real that is. You're just watching and he doesn't teach you anything so. Just starts painting. So, this is the photo he had as a reference, but then this is his painting.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “How's that graded? That's like on a wake-home tablet. But then I did it with paint, and it's like, oh, it's all cruddy. And it's too thick the paint. And it just looks, it looks And I just gave up right away. I was trying to pre practice so I wouldn't be a total buffoon there. I was going the next week, and I thought he's using a different brush, obviously, he's using a better paint. The stuff just is clogging up and it's crap. I'm sure when I get there. So I get there, and he's doing a Mick Jagger. And he starts with a midtone. He starts blocking in the face with a little tiny drawing of where the face goes. He starts doing that, he starts adding some highlights. There's the photo his reference. And I'm like, why are you concentrating so much on the cheek first? And he's like, Stefan every time.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “You're not going to believe this freaking thing. I had a painter friend in Germany, Sebastian Kruger. He gives a workshop once a year. Thought I'm going to go there and I bet I'll learn more about directing by watching this guy paint than I will by watching another director because that's just now I know how creativity works. You're going to learn lessons outside of the box by doing that. And I try to practice before going out there. I was doing a Danny Trejo. I'll show you the before and after. You're not going to freaking believe what you see. But this is how it really tells the story of how important proximity is. So I do this painting. It's like it looks garbage. It looks like garbage. I can't do paintings that are just like, see, you never should say I can't just cut your leg off. But I couldn't at the time paint just paintbrush into paint and then write on the canvas like that without using some kind of medium, which disguise Sebastian Kruger would do. So first I did a digital painting.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “It's like really far. It's out of focus. As you work on it and you work on it, it starts coming. I thought, okay, good. So that's normal. I thought maybe he had laser vision or something. But no, even him, he doesn't really know what he feels. He can make decisions and he understands what a creative drive is and how to just keep being relentless about it. But it's not like they have all the proximity is huge. Proximity. Change your life did for me. Just being around those guys, they didn't teach me, hey, I'm going to teach you how to make a movie. Just being next to them, being in their world. Just ups your game You just, you're able to do things you weren't able to do before. You get ideas you didn't get to do before. I did. I'll show you one of my painting things.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Friends like I know I've only made one movie myself so never mind I guess I guess if we're all wrong so even he didn't expect that at all so that was a shock you know even to him so think about that That means what do you do? Commit to a body of work. Just do that because you don't know. You don't know what's going to be a pulp fiction, what's going to be a Jackie Brown, what's going to be, you know, you don't know. And you like to think they know, but they don't know either. They feel it, like asked Jim Cameron. I said, do you see your movie really clearly? Like, can you see it with hyperfocus? Because it seems like that. And”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “But that happened with George Lucas, too, with Star Wars. Everybody saw that movie and was like, poor George. They showed it to all his director friends. Poor George, what do you waste all this time with us for? Only Spielberg was the one who said, it's naive and it's going to do really good because it's naive and kids will like it. But everyone else was like, what's he doing? We're artists. We're making art films. What's he doing this garbage for? Because nobody knows. It shows no one knows anything, not even the filmmaker. When you're being groundbreaking, you don't know what groundbreaking is. Not you or anyone around you, except maybe one or two people. So he said, those one person like, oh, yeah, who is your spielberg? He goes, Catherine Bigelow, without a doubt, she's the only one who said there's something here. No one else was saying that. He said, in fact, because he remembered suddenly, he forgotten the story. But if it wasn't in my journal, I would have forgot it too. He goes, in fact, one of my friends Saman said, I want to sit you down and tell you all the things that are wrong with your movie. But I'll wait till you get back from the Cannes Film Festival. And he goes and he wins the Palm D'Or.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Still feels like a movie Quinton would make. Doesn't feel like a real movie. And I was like, That's fine. What do you mean? What does it mean? It feels like one of those movies I would make like Reservoir Dogs. It doesn't feel like a removal. Us trying to be the supportive friend going, Oh man, he was so excited about this movie, now he's bummed about it. And I was like, well, it should be different. It should be like, he's like, wouldn't have it drove off. So I thought, oh, I guess that wasn't the one. So I went home and I called some of the directors that were at the screening And they go, yeah, this isn't the one for him. It's not, none of them saw it. Of them saw it, but that I know you're like surprised”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Sony passed on pulp fiction. It's too weird, too long. Million dollar movie or seven million. They're like, eh, we're going to go make the next poly short movie instead. We don't understand this thing. And Miramax got it. They'd just been bought by Disney. So they produced their first film with pulp fiction. And then that thing went to Cannes and it was a whole thing. But what I loved about... Histories that when he made pulp fiction, he had a director screening. He showed it to some directors and I wasn't able to go. But anyway, I had dinner with him once and it was in my journal because I keep a journal. At 2.40 a.m. when after he had dropped, I dropped him off at his house. I said, oh wait, how did your movie come out? Paul Fichte and he just finished it and he went”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “I didn't know he was going to go become such a household name. I just was drawn to his energy, and I'd already written him in. And I met Steve Bussemi there. And I was like, I'm writing a character for Steve Hussemi. But then I went back to the Sony lot where I was working on Desperado. And Quentin and I ended up having offices right next to each other. On the Sony lot, by accident, I didn't even know that. I just met him and I go back and he was because originally pulp fiction was for TriStar because Danny DeVito was a producer and he was going to make it for TriStar. So he was there writing pulp fiction and I was writing Desperato. So I'd go show him like storyboards from Desperato and he'd come act out scenes of pulp fiction. And we got to be really good friends that way. We'd go eat lunch at Versailles across the street, the Sony lot.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “So surround yourself by those kind of people. And that's when you learn things like don't blink. Like somebody who's really swinging for the fences and accomplishing so much. And Quinton was like that. So I met him at the festival. He saw Mariachi. He loved it. We came up with, we talked and he said, you don't like my next film I'm writing right now, pulp fiction. So I thought, man, I'm going to put this guy. He's so fun. I'm going to put him in, I'm going to write him in my desperato script, which I was writing. So that was before pulp fiction and all that when I had cast him.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “If he was just my peer, he'd say, Oh, I did the same thing and I'm going to do the same thing, that would be like hanging out with somebody of your ilk. But you want somebody who's above that. Do you know what he said? He goes, I bought a steady cam, but not to operate it. I'm going to take it apart and design a better one. Us mere mortals trying to learn how to operate the camera. He's designing all new systems. That's the guy you want to hang out with. Not someone who's doing what you're doing.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “You meet people like that. I tell people Your parents say, Watch out who your peers are. You know, when you're younger, that means one thing. But as you get older, surround yourself around people who swing much farther than you. That's just like, but that's really true. I mean, just by being around him and working with him, you get biosmosis, you learn stuff. And it just ups your game because they're just swing way beyond. Jim Cameron was like that. So like when I first met him, I was trying to impress the hell out of him, you know, because I was such a big fan. I was about to go do the Sperado and I went, hey, I just took a three-day steady cam course because I can't afford a steady cam operator. So I'm going to operate steady cam myself on Desperado.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Since I met him, he was just like Brilliant ball of energy. And, you know, like if you see him, I walk around his house and I'll see like a few sheets of paper all handwritten out. I'm like, what's that? He goes, oh, that was something I was starting to write. And I, you know, not going to finish it. Can I take these and go turn it into like...”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Yeah, absolutely. Because if I'm writing it, but if it's not coming from me, I'm as surprised sometimes. And Quentin would say that, you know, he'd say, you just get two characters talking when I'm writing my script, and then suddenly they're just talking to each other. And I was like, what does that mean? And now I know what that means. It's like he just gave them life. And now... The dialogue's coming through”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Can't even go outside because my own creations are going to eat me. And he comes up to the camera and he goes, Do you think God hides in heaven because he too lives in fear of what he created here on earth? It's like really just for a moment this thing. And it's like. Because you feel like that way when you're creating stuff, like you're creating something, and then now it's taking on a life on its own. And it's like, oh no, now this character has to die. Oh, I didn't want that. This domino effect of creation. And you start thinking, what must be what creation? Maybe he is hiding up there because look at he didn't expect all this shit to happen given us free will and all that.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “I didn't even think about the implications of that because there's a line I was making a character that Stu Bussemi plays in Spike Kids too and he's a creator. He just wanted to make a little miniature zoo for kids. And then he saw, well, what if I put some together like a lizard with a snake and it's a slizzard or you have a spider monkey, which is like literally spider legs and a monkey top? So he makes that. And then he thought, hey, why don't I make him a little bit bigger for kids that have big hands? And it got out of control and they turn into these huge creatures. And now they're trying to eat them. So he's hiding. The kids find him hiding. And he says this one line that people keep coming. It's on the internet a lot. This meme about this. Why is this line, this movie? It's so wild. I thought I wanted Steve to come up to the camera and like he's just, he's lost in his own creative world. And he says, I, I, I, I, I, I.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “But then the girl's really good. And then midway through the movie, I'm like, oh shit, she's gonna die because I killed her in mine. I don't want her to die. I like this actress. It's really great and they have a really great love story. I go, well, I hope they change that part. No, they kill her. So I felt bad twice because I sealed. I sealed her fate. I sealed her fate because... I have a line in Spike Kids, too, because I started thinking when you create stuff, Start thinking. Wonder if that's how our creator is. He's like, oh shit, I just kind of threw that in a memo and now that whole town's going to get wiped out.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “And they're showing mariachi with a Hong Kong film called Run, where they ripped off Mariachi. Like they just took the whole story and had two, you know, Chinese actors in Mexico with the guitar cases, one's the guitar. They just followed it beat by beat. So we're watching it. And it was like scene by scene. They just rebait it without even getting the rights or anything. It was so fun to watch. We saw Mariachi first. Then we watched that one. And I'm like, what's this big brothel scene, though? This isn't my movie. Oh, the bad guy. Oh, there's a scene in my movie where the bad guy has two girls in bed with him and they figured that was a whorehouse. But it was just his apartment. So they got this whole house, they reinterpreted it, and they have helicopter shots and all kinds of big things. And the action was awesome.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “And they go, no, no, you got something. No, no, dude, if I knew anyone was going to see this, I would have shot it completely different. Give me $2,000. I'll go reshoot half of it. Just knowing people are going to see it. I want something. And the head of the studio was really smart. He said, you don't know what you have here. It's very something really special. Let's take it until you're right, see what happens. Tell your ride. Toronto did great. Like I said, in one Sundance. So now we had to put it out. But I was like, I would have said don't show that movie. But they also questioned the ending and didn't come into play because we ended up making Desperado. And the girl in Desperado doesn't die. You know, we didn't do that. We didn't kill Salma. But that's what needed to happen to Mariachi. I'm quitting calling me one time. People would always say like, oh, reservoir dogs, he borrowed from this movie Hong Kong actually filmed called City on Fire about these guys. They're all criminals and they kill each other or whatever. And he said, hey, they're showing a double feature called East Looks West and West Looks East. They're showing reservoir dogs with City on Fire, the one they say I borrowed from.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “I got heartbroken twice. Let me tell you the second time it happened. One, you're making that, and you go, okay, this is how it has to go. But then now you're invested in this person. You go, Oh man, she has to die. It's going to be really sad. In fact, the studio even, when they said they were going to remake it, a good thing I put that ending on. That's the only reason they showed it to an audience. We were going to remake it. They weren't going to put that movie out. Showed it, said, We need to show this movie to an audience They might not like the fact that we killed a girl before we remake it. All right, the show to an audience. The audience liked it the way it was. So they said, we want to take this movie to some film festivals. And I was like, no, not this movie. This is my practice movie. No one's supposed to see this movie.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “A really good action film. In fact, like the Terminator, the original Terminator just came out in 4K. I've been watching it again. It looks like better than most movies look today. And that's a $4 million movie. It looks incredible. You can see every beat of sweat in this movie. I was watching it again with somebody, a female, and there's always a point when you're watching that movie where she'll turn and say, I love this movie. You know, a point that is the point where Michael Bean tells her, I came across time for you, Sarah. I love you, which is, you know, I always have. And you're just like, oh my God, there's like a real emotional love story there that he put into Titanic, that he put into Avatar. He figured out that thing that makes those movies work.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “He's constantly clocking it how little time he has, and he gets you so my God, is he gonna make it? That's like the best use of that. No one's ever topped that ticking time clock. All the other ones seem artificial in comparison, you know, aliens, you know, we got to get off this planet now because this whole thing's going to blow up. There's a timeline. It's already urgent, but now there's an extra timeline on it. That this is what happens.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “That's really a character type piece. Great, freaking amazing. And it feels like action, by the way, he does it. It's just like, Fast paced, fast talking, fast moving, like escape from New York is one of my favorites since I was a kid because every movie you'll notice this now that I tell you, even like a romantic comedy, there's a timeline. Every movie has to have like a ticking clock. So the audience knows the story is not just going to take over a period of years. So suddenly someone in the movie around 20 or 30 minutes in will say, Got to go find the groom before the wedding this weekend. You know, it'll be just like that. Skafa New York has the best example of a ticking time clock because he's literally got bombs in his neck and he's got a watch that shows him.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “That's a great one. That's a great character who is superhuman. Was also retired. There's like a superhero type character in an extraordinary circumstance. That was daughter's taken, right? And then there's ordinary people like the Terminator. That's a great character, not the Terminator. He's a villain, but Sarah Connor, who is a waitress, doesn't think her life's going anywhere. And she finds out she's the mother of the guy who's going to save the human race. And she's got to train him. You know, suddenly she has to become someone else. Those are cool movies because it's a genesis of a character. And you see a character go from waitress to revolutionary.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “A good example I could think of right off where there's a character that really made the difference, and then everyone repeated that for a while. There was like under siege. I was like, a regular guy who's really actually has some training on a ship now. And then on the bus, you've got a cop. He's a cop, but he's not super cop. Why you root for him? You know, that became an element that people repeated a lot.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Predator is a sci fi action film, so that's kind of a hybrid, which I like. But sometimes it's hard for the audience to know what they're buying into. They focused a lot on the action in the trailer, you know, and then they felt there was some other worldly thing, but you didn't really know. But it's a great movie.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “I mean, that's all about. Now, that, when I say we're going to do action movies, I mean movies that are really action first.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Comes down to the character. You know, like if you think about what are the best action films, what are your favorite films? Like Die Hard. He's a cop, so he's still capable, but he's not Superman. The fact that he's in over his head and you're rooting for him, that's a great character. Know John Wick, he is Superman, but he's retired, and now he's pissed off, and he's going back into a job. It comes down to the character really being very important because the action will then have a character to it.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Let's make it at a price, and we'll make it in my studio because I got my own studio and I can keep all the costs down because we have all the costumes and props and sets from 25 years of filmmaking to keep the cost down. And we'll have the audience gets to invest. It's not crowdfunding or Kickstarter. You're actually an investor. Anyone who puts money in can pitch their idea for an action film to me. And I'm going to make one of the four films in that slate from one of those ideas because I want the audience to win. I want the audience to win and be a part of it because the audience is an afterthought in Hollywood. They make a movie. They show the audience the movie. Go tell your friends now so you all spend money on our movie. Where's your cut of that? So I want them to be successful. So if any of the movies in the slate do well, they make money off that one and then sequels or anything. But they're all going to do well because everyone needs an action movie and we're going to keep the cost down.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “The freedom of limitations Is all freeing. When I had to do four rooms, and it's like we have to use one hotel room. Oh, well, then there's going to be a dead body. There's going to be, you can do a lot with limitations. If they said you could use the whole city, it would have been harder to come up with something. But brass knuckle films has a filter, only action. Action movies, because that's the stuff that there's always an appetite for. If you ask Netflix right now, what do you need more of? They'll say action, action, action. We don't have enough action. The last regime didn't leave us enough action. We need action. They'll pay a premium for an action film that we can make at a lower cost. A $20 million action film is very cheap. Studios don't know how to make them that cheap. That's why they'll pay for an independent to go do it. And right now, that's the key is to be independent because a lot of studios that can't even green light anything because things are so expensive they don't want to lose their ass, but they need action films. So let's make something that everybody needs.”

    2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source