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

“As well. And my kids are like, Dad. Really worked. I was like, I know better than I thought. I didn't know that me manifesting that company was going to turn into that. And we just keep making stuff. So I want to do that with brass knuckle films now with the audience because it works. So I said, as soon as you have a logo and a company, your brain starts coming up with all kinds of ideas. And it's a filter.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot of people don't complete a movie, and it still counts as a view. They may watch five minutes and change the channel. So do you complete a movie? That's really where they really value not only do it complete, but rewatched, rewatched, rewatched per household so many times and nothing. Darwin has a double R logo.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Later that year, we did Red 11, same logo. That movie went to Director's Fortnite in Cannes. Festivals were paying us to come talk about how we made that movie. That's when we're doing the cards, throwing the cards out, because they wanted their audiences. They knew they would love that. So we could have had a whole gig just continuing to get paid to go to the fed. Usually you pay to feds to go to fed. You don't get paid. That's how what a success that was. But then we had to make we can be heroes. So we had to stop. But we can be heroes was a Netflix movie where they asked me to make a spy kids type thing. And so I thought, oh, okay, I'll just do it with superheroes. That's their wrote it with my kids based it on some of their personalities. It's the most watched and rewatched movie in Netflix history. Like nothing in touch because kids just keep watching it over because this kid's with superpowers. No one's ever done that before. And they couldn't believe it. Like I'd heard anecdotally. That's how the spy kids were people said, oh, that kids watch it over and over on video, but you can't keep track of that. You can't on Netflix because their biggest thing is people completing the movie.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Double our productions because we all have double our names. All the kids. So if anyone ever wants to do anything, we can use our company. So let's make a logo and I'll make t-shirts and notepads and stuff because once you have a company, you now have to make things for that company. Just like the advice I gave to people, stop aspiring, make a business card that says writer, director, cinematographer, I did, editor, because then now you have to conform to that identity. So now if I create a label like R, we're going to come up with ideas. We'll call up VR companies and say, hey, we have a company, a VR company. Would you like us to make you a film for your solar headsets? Yeah, they gave us a budget. They're dying for content. They gave us a budget. We shot at 20-minute action when we call the limit with Michelle Rodriguez and Norman Redis, where you're in an action movie with them. And it was Killer. They made us a big double R logo animated logo.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Another level, I stumbled upon this idea. My son that was my counterpart on that movie Racer, he was my sound guy, like I said, came up with shark my lava girl when he's little. He became my rider, co-writer, co-producer. He had come to me and said, I want to do VR type movie. I said, oh, well, let me show you as an example of creativity and manifesting. I said, let me show you how it works. Let's make a company. We'll make a company called RR.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And their ideas are really sharp. So the mentoring goes both ways. And it's like the greatest parenting you can do because you're building a project together and in the same boat together, figuring it out. And it's family time. You're like checking all the boxes. So I thought my filmmaking going forward is going to be checking all the boxes in life. So I'm not spending time with my family. We're actually giving them lessons that they can go do anything they want in life because they're going to have different interests. But now it's kind of like going to college. And this college is like the best college because it pays you to learn. You get to do these crazy skills. Like my son is, you know, conducting the orchestra, the James Bond Orchestra in London for the spy kids score and a score he wrote because I can't write at his level because he was always our best piano player. And they get, you get the charge out of working with them. And then by making a label, there's a weird phenomenon that happens if you guys want to take your game.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Crazy creative solutions, and the other one like, what paint medium do I use? What kind of gel am I going to use? So when you come back to your main job, which is filmmaking, you're like, oh, I can figure this out in two seconds. You know, so it helps you create a problem solve. So that basically working with my kids made me realize, oh, now I know exactly what I want to do for the next 10 years. I only want to make movies with my kids because I'm mentoring them, but they're teaching me shit because they're the age I was.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then digitally, it's even better that he looks like he gets them all perfectly laid out to show what a card shark he is. But that's what we have to do because we're not going to, we'll be here all day. We're trying to get, if we're going to worry about where they go, just go bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, boom. And then we'll place the cards down and everyone will pick them up. And then we'll marry the two in post. You just come up with creative solutions better, easier because you were just solving.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bad that I'm still thinking about the painting. No, I think it's good. I think it's all good, but you can tell it's opening a whole other part of the creative brain. So you can be doing acting in a movie, and the painting's still going to have. It shows how much untapped potential your creative brain has. So the more you can do, the more you're firing off. And it was so cool. I remember we did one with Joseph Gordon Levitt was painting. We came in and the table was like this. And they said, we have a problem. You want him to throw the cards out, the playing cards out, but it's so slick. They go sliding off the table. And we both look at it and we both got the solution at the same time. Oh, just have them throw them wherever they go. And then we'll place”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was funny. I think Josh Berlin's girlfriend said. Josh said, Hey, my girlfriend just said his wife now, but time. Guys doing drugs, you leave the set and you come back, and you're all like, and I go, no, we're painting, we're painting, but that makes sense to you say that because when you get your creativity firing, it's more powerful than any drug. And we'd come back and you'd be on this set going.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Any of the disciplines, if you add those to it, like I teach my actors to paint Between takes, we'll go and I'll take a picture of them in character. I show them a canvas. I show them paint. You don't need to know how to paint. This is to show you the brush is going to know where to go. You just got to pick it up. Pick the colors you want. Doesn't matter how crazy they are, whatever's speaking to you. You lay it down. I'll show you some of the pictures. You're not going to believe the masterworks these actors did like in a day. They just start doing it. Lady Gaga had her fingernails in there. You know, Josh Brolin's doing his thing. Then I take a picture of them in character, do a line drawing of it. We project it on top. And mostly it's the painting coming through. They're line drawing with a little bit of their eyes painted in. You're not going to believe these things. They couldn't believe it. But it teaches them that thing about that the creativity is going to come through. So even though they're already acting, they're already being creative. We're already making a movie. Like you said, that's already a really great creative endeavor. When we would sneak off and paint, you could tell it's firing a whole other part of their brain.”
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 a short little microcosm, too. Within one project, you got a whole blueprint for how you're going to solve life because you've just done it on a creative level”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We figured it out. They went, oh, they don't realize this is the creative process. Every day is like that. And in life, too, every day you don't know your machine's going to not work or you're going to get a flat tire or you get fired that day. So life is very unpredictable, just like a movie set. So I realized I'm going to make them all work on my movies now because it's teaching them about life. I'm teaching them very little about the filmmaking. It's about lifeless, about how you take on something impossible, turn chicken shit to chicken salad, and make it work. And that's the straw, and that's life. That's the process of life. So many people say, well, I'm not ready to make my projects. Like, you're not ready for life either. You're like this all day. You're dodging shit that's going on. How come art has to be perfect? It's like it should be the same. Life and art should be the same.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Came to me super excited by the end of the day. I thought for sure, oh, they're going to hate this, even though it's only two weeks, they've got other interests. They don't want to be filmmakers. I thought they were going to be like, all right, I'm out of here. But instead, he came to me and his brother who acted in it. He was my dad. Actor didn't show up after the first day, the location didn't match the script at all. We asked you how we were going to solve the problems and you're like, I don't know, figure it out. We thought that stump for once, is he stumped finally? But then by the end of the day, his eyes were all white.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so that's the one I did. So then it came time for me to do one. So I made a movie called Red Eleven based on my experiences in the medical hospital. But I'll turn it into a sci fi thriller just to use that so that I can use somebody getting stabbed in the eye. So I can still have more elements to show how you can do camera tricks and stuff with no money. And the old day is make it for less than $7,000, which I think we're like $5,000 because I had a lot of actors I wanted to pay. But the movie itself can make it for nothing. But I brought my son aboard as my number one who hadn't been working with me in a while. I mean, he wrote Charlarko and Lavagirl when he was seven, but then he hadn't really been at working on my crew. So he didn't know how to operate the sound equipment, the separate sound system and all that. I didn't show him until the day of filming because I knew we're documenting. It would make a better tutorial. So by getting them working on the movies together,”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When we did, I had a TV show called Rebel Without a Crew. Based on that, where I found filmmakers who had only made a short film, they hadn't made a feature. I picked this diverse group of filmmakers, gave them $7,000, and we documented them making a feature two weeks like I did. You can bring one person like I had Carlos Gallota, the producer and star of Bariacci. Bring one person, you'd be your cameraman, or you can be your sound guy, whatever. But it's only that for the shoot, and you have to do the whole thing. And I saw those guys by the time they're like, I don't know how we're going to make this movie by the first week of shooting, they're already talking about their next feature. They became so confident because their idea of what impossible is drops really quick when you take it.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was just like, I don't even know what I know what basic jobs were out there. Turning the page. Oh, yeah, don't want that job. Don't want that job. Don't want that job. I'm just going through. And it gets to filmmaker. And there's a little icon besides job. This icon is a guy like this. Literally, you look it up. And it says, This is the best job ever. You get to just be creative with your friends, sit back, watch the money roll in, across the desk. And I said, but. 99% of film students don't get this job, so give up that dream.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I bet there's some other job out there that exists that I don't even know about because I don't know other jobs. So I looked up, you don't believe it, but I literally bought jobs for dummies.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or is it just this fall? Like, I wasn't sure because you don't always know what the you might not have the vision yet because you don't have the information yet. So if you just commit to a body of work, you'll start figuring out more reasons to keep doing that body of work. So when I turn 50. I was like, I guess I could just keep making movies. I mean, I guess it's been good for me. I guess I could just make more. I kind of done that already, but. Always fun and it's always new. And I guess I could make, but it wasn't a lot of drive, right? It's like, well, I guess I could just keep doing the butt. You know, that's not as much as I can't wait to keep doing another season. But I didn't know how to get to that point. So I thought, you know what? I got to this job so early. I was in the early 20s”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, yeah, sort of sort of like, I think if you told me what would be my vision for the future, just committing to a body of work, which I've just kept doing, like it's about as far as you can see.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You could see he was telling the truth, and you could see that's how he did it, he just avoided all criticism by just not blinking. It's like it's designed to make you blink, and you're just not going to blink because you're committing to a body of work. He just keeps cranking out movies. Whatever he feels like doing, he does. And that was like the most powerful. And it never bothered me again. I just always kept in mind. I tell that to my actors. I tell that people, that story has traveled. I even had some little actors who were like starting to get up and I said, remember, tell you a couple of things. Some people have told me, you're never as good as people say you are. You're never as bad either. George Cliny told me. So remember that. And then the second one Spielberg, don't blink. Don't blink.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because if I make, even if I make a good movie, if I make a great movie, he's making great movies, he's getting this dog shit. I don't know if I could take it, you know? So I asked him, because you don't know how resilient you can be. So I said, man, how do you do it? How do you, what do you do when people just throw rocks at you all day long? He goes, oh, Robert, you just don't blink. I was like, whoa, now I see how he got through it. Just don't blink. Just like, you know what's coming? Blink, and to him say it's like a Clin Eastwood line, right? But it was like.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you can't imagine it now you had to have been at that time. Now everyone has respect for him, but they made him run a fucking gauntlet. And they were like Jurassic Park. You can't even imagine it now, but you should have seen the climate. It freaked me out because I'm like, maybe I should just stay under the radar where I've been, you know, not poke my head out so much. Because this guy has his head out and they're Unwarranted, you can't even fathom it now because you weren't here at that time, it was crazy, you never even think of him that way. I'm glad it changed because back then it was just it made people not want to be successful. I made me be worried. Like, maybe I shouldn't go making a movie that has its name on it that's going to put my head out in a whole different realm of filmmaking at a studio level.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I started thinking, I even said, man, I just rewatched Temple of Doom last night. I don't know how I'm going to do the Zora movie. Like, I've just never done anything like that. You start getting, you know, afraid because you go, Second thing, he said, All right, you're going to do fine But then I started thinking this guy at that time may not know the era, but this was like mid 90s. Was making the biggest, best movies of all. People would shit all over this guy. They would throw so much, they were so jealous, press, audience, everyone was just like hits at him, just throwing rocks at him for everything special.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're working on it for a while. I was working on the pre production, got to work with Spielberg doing that. It ended up stalling me because there was like two studios involved in ambling was moving. It was some weird thing where, but I got to work with him for about five months. And I started getting really nervous because it's like, oh, shit, you start thinking about even movies of his that people would say, oh, you know, Temple of Doom's not as good as Raiders. Have you seen Temple of Doom? I'd kill to fucking do that movie. If I could make Zoro as good as that one, the one that people said, it's like people don't know how good they had it with that guy.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tell you something that my best advice ever got early on. I was so fortunate From an unlikely place. Because he's such a, he sounded like Clin Eastwood when he said when you said that. I got, I did desperado in Antonio Benditis. I brought Antonio to be in it from Europe. Action movie. And so Spielberg saw it and he said, Hey, I want you to do Zoro with Antonio”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't block it with your ego. Don't say you're going to be shocked, but don't ever say, oh shit, how do I do that? I don't know if I can do that. You didn't do it to begin with. Except that it just came through you and try to get back into that headspace, especially when you go to make a second film or a third film or follow up a success. That's when artists get really crippled. Because sometimes they start tiptoeing around as an artist going like, oh shit, now it's my second film. My first one did really well. They might not like my second one so much. That's not the headspace you were in when you made the first one. You weren't hesitant like that. You were just, so try to keep that very naive. And that's why I say commit to a body of work. Because I know a lot of filmmakers get stuck on their second one and then go further because they get crippled by the success of the first one. And they start asking, oh, shit, how did I do that? How can I do that again? And you get deeper and deeper in a hole you can't get out of.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like from somewhere else. I have to say. That thing is freaking, I didn't get in its way, basically what helped. And people say that, you know, don't get in your own way. This is a little bit easier to understand. Like keep the pipe clear.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Watch the edits, you'll see it open. Now it's a completely different case with the guns. And when he goes to cut it and close it, it cuts to the other one and he goes, oh, that's how I did that whole movie. Again, it was a practice film. I don't want to waste any money on it. I don't know if it's going to be able to, I won't be able to make five bucks from it.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Had to get a heavier one to put the guns in. So we borrowed one. But it had this material ripped off the top so you could see the wood. It was just the wood on top. So it didn't match the other one because it wasn't all black. And I was too cheap to paint it black. I didn't want to spend money on paint. So you see that cardboard case. He puts it down. And when he goes to open it, I cut to the other one. Once the wood is...”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. It's good to know all that stuff, but it's like at the end of the day, you could shoot something on a phone. And if you have a great story, no one's going to even notice. I'll be, oh, we shut that on a phone. So sometimes people get cut off on what kind of camera should I have? It's not the camera. That's just the tool. That's just the pen. That's just like, yeah, you can have different paintbrushes, but you can go, I'm going to limit my palette. I'm only going to use a fan brush and a detailed brush, and I'm going to make a painting. Do you think that painting is going to suffer? No, it's going to take on an identity that you wouldn't have had if you had all the other tools. So sometimes the limitations help you because when you can do anything, it can be crippling. When I knew I could only use those things for Mariachi, it's like, all right, well, it's very simple now. Let me show you how cheap skate I was. Like, I did not spend on anything. So when you see him walking around with a guitar case, it's a shitty cardboard one, you know, like I got from home.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I finally had to do a real movie, I was operating the camera on my first real movie with a crew. And I get the camera and a guy comes over and he focuses for you. That's your job. You focus. Shit, I had to do my own focusing on the last movie. I didn't have so hard. You're trying to focus on a guy while you're.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tape the reaction. They're so with it. The context is so key. Like you can watch Mariachi and go, hey, looks like a $7,000 movie. But if you know the story behind it, suddenly I was curious. I hadn't seen it in a long time. I was watching it for the 20th anniversary. We did a screening. And the first few shots come up and I'm like, oh yeah, well, it looks like a $7,000 movie. And then it keeps going. And it's in the, once we're in the jail cell and the shooting's happening, I realize, oh my God, we had these blanks that only fired one shot and it would jam. So I had to show it going, use the sound effect, cut to the other guy, cut back, have another one go. I had to do these editing tricks to make it look like and then repeat a few frames. So it goes, that's what it looks like a machine gun. All these stuff that I start sweating as I'm watching it going, I can't believe I made this movie with that freaking camera. I don't know how I did. I couldn't even see. I'm there with this long lens pulling my own focus.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, my whole intro is like, you'll see the Columbia logo slapped in front. It's probably cost more than the whole movie. And then I go through, this is how I made it with a wheelchair for a dolly, a turtle. You know, I wrote around things I had. I mentioned the turtle, the pit bull, the bus, the ranch, all that stuff, right? So then when they see the movie, in fact, I think my wife was in the audience. She said, at sundance, people are laughing so much at your intro. They just wanted to hear a story like this so badly. I heard someone next to me say, I'm going to vote for his movie. They hadn't even seen the movie yet just because the story was so good. They wanted that movie to be great. And when they see the turtle, big cheers, when they see the pit bull, big cheers, when they see the school bus, cheers, but then when they see how we use it and he slams into it and falls on it, they freaking lose their minds because they know how I put it together. They know that the rubber bands and the popsicle sticks I already set it up. And so that's why that audience, I was just.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it was good. And I was watching, and then the director comes up at the end and goes, Yeah, well, that was my movie. And, you know, here's the rider. And it's like, oh man, I don't like the movie anymore. This guy's kind of a dick. So I cannot do that. I'm going to have to go be who they imagine made that movie. So I wrote out my whole intro. It was like a 20 minute intro because no one had ever heard of anybody making a movie for no money, much less without a crew, much less. The way I did it was just very new. Nobody knew it was possible.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He loves movies. In fact, the next time I heard him laugh that way, was that he was a-owned premiere for Kill Bill. We're watching Kill Bill He's laughing like it's somebody else's movie. He still enjoys the movie. He loves with what the actors did. And it's like, that's the kind of energy you really love. But I tell you what happened. I'm not a very shy person, you know, very shy. I'd have to go talk. I'm sure you probably feel like. Not an orator or anything, you know, just have to go do it. I thought, well, man, I'm going to have to introduce my film and talk about it afterwards. I'm afraid of that. What am I going to do? I don't remember talking in front of more than five people before. So I went to see this other movie.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was like, yeah, and I saw your movie, you reserved for Dogs. And he goes, Oh, or you got to come to my screening. And I'm going to come see yours. So he came to Mariachi and I videotaped the audience reactions because they were insane, insane reactions to it. But I have the first screening he saw of Mariachi sitting next to me laughing. He's laughing at everything. He was just the best audience. I have his recording of the first time he saw Mariachi.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the guy who became my agent, he saw it and said, Hey, you're going to like this guy, Quintino. I told him about you. You're going to meet him. He's going to be in Toronto. Oh, cool, cool. Okay. And so I went ahead and saw his movie and tell you right. And I was like, holy shit, guys in black again, just like the Mariachi's dressed in black and action. And I said, oh, we're going to like each other's movies. He's going to like my movie when he sees it. So then in Toronto, we met and we met first on, because I knew I was going to be doing a panel discussion with him. They asked us to do a panel discussion about violence in movies in the 90s, even though it was only 92. So we're on a panel together. And that's where I met him. And he's like, hey, Robert John, your agent told me about you.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We both had films at the same time with first films, guys in black, action, violence. In fact, I had seen this movie already. My first film festival was a few months before that, the Teluride Film Festival, and Reservoir Dogs was there, but Quentin couldn't be there. He was at Sundance earlier that year.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Much interesting. I like that intimate connection because I could not be behind a monitor even if I had communication with my cameraman. Okay, now start zooming in. You're not going to know you have to feel it. You have to be in there. It's like a dance. It's like trying to do a dance with a partner and you're across the room. You know, it's like, no, you got to be there up close, feeling the energy. And it's the creative spirit's whispering to you both. You know, it's not your own idea. It's you're capturing a moment that's magic. And there's true magic that happens on a set. And that's what brings you back. Because you know, I didn't direct that and they didn't act that. That came through us and we just had the cameras rolling. And we captured a ghost. Just like you said, yeah.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The bag. I know it's a back of the battlefield. You know, they just trust that whatever they get from their crew, they just accept it. Just like, you know, you would get a take to things.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like to hear. I remember on Dust Till Dawn, Michael Parks in the opening scene, he's talking about. Two guys that are running around killing people just before he gets shot. And as a, I just start doing this slow zoom. I remember this take eight, start doing this slow zoom on him. And I'm like, I hope I get all the way up to where it stopped zooming when he finishes that speech because there's no set way. And I don't know how he's going to say it, but you're just locked, almost telepathically. And as he's delivered, there's no edits. He's just going, yeah, they killed four rangers. Hostages. It's just like, and you're just so pulled in. I'm just like, oh my God. And then it stopped. It's like I ran out of Zoom, right? As you finished that speech”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Orders. Just put a light back there hitting them harder. Like that's a, this is a 5k make out of 10k. It's got to be stronger. They don't need to know that I'm going to make that a lamppost later. They just need it marching orders for the moment. So I can just kind of tell people, do this, do this, do that. And then I know what I can accomplish with the actor and then everything else falls into place later because I'm going to put all that in later. You know, things, once you know how to do a lot of jobs like that, you can just move at the speed of thought, which is where the actors love being creatively because nobody knew what green screen was back then. They're like, what is this again? So I explained it as, well, it's kind of like doing theater, but instead of a black curtain behind you with a prop, it'll be a green curtain. And you might just have a cup or just a steering wheel, but it's just you and the other actors, just like this. And everything else will be painted in later. We're just talking. We're locked in. If we stay locked in, we'll look great when there's rain coming down and we're on a ship later. But it comes down to this, right? And the more...”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then another one was Mickey Rook. He had so much freaking dialogue. He had just done this whole big dialogue scene. He had another one that said, let's go ahead and start with a wide shot where the two active. I'm the camera, you know, Mickey and Elijah are here. Let's get a two-shot, and we'll come around on Mickey close up. We'll turn Mickey around for the close-up. Let's start with the wise thing and get used to the lines. And most of it's going to be sold in a close-up. We sit down. Mickey starts delivering the take. I'm like, hold on, hold on a second. I brought my camera over. Zoom in. Just adjust that light real quick because I'm the DP. Because if I had another director of photography, they'd be like, oh, no, no, we have to relight and all this stuff. It's like, no, no, let's just do this. Let's go. He's doing it right now. And I go and that performance is just right then. And so you can feel that when you're also you're operating and you're the camera guy and you're the DP. It's like high-tech gorilla filmmaking. Yeah, we're on a green screen, but it's like all the crew needs.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, you're a performer, and you want, and there's no other, you know, it's not like a live show where you get the approval of the audience, and you're like, oh, wow, they like that joke. Let me do more, you know, really the director is it. And a lot of times the director's way behind a monitor somewhere. That's why I still like to operate the camera. Because when I'm operating the camera, it's like this. We can have 100 people here we wouldn't know because they go away. It's just us. They just disappear when it's the camera guy is the director. And we're going, let's do that again. Let's do that again. There's a shot in I'm gliding Cincinnati myself. I'll have my crew setting lights and I have this great shot of Clive Owen where he's holding down Benicio's head and the toilet. You know, Benicio's not there. It's just a close-up of him at this point. And I'm practicing my shot. I'm zooming in and slow in his face. And people are still walking behind him on the green screen setting lights. I'm like, I'm rolling. We're ready to go. We're getting this. I can already tell we're already in the moment. What you're doing right now, just keep holding that look. Now, one jolt, like he's starting to fight back, but you don't even flinch. Cut.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're all going to be open to it, and it's going to drop in our lap, and I'm going to point it out when it does, because you may not feel like you know how to play this role yet. But I say not knowing is the other half of the battle and the more important part. That's the part we're going to discover. And when it happens, I'm going to point it out and it's going to be like magic and we're just going to go, okay, we're accepting it and we do it. And it gets people in that kind of headspace. And then we're all open to it to where the character is supposed to go, what it's supposed to sound like instead of me being very manipulative to get a certain thing. I don't know. It's just whatever feels good.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's so nervous because now there's a crew behind me. Now it's real. Before it was just me and him and it didn't feel like a real movie. So everyone gave a great performance. So how do you recreate that later on a big movie is just building a safe zone for your actors. Quentin once told me, sometimes being, you know, we're talking about directing you, yeah, sometimes being a great director, just being a great audience. You know, being a great audience for the, because you're taking the place of the audience for the actor. They try something. And if you're enjoying it, they know that the audience is going to enjoy it. Or if you're, you know, makes you cry. You know, so sometimes you just don't have to tell them a lot sometimes. And if you do have something very specific to tell them, they usually, you know, go with it. But I always just like to see what they do. And a lot of times they just are in the zone because again, they're getting that flow too. You create the right environment. Everyone's getting this inspiration that's all tied together that you never could have directed. It's just like you just create that space where”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I tell you what, he was so great, that guy, right? When we do Esperado, I brought him back. Didn't even have to do any dialogue. Watch that movie when he shows up in the opening scene, when Desperado, he's playing the guitar in the open with the credits to tie it into the first movie, he shows up again. And all he has to do is light a cigarette, and you see this.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really helped for those non actors was that they just look across and it's me filming. They didn't feel like they were being so natural. The guy who played the bad guy, I met him in the research hospital where I was sold my body to science. He was my bunk mate. And I said, dude, you look kind of like Rudger Howard. And then it's like, we saw another movie. Man, you look like James Spader. Shit, you should be the bad guy in my movie. And it'd be cool to have you as the bad guy. He goes, but I don't speak Spanish. Well, that's okay. All right. And I'll teach you phonetically and you're going to wear sunglasses. And if you look close, he's holding the He's holding the lines here and he's looking at the lines like that and just smiling. So can't believe he was getting away with this. He's smiling and he's got the sunglasses on.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I just felt like I wanted it to just be believable. And they could be really believable if they were in sync. But I didn't shoot two takes a film or even two takes of audio. Just one take. We just went through. And what's cool is that because I just had him go through the whole scene again. So I would go ahead and record them like grabbing the bottle or any action they did, opening the suitcase. I'd have all the sound effects too. I just had to sink it by hand. That's a lot of work for me, but I got great sound that way. Because if I had had a sync camera, The mic would have been so far. We would have had to go get new sound effects. But because the camera is off, I could record everything close up. So there was some blessing to that.”
2025-04-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source