Joe Rogan Experience #2310 - Robert Rodriguez

Robert Rodriguez 0:00 (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (heavenly music)

Joe Rogan 0:12 Oh, man.

Robert Rodriguez 0:13 Hey.

Joe Rogan 0:13 Very, very nice to meet you, man.

Robert Rodriguez 0:14 Incredible to meet you.

Joe Rogan 0:15 I'm a fucking gigantic fan.

Robert Rodriguez 0:17 Man, I appreciate that.

Joe Rogan 0:18 I just love what you've done because, like, anybody who could start their career off and make a movie for $7,000-

Robert Rodriguez 0:25 Right.

Joe Rogan 0:25 ... is a hero.

Robert Rodriguez 0:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:26 (laughs) Like, that's such a, just an incredible accomplishment-

Robert Rodriguez 0:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:30 ... to make a movie that people still watch and talk about today for seven grand. You know?

Robert Rodriguez 0:35 It was, uh, an experience for sure. I- I- I had a really good plan and it backfired, so I tried to right away when it worked in a different way, I wanted to share that experience. I wrote a book called Rev Without a Crew that really inspired filmmakers. At the time-

Joe Rogan 0:52 You did the audio for it too.

Robert Rodriguez 0:54 Just recently. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't read it since I wrote it, and I had forgotten a lot of the details, and now I can see why it inspired so many people because it- You know, when you're in your early 20s, six months feels like six years.

Joe Rogan 1:07 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 1:07 So when you read it now and go, "Oh my God, from inception to making it, penniless, by myself, to toast of the town, it's like that." It was unbelievable, and I couldn't wait to shout from the move- rooftops to all the other filmmakers like me who thought they couldn't get in. How I did it exactly, I wrote a book about it. And I read it now and I go, "Oh my God, this is an impossible story." I keep laughing during the audiobook going, "Okay, what you're reading right now never happened before and it never happened again." It was like lightning in a bottle. And you would see every time I thought something wasn't going my way and I was really bummed about it, within weeks an upshot beyond. And it really taught you that you just gotta follow your instinct. If you have an idea, go, even if you know no one else has ever done this before, and you'll end up someplace different. I wanna ask you about that 'cause I know you end- end up doing the same thing a lot.

Joe Rogan 1:55 Yeah, for sure.

Robert Rodriguez 1:56 Where it's not manifesting so much in that direction, you're just kind of following your nose. You're doing something that just sounds ridiculous. Even when I try to tell one of my teachers what I was gonna go do that summer, I said, "I'm gonna go try and make a movie." And he goes, "Oh yeah, who's gonna be your director of photography?" And I said, I didn't wanna tell him I'm the whole crew.

Joe Rogan 2:12 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 2:12 And I said, "I- I'm- I'm the DP." "Oh, the actors are gonna hate you. You're gonna be there setting up your lights all the time." I'm like, "Okay, I'm not gonna tell him I'm the rest of the crew." It was just because I had read this advice that, meant to be good advice, but it sounded really depressing. It was someone had written, "If you wanna write screenplays, write three full screenplays, throw them away. Your fourth screenplay will be it."

Joe Rogan 2:35 Hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 2:36 It's like, have you ever written a screenplay? It's very hard to write a screenplay. It's hard to write- It's like three huge meals that you're just gonna dump. Why not, okay, write the script, throw it away, but while you're throwing it away, why not also shoot it and direct it? Light it yourself, do the sound yourself so that you're training yourself on each one. So I thought-

Joe Rogan 2:54 Hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 2:54 ... "Where can I do this where I can get paid to do that, like my own film school where I get paid to learn?" So I discovered that there were these straight to Spanish movies that are action movies where you go to the l- You've seen the HEBs around here?

Joe Rogan 3:08 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 3:08 There used to be a video section to rent movies and there was a Spanish section. And the Spanish section had movies like- They were just action movies. They had a soap star. They were made for 30 grand, 40 grand. Shot on video, no action, but it had a title that looked kind of like a US title, like (Spanish) like written like Lethal Weapon 2. And you would rent it and it'd be like just crap, people in an apartment talking. It wasn't- So I- I looked at the back of those and I thought, "We can make a better one probably for like $5,000." 'Cause I had made a short film called Bedhead by myself with a windup camera. It was eight minutes and it cost $800. So I thought multiply it times 10, I could do an 80 minute movie for $8,000, but with dialogue and everything, I bet I could get it for under eight, probably more like five or six. Let's go shoot a movie, write it, shoot it. I'll be the whole crew. So I learn all the jobs and then we'll sell it to the Spanish home video market. No one will know it's me 'cause it's Robert Rodriguez, a bunch of Robert Rodriguezes. I'll make three of those 'cause I was so young, I was winning a lot of film festivals with short films, but I thought, "If someone sees one of my short films that's winning all these awards, they're not gonna hire me to do a short film. They're gonna hire me to do a feature and I've never practiced that. So I need practice. So I'm gonna practice three films, take the best scenes from them, have a demo reel. With the money I make from them, I don't know how much I can sell it for, so I gotta make it really cheap. Let's just do the first one, then we'll know. Then I'll take that money and make my first American independent film and that'll be more serious." Because I threw it away like that- I just thought, "Well, let me just make something fun." Action movie, I guess I could do action. I started as a cartoonist, so it was more comedic than anything else. I said, "Well, an action movie. Let's make it fun. Let's make it about a guy with a guitar case full of weapons, kinda like Road Warrior who goes from town to town with a guitar case full of weapons, but I can't afford Road Warrior on the first one. So how about I just do a, uh, a Genesis story?" So I took out these cards and I go, "Okay, maybe he was a guitar player." In fact, that'll be a funny title 'cause it had this comedic sense. I thought, "I'm gonna make a movie that's got so much action and it's actually shot on film, but I'll call it basically The Guitar Player, which promises no action whatsoever, put it on the shelf, and if someone happens to be so desperate to watch it, they'll be surprised." You know, that was like my joke to myself, but I just wanna practice. So I did this method where I just got the cards and I go- 'Cause I'm used to making short films. Guy with a guitar case walks into a bar looking for work. They refuse, saying, "We don't hire people. We use a synthesizer now." He leaves. A guy with a guitar case full of weapons walks in after, shoots the place up, says he's going after the guy who owns it because he did him wrong. So I put those two cards down and I went, "Okay, that's how a short film would start, but shit, this is a feature. So let me put-" It's gonna need like three scenes before- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:48 (laughs) This is how fast you write the script. Wow.

Robert Rodriguez 5:51 I wrote that script 'cause it was- Again, I'm throwing it away. I'm just gonna make something that I wanna see because no one else is gonna see it.

Joe Rogan 5:56 You're getting paid to practice.

Robert Rodriguez 5:57 I'm- If I can sell it, I'll be paid to practice.... so then I thought, "Okay, we gotta figure out who this guy... Okay, how about he's a guitar player (knocking sound) who's coming into town? But wait, who's the guy that shoots the place up? Let's start with him in jail." I read a story about a guy in Mexico who was running his drug business from his, from his jail cell, and he used it as protection. He could walk out at any time. Someone puts a hit on him in jail. He shoots them up, tells the bad guy, "I'm coming after you now. I'm coming to your town. I'm gonna shoot up your town." He passes the mariachi on the road. The mariachi is a mariachi, the guy who just wants to be a musician. We get to know who he is. And then he walks in the bar, and then the guy comes and shoots the place up. Well, now he's gotta leave and go to another place, so now he's gotta go meet the girl. And now this is gonna-

Joe Rogan 6:37 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 6:37 ... happen. Oh, and because it's a, it's a, it's a, you know, movie about a guitar player, he's gotta have some kind of tragic past, 'cause Road Warrior had a tragic past. Mad Max, he lost his wife and kid. Oh, my gosh, he has to die, 'cause that's gonna be, every movie is gonna be, like, a sad song in a songbook. So it kind of just wrote that fast. I went and I shot it-

Joe Rogan 6:55 Did you do it like that with the index cards-

Robert Rodriguez 6:57 Index cards. I do this for everything.

Joe Rogan 6:57 ... and you just lay it out on a table?

Robert Rodriguez 6:58 I do this for everything. I tell people-

Joe Rogan 7:01 For everything.

Robert Rodriguez 7:01 ... I, I do this talk where I, I... By the end of the talk, I say, "I keep these in my, in my bag." It always makes me smile, 'cause I know I've made a million dollars with this before.

Joe Rogan 7:11 And that's a tiny little-

Robert Rodriguez 7:12 This is a tiny one you carry anywhere.

Joe Rogan 7:14 ... stack.

Robert Rodriguez 7:14 I gave this to my kids one Christmas.

Joe Rogan 7:15 You gotta cl- For people that are just listening, it's closed together with rubber bands.

Robert Rodriguez 7:18 With rubber bands. I gave this with ... in a, in a cool little leather bag for my kids one Christmas. I thought they would say, "What's this shit?" They loved it. I said, "You can change your life with this thing." It's... A lot of times, you know, you go to therapy, not for answers. You go for questions. We have the answers inside us. Usually we ask ourselves terrible questions. The therapist asks you questions, like, "What, uh, what did that make you feel?"

Joe Rogan 7:40 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 7:40 "Why'd you do that?" And, "What's up? What's going on?" If we do our own questions, like, "What's next? What goes before this?" Your mind comes up with the answer if you ask the right question.

Joe Rogan 7:51 Mm.

Robert Rodriguez 7:52 So I've used this for, like... We usually ask unempowering questions. You know, the words we use in ourselves are so important, but so are the questions. Like, "Why am I such a loser?" Well, I can-

Joe Rogan 8:00 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 8:01 ... give you 10 answers right now, but if I change it to, "What three things could I come up with to start this week that will not just change my life, but everyone around me?" You don't come up with three. You come up with, like, 15, just keep coming out. And as you look at them, you go, "These kind of go together and are actionable. I can actually start this right now." I mean, you can literally change your life, business ideas, um, movie ideas, stories, just with a deck of cards. By the time I build up and show all the examples of it, at the end of the talk, I hold up one of these with the rubber bands to the crowd, and I say, "Who wants to change your life?"

Joe Rogan 8:36 Wow.

Robert Rodriguez 8:36 Everybody's hands go up. I toss one out. They catch it. In fact, I remember my nephew about seven years ago caught one, and that's funny 'cause he's on Broadway now. (laughs) It just, like, lets you map out your life. Uh, another friend of mine, DJ Cotroni, he's an actor. He caught one, and he said, "Wow, that talk you gave was so empowering on how you wrote it. I went home, and I picked up an old script that I hadn't picked up in a while, and I just cut off the phone for three days, and I finished it." And I said, "You finished a script in three days?" I like the feedback loop that happens when you inspire somebody. "Well, I'm gonna try that 'cause I got a bunch of half-baked ideas-"

Joe Rogan 9:09 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 9:09 "... that I've never gone and done that with. That's... You did it in three days?" Yeah, if you shut the phone off, you can do it in three days. And now he has... That movie's out. It's coming out. It's called Fight or Flight with, uh, Josh Hartnett. He wrote it.

Joe Rogan 9:18 Wow.

Robert Rodriguez 9:18 Yeah. After hearing the talk, he went and picked up this old thing that he thought... And I, I get this a lot when I've talked to people. It's really inspiring to them to hear other people. That's why I'll ask you questions about it too.

Joe Rogan 9:29 Where did you develop this a- approach? Like, is this something you completely invented yourself just in... to map out life on index cards?

Robert Rodriguez 9:36 Writers, uh, will often put index-

Joe Rogan 9:38 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 9:38 ... cards up to just kind of block out a scene. It's a very... it's a, it's a, it's a visual way to see your story. Like, when you lay it out and you go, "Oh, this works. I'm missing a section here." But again, like, this is asking you, "What could I put there?" You'll come up with a bunch of ideas, and it's, it almost gives you, like, an overview. But I started it when I was a cartoonist. I had a daily cartoon strip, so I would draw on different cards different drawings, and every day I had to come up with a comedic idea and a drawing and-

Joe Rogan 10:06 Mm.

Robert Rodriguez 10:06 ... a story. And it was tough. You'd have to draw it out, and you would sometimes make two drawings that you really liked and go, "Oh, this kind of is the set up. One, two, three, payoff of the joke here." And then you'd come up with it like that. So I kind of use it for everything. It's kind of a, a more vis- I'm a more visual kind of person, so it helps you visually see something that's normally, like, written words and stuff.

Joe Rogan 10:29 So it started off-

Robert Rodriguez 10:30 In concepts and ideas.

Joe Rogan 10:31 ... with cartoons, and then it wor- worked into writing. But I've, I haven't seen too many people apply it the way you're d- you're explaining it. Like, you could actually use that to fix your life.

Robert Rodriguez 10:41 Oh, fix your life completely, because this is another question. It's just questions-

Joe Rogan 10:44 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 10:45 ... you're asking yourself. And the amazing thing is once you start doing stories... That's why I like doing a lot of original franchises. Probably, like, made the most original franchises of a filmmaker, 'cause I don't usually direct other people's stuff. Because you realize you're creating the story. Like, I just made this guy's destiny happen, and I can give him a good outcome or a bad outcome. It's in my control. And you realize you can do that with your own life. So you're writing the story of your own life of who you're gonna become, who you're gonna be, and as a parallel.

Joe Rogan 11:14 Mm.

Robert Rodriguez 11:15 And you realize you've got that power. And when you realize you got that power, you can, you can make literally anything happen. And it's, uh... I... You realize art and life should be the same. You know, so many people... Uh, I, I was telling this story to somebody, and they said, "Wow, you're really positive, and that kind of makes a lot of sense. You know, I have a project that's pretty much all together. Almost the pieces are there, but I guess I'm just not ready." You know, it's gonna be on your tombstone, "Here lies so-and-so. He was never ready."

Joe Rogan 11:44 Ooh.

Robert Rodriguez 11:44 You can't wait to go do it. Like, with life, you don't know what's gonna happen.

Joe Rogan 11:48 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 11:48 You wanted to work out today. What happened? Bunch of shit, right? Got in the way. Your tire's flat. Fires went up. You just got fired. You can't-

Joe Rogan 11:55 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 11:55 You're not ready for life. You're like this.

Joe Rogan 11:57 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 11:58 But for some reason, people or artists think that they need to be ready to create art. It's like, no, you gotta jump in and just start. You just need to start. You're not gonna...... really feel ready till you're almost done with a project. I didn't feel ready to make that $7,000 movie till the last few days, when I was like, "Okay, now I wrap my head around it." I had to figure it out day by day.

Joe Rogan 12:15 Yeah, the procrastination really cripples people.

Robert Rodriguez 12:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:18 It really does.

Robert Rodriguez 12:18 Or thinking that they need to know more. And you don't realize the answers you get that you need are not gonna f- be figured out sitting at a desk. They're gonna be on the floor as you make 'em.

Joe Rogan 12:26 Well, I think it's kind of a fear of incompetence and failure, especially if you're undertaking something like starting a film.

Robert Rodriguez 12:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:32 Like, some people just, for whatever reason, they, they d- they don't have the confidence to just potentially fail, and just, to just try. Just get moving.

Robert Rodriguez 12:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:40 Just get... You know, Hemingway... Uh, my friend Ari, on his laptop, he has this quote, top of his keyboard, uh, "The first draft of everything is shit."

Robert Rodriguez 12:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:48 And it's Hemingway.

Robert Rodriguez 12:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:50 I'm like, "God, what a great fucking qu-..."

Robert Rodriguez 12:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:51 It's, like, such an important thing to know.

Robert Rodriguez 12:53 'Cause he knows the process.

Joe Rogan 12:54 Yes.

Robert Rodriguez 12:55 If you trust the process-

Joe Rogan 12:56 Yes.

Robert Rodriguez 12:56 ... you don't have to worry.

Joe Rogan 12:57 Yes.

Robert Rodriguez 12:57 And if you question, "Well, I don't know if..." You're an artist.

Joe Rogan 13:00 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 13:00 That's what an artist should think. But don't let that cripple you. I call it fear forward. Like, you should have some fear going into something.

Joe Rogan 13:05 Yes.

Robert Rodriguez 13:06 Like, "I might screw up, but that's good." That means you're not wasting your time. If you-

Joe Rogan 13:08 I think it's really important for people to hear someone like you, who's accomplished so much, say it that way.

Robert Rodriguez 13:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:14 'Cause they can internalize it and go, "Okay, this is what it is. I just have to do something."

Robert Rodriguez 13:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:18 "I just have to actually get moving. I just can't sit around waiting for the perfect time 'cause it won't happen."

Robert Rodriguez 13:24 It's not gonna happen.

Joe Rogan 13:25 Y- and there's that thing, like, you have to, "Ugh!" You know? I always give people copies of The War of Art, Pressfield's book.

Robert Rodriguez 13:32 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:32 Amazing book.

Robert Rodriguez 13:33 It's a great book.

Joe Rogan 13:33 But it's all about that.

Robert Rodriguez 13:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:34 That book is... If you're tr- trying to figure it out, that book's the guidebook.

Robert Rodriguez 13:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:38 Read that book. It's a short little book, super easy to read, and it gives you the tools to put in your head, like, "Oh, this is resistance." Like, this procrastination, this, this weird fear of doing it.

Robert Rodriguez 13:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:50 'Cause it's not like the thing you're doing is painful, which is really crazy. Like, writing out cool plot lines, and this is... That's gotta be fun.

Robert Rodriguez 13:58 It's really fun.

Joe Rogan 13:59 Fun.

Robert Rodriguez 13:59 Now, the making of it might be very painful, but it's-

Joe Rogan 14:02 Tedious.

Robert Rodriguez 14:02 ... but it's a very-

Joe Rogan 14:03 A lot.

Robert Rodriguez 14:03 ... short amount of pain versus a long-term pain if you're not living your dream.

Joe Rogan 14:07 That's the longest term, but it is the exact-

Robert Rodriguez 14:08 That's the longest time you can spend. That's the longest time in pain.

Joe Rogan 14:12 There's, um-

Robert Rodriguez 14:13 So just rip the Band-Aid off and jump in.

Joe Rogan 14:15 I mean, I'm sure there's, uh, a bunch of people out there that are in the middle of that right now. They're trying to figure out-

Robert Rodriguez 14:22 Oh, absolutely. We have to keep reminding ourselves.

Joe Rogan 14:24 Yes.

Robert Rodriguez 14:24 'Cause we know, and we gotta remind ourselves. Sometimes we forget and we don't apply it to other areas of life. I'll talk about that. That's when I really found success was when, when I took these ideas and moved it to another area. But, like, I tried to figure this out when I was... I was doing that other method, the wrong method, when I was cartooning, 'cause I would... It would be so hard to come up with a cartoon strip each day, but I needed the money, and I had a daily cartoon strip here at UT. We had the biggest comics page in the country. It was really... Everybody wanted to be the next Burk Brett, that he'd come out of there. He did Bloom County. He was a UT student, and his, his college art was, like, national stuff. So we all wanted to be him, so I would go, like, "There's gotta be an easier process than sitting here and working it out. I wanna come home and develop a process where I sit on my couch and I just picture it first. I picture the comic, I picture the jokes, I picture the drawing, then I gotta dr- just go draw it, right?"

Joe Rogan 15:12 Mm.

Robert Rodriguez 15:13 I'd be there two hours, three hours. "My deadline's coming up. Shit, it's not working." So then I have to go, "Fuck, start drawing again," then be like, "Okay, this kinda goes with that one. Then, oh, oh, here it is." And I realized something really profound back at, you know, 19, and this really carried into Mariachi, which is when you pick up the pen or the keyboard or the camera and you start, it starts doing itself.

Joe Rogan 15:36 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 15:37 You realize it's not you. It's coming through you because there's a creative spirit assigned to us that needs hands, and it's not gonna reward you if you're doing that. 'Cause it can do that. But as soon as you pick it up, it takes over. So I, I realized, "Oh, I just have to be a conduit or a pipe, and if I just start, I'm gonna be able to make..." Whoa. And, and you gotta keep your ego out of it, 'cause if you go, "Wow, how did I do that? I wonder if I could do it again," you just shut it.

Joe Rogan 16:04 Right, right, right.

Robert Rodriguez 16:04 You just shut it right back up because you-

Joe Rogan 16:06 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 16:06 ... you think it's you and it's not you. And I know this works because I taught it to my kids when they were younger. I thought, "I gotta teach this to my kids." And since they hadn't learned any bad habits, they went, "Oh, we... So we don't have to do anything? We just have to start writing, and it's gonna come out?" I go, "Yeah." And they went and they wrote all this (laughs) amazing stuff, and I was like-

Joe Rogan 16:22 Wow.

Robert Rodriguez 16:22 ... "They don't have to be reversed," you know?

Joe Rogan 16:24 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 16:24 Reversed. But that, that was a very powerful thing, and I saw it when I did, uh, another $7,000 movie recently. I had a TV series based on Rebel Without a Crew where I, I got independent filmmakers so it only made short films, and I gave 'em two weeks. I said, "You gotta do it like Mariachi. You can bring one person to be either your cameraman or your sound guy, but you gotta do the whole movie yourself. Write it, direct it, edit it, and be shot in two weeks." That's how long it took me to shoot Mariachi. And they were all like, "Oh, we don't know how we're gonna do it." By the week they started shooting, they were already going... T- talking about their next three films.

Joe Rogan 16:57 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 16:57 Like, they changed... Their idea of what was impossible has just dropped down.

Joe Rogan 17:01 That's amazing.

Robert Rodriguez 17:01 So I was really curious to do mine. I was doing one based on my medical experiments I did to pay for Mariachi, which is another story. And I brought my son-

Joe Rogan 17:07 I definitely wanna get into that. (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 17:08 I brought my son, Racer, uh, 'cause I knew he hadn't been working with me on the movies for a while. "I'm gonna make him my second guy. He's gonna be my co-writer, my co-lighter, and he's gonna be doing the sound." And I didn't show him how to use the sound equipment till we're filming 'cause we're documenting it. We made a documentary about it, and people really loved about how we made this movie today for $5,000. And he was fumbling around, and, and we're going, and I thought, "They're gonna... He's gonna hate this. You know, he's got his own interests. He doesn't wanna work on a movie, but I need him." And so he comes to me at the end of the day with his brother and goes, "Dad, the actor didn't show up. The set didn't ma... The, the location didn't match the script at all. Everything was falling apart. We asked you how we were gonna finish the day, and you said, 'Well, I don't know. We'll see what happens.'" And we thought, "Oh my God, is this the movie that finally, you know, he can't figure out?" But by the end of the day, we figured it out, and their eyes were all wide. They went, "Oh, they don't realize." 'Cause that's the creative process, and that's every day, in life-

Joe Rogan 18:02 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 18:02 ... and in work. In life, you don't, you don't know. You're gonna figure it out as you go.... art should be the same way. And by the end of the two-week shoot, they're interviewing him. He's all waxing philosophical about the creative process like he's been doing it for years.

Joe Rogan 18:15 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 18:15 He goes, he goes, "I never knew how my dad did Mariachi. And then now I know, 'cause I just did this project. He didn't know either."

Joe Rogan 18:22 Ah.

Robert Rodriguez 18:22 He just started, and he figured it out day by day. Most people never start. I mean, he succinctly encapsulate everything I tried to say in my book, which was y- you just gotta go. And identity is key. Identity is the main thing. All these people who are out there, you gotta tell them this, "If you are listening and there's something you're not getting in your life that you really want, it's not, it's not a matter of desire. You have the desire." There's a, there's a missing element that I talked about in the book and I'd forgotten myself. You know, we forget our own good advice.

Joe Rogan 18:53 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 18:53 Over the years people would say, "Hey, in your book it says this." And I'd go, "I wrote that?"

Joe Rogan 18:57 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 18:57 "I was so smart back then. What, what happened?"

Joe Rogan 18:59 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 18:59 "I gotta go reread my own book." But, it was this thing where I told people, 'cause they would come up to me a lot 'cause I was making films really early on, and say, "I'm an aspiring filmmaker." You might hear, "I'm an aspiring comic," you know, "I'm an aspiring filmmaker." I go, "Stop aspiring. You're calling yourself an aspiring filmmaker. That's now your identity. You're always gonna be aspiring. Just say you're a filmmaker."

Joe Rogan 19:21 Mm.

Robert Rodriguez 19:22 "Take one of these cards and make a, a business card, even if you have to hand-write it with who you are. I'm a director. I, I wrote, I did one. I had it printed up. Director, cinematographer, editor, composer. I, that's who I am. Now you're gonna have to conform to that, and you're gonna start making films." That's how I started making these films, even for Spanish video. And so, you have to think it for... And I'd forgotten that lesson. So, and I wanted to use your gym because, you know, I like to work out now. I never did. You started as a cartoonist, I'm surprised. I, I was always an artist. I was really tall, you know, for school.

Joe Rogan 19:54 Yeah. I started, I was an illustrator when I was a kid. I wanted to do comic book illustration.

Robert Rodriguez 19:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:58 That was my thing.

Robert Rodriguez 19:59 Yeah.

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Robert Rodriguez 21:03 It's fun, right?

Joe Rogan 21:04 Love it.

Robert Rodriguez 21:04 'Cause it, 'cause it's just, it's not you.

Joe Rogan 21:06 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 21:06 You know, you start drawing and then suddenly-

Joe Rogan 21:08 Yeah. Well, how, when did you learn that as a... 'Cause I don't think I knew that. I think I was doing that, but I didn't know it.

Robert Rodriguez 21:13 What?

Joe Rogan 21:14 And until I started reading about it, like the, uh, the concept of the muse, the concept of like-

Robert Rodriguez 21:17 Oh, right, right, right.

Joe Rogan 21:18 ... like that you, you just have to sit down and do the work and it comes to you.

Robert Rodriguez 21:22 Yeah. Well, it started when I was 19 doing the comic, but then it kept getting repeated later.

Joe Rogan 21:26 But you realized it at 19, that that was the process.

Robert Rodriguez 21:28 I realized it at 19 that that was the process.

Joe Rogan 21:29 That it wasn't you. That it was-

Robert Rodriguez 21:30 That it was something... Uh, it felt like something else. But then it really hit me later on. Um, and I'll get to that one. That's a... It, it really hit me later on where I kind of put it all together around 2001, 2002, when I was doing a movie where I was, again, kind of going back to the way I did Mariachi. I was... On, uh, on a big movie, though. I was the, the writer, the director, the producer, the cinematographer, the editor, the composer. I was doing all these things. Plus, I was doing the production design now, and I was taking on more jobs to make it more like a handmade film or like... A lot of factory movies were being made. I said, "I want people to, this to feel different." I think they'll, they'll get a feeling from it they don't get from, you know, a McDonald's process, you know?

Joe Rogan 22:11 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 22:11 They're still good, but, you know, there's something about a home-cooked meal. And I didn't even know how to read or write music. And I was writing music for a 100-piece orchestra. And I was like, "How... I'm figuring it out by notes going..." There's only 12 notes, you know, even less than a scale. So you hit three notes, four notes. "Ah, that's not... That's a bad note. Okay, that's pleasing to the ear." And I was just writing it note by note 'cause it, it was a kids movie, so I figured it should sound like a kid wrote it, and I'm like a kid. It should sound like that. And I was writing pretty complex stuff g- not knowing what I was doing. I go, "How is this even possible that I'm doing all these jobs I wasn't trained in?" So I went on Amazon and I looked up any book that had the word creative or creativity in it. I just ordered it. I didn't know what section it came from. They just arrived. And I'm thumbing through them and one of them was really speaking about the creative process, how it worked. And I was like, "Wow, wow, that's how it is, that's how it is." And then it said gels and mediums, and I was like, "Oh, this is a book particularly about painting."

Joe Rogan 23:07 Mm.

Robert Rodriguez 23:07 "But it applies to all the other things I'm doing." That's when I realized that it's all linked.

Joe Rogan 23:13 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 23:13 That creativity is 90% of any of those endeavors. 90% of it is just being creative. The technical part, like wri- reading or writing music, and there's a lot of great musicians who don't read or write music, they're fantastic. The technical part, you can fudge that, like how, how to shoot the movie. You can t- you can fudge a lot of the technical stuff. 90% is creative, and if- if you know how to be creative, you can literally jump from job to job and do it really well-

Joe Rogan 23:35 Mm.

Robert Rodriguez 23:36 ... because you're coming with your own experience, your own point of view. That's why I teach my actors to paint on the set, because they've never painted before. And they're already being creative by acting, but in between takes we'll go paint a portrait of their character, where I take a photo of them in character and have them paint a background. I say, "Just pick up the paint. You can use these three methods, any color you want. The paintbrush is gonna know where to go. Even though you've never painted before, it's gonna know where to go." And they do it, and I put a stencil of a line drawing of their face over it. I'll show you some of them. You're not gonna believe it. Josh Brolin was way into it. And Lady Gaga did one, Bruce Willis did one.... and it's just like magic how it comes together. And it's to teach them that you don't have to know, you know. We always think, "I need to know this, I need to know that." What about the other side? Half of, half of the battle is knowing. What about the other half? Not knowing, I think, is the more beautiful and where the magic is, because you don't need to know what's gonna happen. You just need to show up.

Joe Rogan 24:31 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 24:31 You just need to pick up the pen, you need to do the keyboard.

Joe Rogan 24:33 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 24:33 Because it just starts coming through you, and they see it, and it helps them go back to the set and solve any creative problem because it was much harder in the paint room figuring out gels and mediums and all that stuff. They go back to the set, and they can solve any problem instantly. And, and you'd think that they're already in a creative mode by acting, but it fires off a whole other part of your brain to go do something-

Joe Rogan 24:53 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 24:53 ... else creative at the same time. Remember on the set, Josh goes, "Is it okay I'm still thinking about the painting?" I go, "I think so."

Joe Rogan 25:01 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 25:01 "I think it's all right."

Joe Rogan 25:02 Sounds like Josh Brolin. (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 25:02 Let's see (laughs) . Let's see how (laughs) -

Joe Rogan 25:05 (laughs) That sounds like something he would say to you.

Robert Rodriguez 25:06 ... how it does. It was so funny.

Joe Rogan 25:07 That's a, like a Miyamoto Musashi quote from The Book of Five Rings.

Robert Rodriguez 25:11 Right, right, right.

Joe Rogan 25:11 "Once you know the way broadly, you can see it in all things."

Robert Rodriguez 25:14 Yeah. You start see-

Joe Rogan 25:14 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 25:14 And then... So that's where I started piecing together that it was something... 'Cause I, I really wanted to look it up 'cause it would feel like when I would go to write the music, I don't have to write very many notes before it feels like I'm being pulled by the hand.

Joe Rogan 25:28 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 25:29 Like, I didn't make that. I didn't make that.

Joe Rogan 25:32 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 25:32 And I didn't do that, and I didn't do that, or what is this?

Joe Rogan 25:35 A lot of musicians say that.

Robert Rodriguez 25:36 And that's why I called it something.

Joe Rogan 25:36 And a lot of comedians say that too.

Robert Rodriguez 25:38 Well, uh, if you ask any... all the disciplines.

Joe Rogan 25:40 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 25:40 Like I go... I asked Jimmy Vaughan, "How, how did you play that, uh, lect- that solo was amazing. Did you have that worked out?" He goes, "It's kinda like tuning a radio. You know, if you get it just right, you can't even believe what's coming through."

Joe Rogan 25:51 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 25:52 You know, you always hear everyone's version of that. And so, I called it something. I thought, "I'm gonna call it the creative spirit." Like, there's a creative spirit. Imagine the creative spirit that's assigned to you, and if you're someone who's just like, "I don't think I can d- I don't think I can do this or that," and they don't, and they don't pick up the pen. They don't, they don't actually start. How frustrating that spirit must be.

Joe Rogan 26:11 The spirit's just hovering over you, waiting to be summoned.

Robert Rodriguez 26:12 Hovering over going, "Oh my God, will you just p- it's not you."

Joe Rogan 26:16 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 26:16 "It's not you. Will you just let me through? Just let me through."

Joe Rogan 26:17 And it's crazy that that concept has been around forever, this concept of the muse, but yet still, it never s-

Robert Rodriguez 26:24 I never heard it like that where it's, like, takes... It still feels like you have to do a lot.

Joe Rogan 26:27 'Cause that's how Pressfield talks about it.

Robert Rodriguez 26:28 You just go, "I just need to be a pipe."

Joe Rogan 26:30 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 26:31 "A clean pipe, a conduit so more stuff comes through, and that means take your ego out of it."

Joe Rogan 26:35 I mean-

Robert Rodriguez 26:35 "I mean, just, just do the work. Just show up and start."

Joe Rogan 26:38 Yeah. Pressfield literally thinks that it's like, like an angel or, like, some sort of-

Robert Rodriguez 26:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 26:44 ... a divine presence that presents y- I, I think, I think there's something to it, man.

Robert Rodriguez 26:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:50 And it, it sounds so kooky, but w- if something is super successful for amazing people-

Robert Rodriguez 26:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:57 ... and they're all telling you the same thing, like, "Why do you have to..." (laughs) "Nah, man, I'm not stupid. I'm not gonna believe in the concept that..." Whatever the fuck it is, there's something that happens when you're creative where you feel like an antenna. You feel like you're just-

Robert Rodriguez 27:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:11 ... take... These ideas are coming to you. They're entering into your mind. It's not physical effort. It's not like you're picking up bricks and stacking them on the wall. Like, something is happening to you.

Robert Rodriguez 27:21 Yeah. You're tapped into... Uh, I had a friend of mine, Tim Ferriss, over at my house, and I was telling him about some of kind of the... you know, it's very creative house, really, 'cause it's, it's where I do a lot of my creative work, and a lot of creatives like coming to this place and saying, "You have to come check it out so you can see the Frazettas I have."

Joe Rogan 27:36 Oh, you have original Frazettas?

Robert Rodriguez 27:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:37 Oh my God.

Robert Rodriguez 27:37 Okay, we'll get, we'll get to that. We'll get to that.

Joe Rogan 27:39 Oh my God.

Robert Rodriguez 27:40 But, um, it's just-

Joe Rogan 27:41 Are you gonna make me note?

Robert Rodriguez 27:41 Totally, totally...

Joe Rogan 27:44 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 27:44 You're gonna have to tell me what your favorite Frazetta is. Totally creative place and I like people to come there, but it's, it's just inspiring to be in an environment where everything around you is, is about creativity 'cause then you get in that headspace-

Joe Rogan 27:54 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 27:55 ... and you're able to do more because you realize it's not you. It's just coming through you, and you just gotta-

Joe Rogan 27:59 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 27:59 ... and you just have to witness it. And it just takes a lot of the load off you.

Joe Rogan 28:03 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 28:03 A lot of people can start easier if they know, "Oh, it doesn't have to be me." Like my kids are like, "Oh, it's not m- I don't have to do it? I just have to actually pick up the pen?" Yeah, it's, it's very freeing.

Joe Rogan 28:11 Hmm. Yeah, it's, uh, it's something that everyone should learn il- if... with anything in life, anything that you're doing in life is just to take action and trust this process that happens.

Robert Rodriguez 28:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:22 But you, you have to do things. You can't just sit and wonder. And it's that procrastination and the anxiety about starting that's, like, crippling for people.

Robert Rodriguez 28:30 Crippling.

Joe Rogan 28:30 It keeps them from getting off the ground.

Robert Rodriguez 28:31 And they're doing that to themselves.

Joe Rogan 28:33 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 28:33 You're literally doing this to yourself.

Joe Rogan 28:34 Yep.

Robert Rodriguez 28:35 So when you say, "Well, I don't know if I c-" You just chopped off your leg.

Joe Rogan 28:39 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 28:39 Right at the, at the beginning of the race.

Joe Rogan 28:41 Right, right, right.

Robert Rodriguez 28:42 And then you go, "Well, I tried it once before and..." You just cut the other one off.

Joe Rogan 28:45 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 28:45 I mean, you're literally doing your... You're, you're your own worst enemy. I had this one gal... And fear of failure, this is the bas- the best thing. One, one gal at one of the talks, she said, "Okay, you're real positive, but what do I tell myself when I just spent a year and a half doing something and it didn't work out?" I said, "Well, that's a very negative way to ask that. Can you rephrase the question first? Then I'll, then I'll attempt." And she went, "I learned a good lesson the hard way." I said, "No, that still sucks." If you're focused on the failure... If you followed your instinct and it didn't work out, it doesn't mean you're wrong. Sometimes the only way across the river is to slip on the first two rocks. That's the only way.

Joe Rogan 29:22 Hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 29:23 And if you just stay there, you're not gonna go. So you have to embrace the failure 'cause if you're going on instinct... I mean, you're doing it literally on instinct, not like someone said, "Hey, go over there. There's a money-making scheme. Go do that."

Joe Rogan 29:32 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 29:32 Literally, you had the instinct, and my best example is Four Rooms, a movie I did with Quentin, um, because if you study the ashes of your failure, you'll find the key to your next success.

Joe Rogan 29:42 That was the movie where there was four different stories-

Robert Rodriguez 29:45 Four different stories.

Joe Rogan 29:45 ... playing simultaneously.

Robert Rodriguez 29:46 Yes. It's four different movies, four different stories. And I love short stories 'cause I had made a bunch of short films. So I thought, "Oh, I wanna do that." So when Quentin asked... And I asked the audi- I like asking the audience, "How would you answer this?" Quentin goes, "Hey, I'm gonna make a movie called Four Rooms. Four different directors, you gotta use the bellhop, it's New Year's Eve, you're in a hotel, you can't leave your hotel room. You wanna do it?" Hand goes up.

Joe Rogan 30:04 Oh.

Robert Rodriguez 30:05 Now-

Joe Rogan 30:05 Wow.

Robert Rodriguez 30:05 Just on instinct. Now I ask the audience, "Was I wrong to just go by instinct or should I study it a little bit?" Nobody really knows the answer. What would you say?

Joe Rogan 30:14 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 30:14 (laughs) What you study... Are you more stud-

Joe Rogan 30:16 Me?

Robert Rodriguez 30:16 ... are you more ins- are you more instinctual 100%?

Joe Rogan 30:18 100%. Yeah, I'm primarily instinctual.

Robert Rodriguez 30:20 P- I figured 'cause that's why you're here right now. (laughs) Because we're not that smart. I'm not that smart. I, I couldn't have figured this shit out. It's 'cause I was just...... had an instinct to go that way when everyone else was going that way. And you're gonna stumble, j- you're gonna fall, but you're gonna stumble upon. You're gonna stumble upon ideas no one thought of because you're going the way that's not picked clean already.

Joe Rogan 30:38 Right, right.

Robert Rodriguez 30:39 So I just like, four rooms, I said, "Yeah." Now, if I had just studied a little bit, I would have seen that anthologies like that never work. Like, even when it's Scorsese, you know, Woody Allen and Coppola, they did one, nobody goes to see because they don't know how to wrap their head around it. "What? It's three movies? It's an anthology." It does- doesn't work. If I had studied first, should I have changed my answer? Nobody knows that answer. So, well, I'm gonna go on instinct. I'm gonna say I, I say instinct anyway. Movie bombs. Doesn't do well at all. Now, I could be really upset about that and go like, "Wow, I gotta be really careful now going forward. I have to tiptoe around as an artist." Well, that's, that's not the state of mind I was when I won Sundance. I was throwing stuff out.

Joe Rogan 31:15 Can I offer a counter to that?

Robert Rodriguez 31:16 Sure.

Joe Rogan 31:17 It only bombed financially.

Robert Rodriguez 31:18 Okay. Oh, no, no. I'm gonna, I'm not done with the story.

Joe Rogan 31:20 Yeah, artistically-

Robert Rodriguez 31:20 No, the lesson is-

Joe Rogan 31:21 ... this was a very good movie.

Robert Rodriguez 31:22 There's a lot of great stuff in it.

Joe Rogan 31:23 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 31:23 But this goes even better than that. My whole thing is examine the ashes of your failure, and I don't find one, I find two keys in there to my biggest movies directly from that experience. So my instinct was right, but again, sometimes the only way across the river is slipping on the first two rocks. I was on the set, had to be New Year's, so I dressed everybody up in tuxedos. And Antonio had just done Desperado the next week, he came and appeared in there. The little boy from Desperado, he had a little brother, so I hired him, and then I just found the best little actress who's a half-Asian girl, Asian American, so I cast an Asian mom so it would look like they were family. So I'm seeing Antonio and Tamlyn Tomita all dressed up to the nines. I went, "Wow, they look like a really cool international spy couple. What if they were spies and their two little kids that can barely tie their shoes don't know it? They get captured and the kids have to go save 'em." So Spy Kids, there's five of those now. The other key to success that I got on that set was... I love doing short films, that's why I signed up for it. It didn't work, but I'm gonna try it again. Not four stories, three stories, like a three act structure. Not four directors, but the same director. I'm gonna try... Why on earth would I try it again? Except that I had just done one and I figured out there might be a different approach, that's Sin City.

Joe Rogan 32:38 Whoa.

Robert Rodriguez 32:38 So Sin City-

Joe Rogan 32:38 Whoa.

Robert Rodriguez 32:39 ... and Spy Kids directly came from that thing you would call a failure if you'd, if you focused on the failure.

Joe Rogan 32:44 Oh, wow.

Robert Rodriguez 32:45 So go back and look. Tell everybody, go back and look at something that you had a real instinct for that you did and it didn't work, and sift through the ashes of it and you're gonna find either that you've already had the success from it and you didn't realize it, what you really need is a boost of confidence in your instinct, or you, you will find something that will be the key to your success.

Joe Rogan 33:07 Well, that's also the, the magical part of the creative process is that it's not always gonna work, and that's actually good.

Robert Rodriguez 33:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:14 That means when it does work, it'll be even more rewarding.

Robert Rodriguez 33:17 Yeah. I mean, Mariachi didn't work.

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Robert Rodriguez 34:46 I failed at that. I was gonna sell that to the Spanish Home Video. This what's blew me away about rereading the book. I'm like, "Oh my God, I was so bummed." I finished making that movie, and you, you see in the book, clearly I'm a p- penniless, clueless filmmaker making this movie, I think by myself, I think it's gonna work, I don't know. A borrowed camera. I didn't even know how to use it. I call a place in Dallas that rents this equipment, I go, "I got an ARRI 16S," you know, on the phone. It has two motor looking things, one has one number and one's got many. Oh, that's a variable speed motor. That means you... Oh, can I do slow motion with it, you know? I was literally learning like that.

Joe Rogan 35:18 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 35:18 And then I went and shot the whole movie and I had to shoot the whole movie in two weeks and I couldn't develop the film till I got back. So I shot blind not knowing if that camera was even working.

Joe Rogan 35:27 Is it true that you invented the walk away with the explosion behind you?

Robert Rodriguez 35:32 Yeah, that was an accident.

Joe Rogan 35:33 You invented that?

Robert Rodriguez 35:33 Yeah, yeah. If you could look at all the compilations, it starts with Desperado.

Joe Rogan 35:37 Wow.

Robert Rodriguez 35:37 Because it was an accident. I didn't think... You know, this is what happened. So in Desperado, in the script it says he throws some grenades over the side of this building to blow up the bad guys and him and, and, and Salma walk away. He was just supposed to see some body parts fly. It was just a grenade, you know, it wasn't supposed to be a nuclear explosion. Just some body parts, some shrapnel and some smoke. But it's two stories up and we get there, we're shooting so fast. I went to my poor effects guy who was just, you know, so busy just having done a big shootout. And I went, "Man, do... I know you don't have body parts because we didn't ask for it, but do you have anything we can just throw." It's so high up. "Can we... Is there anything you can launch up there?" And he goes, "Oh no, I don't have anything." I said, "Well, I need something to come up because I wanted some shit to fly up behind him." And he goes, "I can give you a fireball." I said, "Fireball? Like, like what?" It'll go up, uh, 60 feet, but it's a... but it's propane, so it's gonna burn off like that (snaps fingers) . "How fast does it burn off?"... like that. I said, "Okay, I'll shoot slow motion."

Joe Rogan 36:29 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 36:29 "Okay, we'll shoot it in slow motion." I tell the actors, "Just keep walking, don't turn around, 'cause it's supposed to be pretty big. And it might be really hot, I don't want you to singe your in- eyebrows. Just walk fast, walk fast and determine that I'm gonna shoot... It's gonna feel funny, but when I shoot it in slow motion, it'll look like you're just walking normal speed, and it'll slow down the explosion."

Joe Rogan 36:44 Whoa.

Robert Rodriguez 36:44 Well, it looks fantastic. I remember when I showed you.

Joe Rogan 36:46 There it is. (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 36:46 Yeah. It looks fit. See, they're just walking, they don't know. Look at... Tony was just like... Look at her, she's just, like, so calm. But if you played that, if you sped that up and played it normal motion, it goes by like that.

Joe Rogan 36:55 It's crazy because that pre- that scene has been copied so many times.

Robert Rodriguez 37:00 It became an action, like, staple. Like, so, this could be-

Joe Rogan 37:04 They even used it for Fear Factor.

Robert Rodriguez 37:05 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:06 Now that I'm r- thinking about it, we used it for one of the ads for Fear Factor. This is me walking away, and they blew some-

Robert Rodriguez 37:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:11 ... shit up behind me.

Robert Rodriguez 37:12 'Cause it's just like, it's this cool attitude-

Joe Rogan 37:14 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 37:14 ... and working with music, and-

Joe Rogan 37:15 I thought it was the dumbest shit ever.

Robert Rodriguez 37:16 When I first saw it.

Joe Rogan 37:17 Because it was a TV show-

Robert Rodriguez 37:18 Oh, no, but it's still funny.

Joe Rogan 37:19 ... about people eating dicks. It wasn't a-

Robert Rodriguez 37:20 Well, it's, it's kinda silly later, but-

Joe Rogan 37:22 ... action movie. (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 37:22 ... it's j- it was just an acci- again, the accidents-

Joe Rogan 37:24 There it is. (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 37:24 ... that you stumble upon. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:27 There you go. (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 37:28 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:28 All right.

Robert Rodriguez 37:29 That's hilarious.

Joe Rogan 37:30 So, um, that's where it came from.

Robert Rodriguez 37:30 So, uh, that came out in August of 2000, um, of 1995. Just six months later, Dusk Till Dawn came out, and I made that, uh, I, I enjoyed it so much.

Joe Rogan 37:40 I fucking loved that movie.

Robert Rodriguez 37:42 Oh, thanks.

Joe Rogan 37:42 I love that movie.

Robert Rodriguez 37:43 I showed this explosion shot, you know, the movie to Jim Cameron. He was watching it as... Waiting for his ex- for... 'Cause, you know, he d- he was doing, like, movies like Terminator 2 blowing the shit out of everything, so I was wondering if he'd like my little rinky-dink thing, and his hand went up in the air when he saw that moment.

Joe Rogan 37:55 Ah.

Robert Rodriguez 37:55 So I thought, "Yeah, I'm doing that in, I'm gonna do that in Dus- Dusk Till Dawn." Dusk Till Dawn, I had it where the actors come out doing the dialogue, though, and the explosion just keeps going, and they're walking away while having a conversation, so...

Joe Rogan 38:05 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 38:05 So within two mov- within six months, you saw two versions of that, so people just started doing... You see it in Man on Fire, you see it... I mean, you see, like, whole compilations of it, but it's an accident.

Joe Rogan 38:14 That's gotta be weird for you. Like, you're like, "Bitch, that's mine."

Robert Rodriguez 38:18 No, no-

Joe Rogan 38:18 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 38:18 ... 'cause it wasn't mine. Again, it came, it came-

Joe Rogan 38:21 Of course, like, you know, right, you're right, you're right.

Robert Rodriguez 38:21 ... if I had, if I had, if I had engineered it, yeah, I'd be really smart.

Joe Rogan 38:24 Of course.

Robert Rodriguez 38:24 But again, like I said, I'm not that smart. Sometimes you stumble upon...

Joe Rogan 38:27 But it's kinda pretty cool that it's become, like, a part of, like, action-

Robert Rodriguez 38:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:29 ... films.

Robert Rodriguez 38:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:30 Dusk Till Dawn is so... First of all, who knew Quentin Tarantino would play a, such a good fucking psychopath?

Robert Rodriguez 38:37 So-

Joe Rogan 38:37 Who knew?

Robert Rodriguez 38:37 ... what's so fun is, um, he's in Desperado now. I met him on the film festival circuit. So, in 1992, we were both, had movies with guys in black, in violent movies. In fact, I met him at the Toronto Film Festival for Reservoir Dogs. They had Mariachi, 'cause they put us on a panel together to discuss violence in the movies in the '90s, even though it was only '92. (laughs) And so we met there and became friends, and he said, "Oh, my next movie's in Pulp Fiction!" And I just thought, "This crazy guy, he's so funny," and then the next day, "I'm gonna write him into Desperado." It was before he did Pulp Fiction or any of that, so by the time Desperado came out, Pulp Fiction was a phenomenon, and then people cheer when he walks on state- on set. But when we were doing that Four Rooms... Here's another thing that came from Four Rooms. If I hadn't done Four Rooms, there'd be no Dusk Till Dawn. When we're doing, um, Four Rooms, he takes me into a room and he starts reading me... And I got it on... Uh, it's on the internet, I put it out. Him reading me the first scene of Kill Bill. Uh, this was in, you know, eight years before he made the movie. Um, and then he said, "My very first script I wrote, and I didn't get paid shit for it, like 1,500 bucks, was Dusk Till Dawn. And now, because of the sex of, the success of Pulp Fiction, they wanna make all my old stuff. And these producers have it, but I didn't get paid dick. So I'll do a rewrite, and you and I will go in together. You should be the director 'cause it takes place in Mexico and you're Mexican." So, I was like, "All right." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 39:59 Ah, wow.

Robert Rodriguez 40:00 That's the second time he readed me a scene in 2001. There was a, there's one video where he's even younger in, uh, Four Rooms reading me a second version of it. So just over the years, he would read... We had an office next to each other when I was writing Desperado and he was writing Pulp Fiction, so he'd read out scenes, "There he is." And I would read out, you know, show him scenes from Desperado.

Joe Rogan 40:20 Fuck.

Robert Rodriguez 40:20 And we just became friends there. He was originally gonna make Pulp Fiction for TriStar, and then they passed on it 'cause they thought it's weird, it's long. And he went did it for Miramax, and he's like, "This is..."

Joe Rogan 40:29 Did he want to be the serial killer?

Robert Rodriguez 40:31 I asked him to. Uh, 'cause I knew he, he liked acting, and I, and I just knew him as a f- person. Like, a lot of times, I'll cast somebody just by meeting them. "I'm gonna cast you in a movie" (laughs) because you s- realize you can... There's something about them that captures you that's gonna just be magnified when you put a 50 s- feet on screen. That's why I've discovered a lot of talent that way. That's how I found Salma. I just knew she was gonna be it. Um, but he was so, so great, and I, I thought, "This is a really fun character. I bet he could... He likes to act. I can get a performance out of him, and he'll come in with a take on it." So I said, "I'll do Dusk Till Dawn. Uh, would you be interested in playing Richie?" He goes, "I'd, I'd love to play Richie." I said, "Okay, well, we c-..." So, he was the first person we cast. And he's fantastic in it. He's really great. He's really scary, got all into character.

Joe Rogan 41:15 He was terrifying.

Robert Rodriguez 41:16 Kinda had this really cool haircut. I, I showed him a picture of, uh, Burt Reynolds in Deliverance and said, "Dude, you got the haircut of Deliverance." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:23 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 41:23 So it was really cool. He's like, "Oh, wow." You know, he just really slipped into it, and he was always in character, and he was always intense on, on the set, and it was really fun to see him get to do that.

Joe Rogan 41:31 He was very believable.

Robert Rodriguez 41:32 He really enjoyed that performance.

Joe Rogan 41:34 I mean, we-

Robert Rodriguez 41:34 I said, "Dude, you're so good in this movie. Anyone who talks shit, they're just talking shit. Sh- bullshit through gritted teeth, don't listen to anybody. You're really great in this movie."

Joe Rogan 41:40 Yeah, no one could listen.

Robert Rodriguez 41:41 He says, "The test of time."

Joe Rogan 41:42 You can't listen... Uh, anybody who's talking shit about Quentin in that movie, shut up.

Robert Rodriguez 41:45 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:46 He nailed it.

Robert Rodriguez 41:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:46 He, he scared the fuck out of me.

Robert Rodriguez 41:48 Well, when you get a lot of success, people will tend to, you know, it makes you a target, you know.

Joe Rogan 41:52 Of course.

Robert Rodriguez 41:53 So, they would, they would say stuff about him, and that, and being in... "Well, he shouldn't be acting in his movies." You know, just-

Joe Rogan 41:58 Of course.

Robert Rodriguez 41:58 ... bullshit like this. Like, "Dude, this'll shut, they'll shut him up in a few... If it doesn't," then it's just bullshit 'cause you're really great in the movie.

Joe Rogan 42:04 Yeah, you just have to tune out the noise. That's all it is.

Robert Rodriguez 42:05 Yeah, how do you, how do you, how do you get past the noise?

Joe Rogan 42:07 I just tune it out. I'm busy. I stay busy.

Robert Rodriguez 42:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:10 I don't read anything about me. That's the big one.

Robert Rodriguez 42:13 Don't-

Joe Rogan 42:14 Of course.

Robert Rodriguez 42:14 Don't read that shit.

Joe Rogan 42:14 Don't engage. Like, sometimes people send me things. I'm like, "Don't send me that, man. I don't wanna read it."

Robert Rodriguez 42:18 (laughs) I send it to you.

Joe Rogan 42:18 "I'm not gonna read it anyways." Yeah, friends.

Robert Rodriguez 42:21 Oh my God, I got this-

Joe Rogan 42:21 They don't know any better.

Robert Rodriguez 42:22 My friends now.

Joe Rogan 42:23 Or my sister might send me something. Yeah, it's just, I just go-

Robert Rodriguez 42:26 Hey, look at this

Narrator 42:26 Excuse me.

Joe Rogan 42:26 ... you just leave me out of it.

Robert Rodriguez 42:27 I got some really good advice early on. I'd like to share this with people. I share this with my actors 'cause they get a lot of shit sometimes. Um-... I was afraid to d- even do, like, a bigger movie 'cause I was flying under the radar with, you know, Mariachi and Desperado. And then Spielberg sees Desperado, wants to do Zorro with Antonio and me directing, right? So I go, "Cool, I'm working with Spielberg." Then it's like, "Oh, shit, I'm working with Spielberg." You probably remember this time 'cause we're about the same age. Remember the '80s and '90s, people would just throw shit on him all the time, all the time.

Joe Rogan 42:56 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 42:56 Like, they had no respect for this guy. They were so jealous.

Joe Rogan 42:59 Right. Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 42:59 Press, public, everything. He was just, like... He couldn't catch a break and he was making, like, the coolest movie, "Eh, that movie sucks. Ah, Jurassic Park sucks." And it was-

Joe Rogan 43:06 Yep.

Robert Rodriguez 43:06 ... unbelievable. So I thought, "Oh, shit, it's 'cause he's got his head way up. Maybe I should fly under the radar and not go make... If I can make a movie with him, what chance do I have?" I went back and re-watched, you know, like, Temple of Doom, which people say, "Uh, that's not as good as Raiders." I watched it and go, "F- if I can make a movie that is an eighth of that, I'd be lucky." So I called them and said-

Joe Rogan 43:24 Bro, they made Close Encounters.

Robert Rodriguez 43:25 I, I know. Jesus.

Joe Rogan 43:26 That's a fucking incredible movie.

Robert Rodriguez 43:27 So many great movies. But they... But you get that much success and aft- and, and then people kind of resent, right?

Joe Rogan 43:31 Yeah. It comes with a territory.

Robert Rodriguez 43:33 So-

Joe Rogan 43:33 Yeah, but how do you get by... past it? I was curious for him. So I, I, I said, "Hey man, I just saw Temple of Doom. I don't know how I'm gonna make this movie for you." He goes, "Ah, don't worry about that. Just make a great movie." So then I go to him and I say, um, "I'm afraid that if I make a movie at the bigger level, I'm just gonna be a target like him." Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 43:51 I mean, he's the best filmmaker and he's getting shit kicked out of him. I said, "How do you do it? How do you do it? Do you just... You get rocks thrown at you all day long." And he goes, "Oh, Robert, you just don't blink." And I was like, "Wow." It was like a Clint Eastwood line.

Joe Rogan 44:07 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 44:07 I go, "Wow, that's how he did it all this time." It's just like, "Dude, dude, just don't blink." Commit to making a body of work.

Joe Rogan 44:14 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 44:14 I try to tell filmmakers sometimes if they have a success for the first one, they get really afraid of the second one because they think, "Oh, shit, now I might fail," right? Uh, the fail, the f- the fear of failure cripples a lot of people. If you commit to just making a body of work, a body of work, like he did. He just made any movie he wanted. Some hit, some don't. Some over-perform, some under-perform. A movie like Mariachi that was not supposed to go anywhere way over-performs and you can't tell what's gonna be the one. So just commit to a body of work. And now no one gives them any shit now that they get so much respect.

Joe Rogan 44:44 I think it's also important to recognize that the people that are tossing shit your way, they're doing it to distract themselves from the fact that they're not contributing anything.

Robert Rodriguez 44:51 Totally, totally.

Joe Rogan 44:51 It's almost always the case of that.

Robert Rodriguez 44:53 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:53 That's what the critic is. The critic would not be a critic if they had something to contribute. So they see other people that are taking that chance and going out there and they're, they're acting y- uh, on their instincts and they're putting something together and they try to attack all those things as being garbage because really, they're not contributing.

Robert Rodriguez 45:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:13 And so, it's very-

Robert Rodriguez 45:14 And they may very well want to.

Joe Rogan 45:14 ... it's very easy to attack.

Robert Rodriguez 45:16 And they may very well want to, but they're getting hurt by the fear, so it's like-

Joe Rogan 45:18 Most of them, yeah, the... Well, the same instincts that make them want to attack successful people, are the same things that hold them back from being creative.

Robert Rodriguez 45:26 Yeah. Talk about closing that pipe. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:28 Yeah, I mean, doing it to yourself.

Robert Rodriguez 45:30 Doing it to yourself and by, by doing that to the people. If they would just commit to a body of work, don't blink-

Joe Rogan 45:35 Uh-huh, right.

Robert Rodriguez 45:35 ... and just keep making shit, they'll get somewhere.

Joe Rogan 45:37 That's great advice. Commit to a body of work.

Robert Rodriguez 45:39 A body of work. Like, look at-

Joe Rogan 45:40 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 45:41 ... uh, uh, someone I mentioned this and a friend of mine, a businessman called me and said, "Wow, that really, that really spoke to me. You know, I tend to look at all the different businesses that I have created that failed instead of looking at the whole body of work."

Joe Rogan 45:53 Mm.

Robert Rodriguez 45:53 "And I fixate on the ones that didn't work." And it's like, "Hey, you don't ever know what's gonna work or not. Don't... That's not your concern.

Joe Rogan 45:59 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 45:59 "Just go make shit. Follow your instinct." 'Cause again, maybe, maybe that one that didn't work is your Four Rooms.

Joe Rogan 46:05 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 46:05 And you've got, and you've got, you get two other great ideas out of it. I'd forgotten that Dusk Till Dawn came outta that as well, so that's the th- that's the third one outta that four rooms.

Joe Rogan 46:13 That's awesome. That thing gave and gave and gave. So-

Robert Rodriguez 46:15 Dusk Till Dawn was so fun because it was two different movies. It was like this crime-

Joe Rogan 46:18 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 46:18 That's why it couldn't get made.

Joe Rogan 46:20 Really?

Robert Rodriguez 46:20 So when he first wrote it, he couldn't get made because people... Okay, so this is what happened. The effects company hires him and, um, they, they said, "We want a, a movie that'll showcase our effects in this vampire bar." It's about two brothers that go to a vampire bar. Start- Quentin starts writing it and he starts writing Quentin style where he gets way into the brothers. So much into the brothers that it turns into, like, a Desperate Hours type movie for half the movie. He, he waits half the movie to get to the bar.

Joe Rogan 46:45 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 46:45 So now, for s- for financiers, it's now like, uh, a mixed bag. It's like two movies in one, right?

Joe Rogan 46:51 Right, right.

Robert Rodriguez 46:52 But it was a negative then. It was like, "This movie's all wrong." It's like suddenly they're... It's one thing and then suddenly, it turns into a vampire bar? This... We can't make this.

Joe Rogan 47:01 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 47:01 But then Pulp Fiction comes out and now everybody wants to make it. "Oh, it's two movies in one. It's great." You know? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:06 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 47:06 A whole different perspective change. What a little success will do for you. Four Rooms. "Four Rooms? Oh yeah, it's Four Rooms. Four times the fun," you know?

Joe Rogan 47:12 Ugh.

Robert Rodriguez 47:12 So you never know. So I told Quentin, "Let's make it right now." Because we made it to our next movie right after Four Rooms. So it was Desperado, Four Rooms, then... So Desperado came out in August in 1995, Four Rooms in December, Dusk Till Dawn was in January. That's how fast those came out. We were working that fast back then.

Joe Rogan 47:29 Wow.

Robert Rodriguez 47:30 So I said, "Let's make this right now, because you're starting to steal from the script." That's Ezekiel's speech that, um, Sam Jackson says in Pulp Fiction.

Joe Rogan 47:39 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 47:39 That's from the original Dusk Till Dawn script.

Joe Rogan 47:40 Really?

Robert Rodriguez 47:41 He just took it... He was, he was pulling stuff out of it 'cause it was just, like, not gonna get made.

Joe Rogan 47:45 Oh, no, he's scrapping an old car.

Robert Rodriguez 47:46 So I said, "Before there's... before it gets picked clean, let's go make this thing."

Joe Rogan 47:50 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 47:50 "And we'll shoot it now. We'll go shoot it right now."

Joe Rogan 47:52 Wow.

Robert Rodriguez 47:53 And it was so fun. It was so fun.

Joe Rogan 47:54 I loved that movie. It was so fun.

Robert Rodriguez 47:56 Cheech, Cheech is so great. You know, we did a table read. When we have a table read with your actors, you only have your main actors there, so sometimes you'll assign other parts to other people who are there. So it was like, "Cheech, why don't you go ahead and take... You play the main guy at the end, but go ahead and read for the, for the..." Oh no, he made, he made the, the guy who gives the speech in front. He was playing that character. "Read for the border guard and for the guy who comes at the end, Carlos," who I was gonna get like, you know, Erik Estrada or something. So he starts reading and he does each one, you know, 'cause he's a comedian and he does everything in a different voice and we're like... By the end, I was like, "Wow, he should play all three characters." And so I asked Quentin, Quentin goes, "Hey, what if we get Cheech to play all three characters?" And I was thinking the same thing.

Joe Rogan 48:33 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 48:33 So I go to tell Cheech. Cheech is just freaking hilarious and he goes, "Hey man, you're gonna play all three characters." "Do I get paid three times?" (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:40 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 48:40 But this is why I love having comedians on the set, you know, because we were out there shooting that desert scene, you know, at the end.... when, uh, Cheech comes and the whole place has burned down, it's 125 degrees in the shade. We're in Barstow in a dry lake bed. It's so freaking hot. We're all just, like, not moving. Somebody had to go get something. We're all just... Cheech is like this, in a suit with a hat. And he goes, "Hey, Robert, can I ... Is this gonna be a while? Can I go to my trailer?" I was like, "Oh, man. By the time you go, this guy's gonna be back and we'll have to start ... We should just stay right here." "Okay. I'll, I'll go into my mental trailer. Okay. Ice cold drinks, uh, air conditioning."

Joe Rogan 49:17 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 49:17 It was, it was li- lightens up the whole set. I went, "Okay, this guy's gonna be in every movie." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:22 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 49:22 I do- he's been in 10 movies of mine 'cause it's that attitude. You like that attitude of-

Joe Rogan 49:25 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 49:25 ... somebody who can find levity in torture.

Joe Rogan 49:28 Looking for fun always.

Robert Rodriguez 49:28 'Cause sometimes movies, movies can be torturous sometimes, so having people like that, that are really on your team, that can really lighten up a set is, is just the best.

Joe Rogan 49:36 You've done so many different kinds of movies. It's r- so interesting because you never got ... You know, Quentin essentially does these wild, chaotic action movies that just blow you away. You do everything. Like, you're doing, like, kids movies.

Robert Rodriguez 49:49 Y- there's a similarity to them though.

Joe Rogan 49:50 You did animated movies, you did-

Robert Rodriguez 49:52 Yeah, there's a similarity to them. I'm still that cartoonist.

Joe Rogan 49:55 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 49:56 So what they all have is they're all comedic. Like even the action movies are kind of just fun.

Joe Rogan 50:01 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 50:01 I mean, think of Desperado. It's like a James Bond movie. He's got a guitar case that fires missiles, he's got this one that's got a weapon, it's like ...

Joe Rogan 50:07 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 50:07 Spy Kids is very much the same thing. It's just some are for big kids and some are for little kids. But-

Joe Rogan 50:11 Even Sin City.

Robert Rodriguez 50:12 Yeah. Even Sin City's very playful.

Joe Rogan 50:13 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 50:14 Which the Sin City one was so dark. I remember the, the first book, the one that Marv ... that, uh, Mickey Rourke plays, it was so dark. I was going like, "Oh my god, it's gonna be dark. I have to add some levity to this and Mickey will bring-

Joe Rogan 50:24 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 50:24 ... humor to it." And it's the funniest episode. It's really funny. But he's ... In the book it's, it's just like, oh my god, he's just killing everybody. But you're really with him because of the way he portrayed him. We didn't change very much, we just added, you know, some humor to it. And that ... the gallows humor really, you know, really helps.

Joe Rogan 50:39 Yeah, like when the yellow guy gets shot in the dick.

Robert Rodriguez 50:42 Oh, that's ... Yeah, that's the-

Joe Rogan 50:43 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 50:43 That was a good one. Yeah. That was a really good use of color.

Joe Rogan 50:47 That, by the way, was one of the fucking creepiest characters ever in a film.

Robert Rodriguez 50:51 And it looks like that in the drawing and I, and I just wanted to ... My whole di- idea was ... Because, you know, I'm so respectful of someone's artwork. You read Sin City and you realize that art is half of it. If anyone else in Hollywood were to make that m- into a movie, they would just make it like a gritty crime thriller.

Joe Rogan 51:08 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 51:08 And take out the whole visual element, which is that stark black and white where people's eyes glow in the dark and-

Joe Rogan 51:13 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 51:13 ... and it has all these layers of unreality. And I went to Frank Miller, I said, "I wanna just make this move. I want ... This is like the coolest movie never made." And he actually wrote it because he had been in Hollywood writing this couple of screenplays and he got shit on and screwed around, the whole Hollywood thing. And, uh-

Joe Rogan 51:32 Jamie, can you show me the scene with Mickey Rourke and the yellow guy?

Robert Rodriguez 51:35 Oh, this is Bruce Willis and the yellow guy.

Joe Rogan 51:36 Oh, Br- excuse me. Bruce Willis and the yellow guy?

Robert Rodriguez 51:37 There's three stories in it.

Joe Rogan 51:39 Just ... I just wanna, like, while you're talking about this-

Robert Rodriguez 51:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:41 ... I wanna look at it.

Robert Rodriguez 51:42 And, uh, yeah. So he, he went and made this comic 'cause he said, "Fuck Hollywood. I'm gonna go make a comic that can never be made into a movie 'cause it's so dark, so sexy, and so every ..." And I'd call him up, "Man, this would make a great movie." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:57 (laughs) God, it was so interesting.

Robert Rodriguez 51:59 Oh, Bruce loved this. I, I gotta tell you this funny story. This is the fastest, I think, any Hollywood movie's ever gotten made. Um, I had-

Joe Rogan 52:07 Really?

Robert Rodriguez 52:08 Yeah. I'll show you the process. It's kinda like this cards thing. You're gonna, you're gonna ... It's gonna blow your mind. What is it now? It's April? Okay, so imagine, uh, this is, this is 2000 ... If this is 2004, April. Last year, I had two movies out. In the summer was Spy Kids 3D, it was the number one m- movie. Couple months later, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, another number one movie, but also both of them ended a trilogy that I had started.

Joe Rogan 52:35 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 52:36 So I was looking for my next thing and I was ... I opened up my Sin Cities again and I was like, "Oh, shit, I know how to do this now." I just did a whole movie on green screen, which was really new back then, for Spy Kids 3D 'cause I wanted it in 3D. It was the first digital 3D movie. 'Cause when you're in Austin, you just innovate a lot. You know, George Lucas used to tell me that. He said, "It's a good thing you're in Austin. That's why I'm in Marin County. When you live outside of that box, you think outside of that box. Automatically, you're just gonna-

Joe Rogan 52:57 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 52:57 ... stumble upon innovations." So I thought, "I'm gonna go take this process and utilize it to make Sin City." So I did a test, a little test of it, and went, "Oh, shit. This is gonna work." So it was October when I got that idea. I filmed it, I contact Frank Miller, met him in New York. I showed him my laptop. It looks like it's art, but then it starts moving and it's an actor. And he's like, "Wow." And he gets all into it, right? It's November and he goes, um, "Oh, no, but then we have to write a script and the studio's gonna have notes." I went, "No, that's not how it works. I got my own studio. I'll write the script. It's gonna be unremarkable. I'm gonna copyright it on your book and I'm gonna edit it down. I'm gonna edit three of the stories together. I'll write it this month, we'll show it to you in December. And then in January, we'll get a couple of actor friends, we're gonna shoot the opening scene as a test. You don't give me the rights yet 'cause I understand this is your baby, you've never given up the rights. I know what it's like for an artist to make something. Let me take all the risk. I'll go ahead and write the script, we'll shoot the opening scene. You ... I'm gonna fly you down so you can watch."

Narrator 53:55 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 53:55 Brought Josh Harnett, Marley Shelton. That opening scene in Sin City, that was our test. 10-hour shoot day. And, uh, Marley Shelton comes up to me and says, "Why, why did I hire this guy to kill me?" I go, "I don't know. Let's go ask Frank. (laughs) He should know. It's not in the book, but, uh, I'm curious myself." So Frank answered her question and said, "I wanna do this movie." I go, "No, let's wait." We had a whole process. "I'm gonna shoot the opening, I'm gonna cut it together, I'm gonna put in the effects, I'm gonna put in the music, I'm gonna put in fake titles. Then we're gonna watch it. And if you like what you see, then we do the rights and we make the movie. If you don't like it and you're still on the fence about it, just keep it as a short film. Keep, keep the gift." So we committed to the process. We make the opening sequence. He loves it. He wants to do it. I take it to Bruce Willis first, which was cool about doing it that way, which is unheard of. When I went to his, uh, his agent, his agent was like, "Wait-... he leans forward very dramatically, "You brought actors down." Oh, 'cause, 'cause I told him, "This is Frank Miller. He's one of our greatest artists. He wrote in Hollywood and he got screwed around." And the guy goes, "Welcome to Hollywood." You know, like that. I'm like, yeah, whatever.

Joe Rogan 55:02 Oh, fun. (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 55:02 I just respect the artists-

Joe Rogan 55:03 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 55:03 ... so I just thought, "Hey, you be a partner. You're gonna co-direct this with me. And we're gonna make this, we're gonna take all the, I'm gonna take all the risks. You're gonna come down." We shot this opening, which I have. I wanna show it to Bruce so he can see the book, but then he can see how it gets translated. And that guy gets very dramatic. He goes, "Wait, you brought the actors down. You shot this, you did the effects for it, and you didn't have the rights?" And I leaned in and I went, "Welcome to Texas."

Joe Rogan 55:25 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 55:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:26 All his little monkeys spit out water.

Robert Rodriguez 55:28 Frank was done with... It was super annoying. They said, "Okay, you can..." Then he saw it and he went, "Okay, you can go meet with Frank."

Joe Rogan 55:33 Oh, boy.

Robert Rodriguez 55:33 "And you can go meet with Bruce." So I show it to Bruce and he's watching it and he looks at the book and he looks at the thing and he goes, "Damn, this is really great." And then fake titles come up. His name's in the titles. And I go, "Look, you have to be in the movie. Your name's in the titles." And he's like, "I, I'm in."

Joe Rogan 55:49 Wow.

Robert Rodriguez 55:49 So he was in and we were shooting the finish- we're shooting the actual movie by March.

Joe Rogan 55:54 Wow.

Robert Rodriguez 55:55 So by April, we're already done with the f- we're filming the, the second story by April. It was out the next year. I mean, that's as fast the movie's ever gone into production. All these actors jumped on right away once we had Bruce, and he loved, he loved doing this film noir type thing. And we're doing something very experimental, which is green screen. Nobody knew what green screen back then was. And what I told them was, "Well, it's kind of like theater, but instead of being in front of a black curtain, you're in front of a green curtain. You'll still have some props." You might have a steering wheel, like Clive just there just had a steering wheel. You might have, uh, but just mainly you and the actors, and everything else goes away. And I'll fill in the r- the later.

Joe Rogan 56:30 Wow.

Robert Rodriguez 56:30 So what's cool is their performances are so focused on each other 'cause there's no other stimulus around, that you got these great performances. We only built the bar. I thought, "Hey, Frank, we'll build the bar so that you have a, we have a place to hang out with and, uh, you know, do our story meetings." (laughs) But everything else will just be on the same... You're gonna come see this green screen when you come visit my studio. The whole movie was shot in an area less, smaller than this room, by the time you bring your lights in, where the actors actually had their, the playground. It's unbelievable.

Joe Rogan 56:57 Wow. That's incredible. And it was so inspiring too. That movie was so... 'Cause y- uh, when I left the theater, I remember thinking, "I've never seen anything like that before." That was so-

Robert Rodriguez 57:08 It was like the comic, 'cause the comic was that way.

Joe Rogan 57:09 It was so different, and it just like, when someone does something that really just steps up and, and, and enters into like kind of just a new area of art, 'cause that's what it felt like.

Robert Rodriguez 57:19 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:19 It felt like a real, legitimate comic book art movie. And this is before 300.

Robert Rodriguez 57:23 Yeah, 300 actually-

Joe Rogan 57:24 So 300 kind of took that as well-

Robert Rodriguez 57:27 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:27 ... and then went 300-

Robert Rodriguez 57:27 Yeah. Zach called and said, "How'd you do that movie?" I said, "I just put it on a DVD."

Joe Rogan 57:30 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 57:30 "Go... I put all the, I put all the secrets on there." And they went and they shot it the same way.

Joe Rogan 57:34 It was such a good movie.

Robert Rodriguez 57:35 It was a new thing.

Joe Rogan 57:35 And it was, it was so fun.

Robert Rodriguez 57:36 'Cause it was also a Frank Miller movie.

Joe Rogan 57:37 The thing about the... Yeah, right? Same thing. The, the thing about those kind of films, where someone like does something new, it's like when you see something new, and I felt this way about Pulp Fiction too, you're like, "Wow."

Robert Rodriguez 57:47 Yeah, what the hell.

Joe Rogan 57:48 You leave the theater like everything's different, you know? Like the world's different. Like, that got made? Like this... Like I, now I know. And the thing about people today, uh, like young people today that don't know like how revolutionary Pulp Fiction was when it came out.

Robert Rodriguez 58:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:03 When it came, when it came out, it was like such a different kind of feeling that you got after you saw the movie. It was, there was so many what the fuck scenes that you left that theater like, "Jesus Christ." It's like the world was different. The world was different. Quentin Tarantino changed the world with Pulp Fiction.

Robert Rodriguez 58:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:21 That's how profound it was.

Robert Rodriguez 58:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:22 And I'm not exaggerating. It changed what was possible in film after that.

Robert Rodriguez 58:27 No, I, I was, I was there during it. I remember the studios were just like, "We don't understand why this movie's big hit."

Joe Rogan 58:34 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 58:35 "We don't, we don't have anything like this coming out except, except your movie, Desperado, maybe." 'Cause Quentin was in it.

Joe Rogan 58:41 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 58:41 And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, we, we got our pulse on, uh, on what people want." And they're like, "We don't, we don't know." So I gotta tell you really, uh, two things. First of all, George Lucas told me that. He's like, um... I showed him the Sin City thing, 'cause we'd both been early adopters of digital and DPs, directors of photography, didn't wanna even look at digital. They were like, "Fuck that." They, they already spent all their time learning film.

Joe Rogan 59:03 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 59:03 Which, by sticking your head in the sand and not seeing where the times are going to the detriment.

Joe Rogan 59:07 Right.

Robert Rodriguez 59:07 Now the cameras are designed and they, they don't look as good as they could look.

Joe Rogan 59:11 Yeah.

Robert Rodriguez 59:11 But they weren't a part of the conversation. When I was shooting my own movies, I wasn't gonna let some DP who didn't want to get into digital keep me from making f- uh, uh, you know, Sin City, so I just shot it myself. I figured it out myself. So I showed it to Lucas and he was like, "This movie will show people what digital's capable of finally, more than the Star Wars movies I'm doing." Because it's just so avant-garde and so crazy looking. But I only made it for me. I, I really wanted to see it made. I didn't, I literally didn't think it would be successful on its theatrical run. In fact, we didn't even test screen it. They're like, "Can we do a test screen?" I'm like, "No." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:43 (laughs)

Robert Rodriguez 59:44 "Why, what for? Everybody's gonna say it's black and white. Why is it black and white? Why are there three stories? That's all wrong. It's voiceover, or it's all voiceover. That's all wrong." We know it's that way. Why would we go hear people tell us that that's not what a movie's supposed to be? Let's just put it out and figure it won't do well theatrically 'cause you, you see the first trailer and go, "Okay, black and white is not for me." It's very counterintuitive, which is most of the things I do, just like always go a different way. But they'll find it on video later and that's, that's good enough for me. But then it was a big hit theatrically.

Joe Rogan 1:00:11 Mm-hmm.

Robert Rodriguez 1:00:11 Now let me tell you about Pulp Fiction, but th- 'cause groundbreaking doesn't look groundbreaking to you or anyone around you necessarily when you're doing it. I've forgotten about this, but I journal and I, I ran across an old journal and I brought it up to Quentin when I interviewed him for my Director's Chair episode. I do, I have a show called the Director's Chair where I interview writer directors. He, his was so big, we did two episodes. We talked about all his movies. And I said, "Do you remember this time I found in my diary, right down to the hour, we went out to dinner." I mean, he was so into Pulp Fiction. Ever since I met him, "My next movie's gonna be Pulp Fiction." I, I visited the set. He goes, into it, he goes into it. He finished the movie and I said, "Hey, how did..." 'Cause I live here in Austin, I don't get to hang out with him except when I go to LA. "How did your, how did your movie come out?" And he goes, "Yeah, it's not, it's not the one." Yeah, it's like, still feels like a movie Quentin would make." I'd be like, "Well...... what do you mean? He's like, he was like, "It just doesn't feel like a real movie. It feels like another movie Quentin would make." And