Joe Rogan Experience #2310 - Robert Rodriguez

1. 0:00 – 0:35

   Rodriguez meets Rogan: the $7,000 movie origin story sets the tone

   1. RRRobert Rodriguez0:00

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

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      Oh, man.

   3. RRRobert Rodriguez0:13

      Hey.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      Very, very nice to meet you, man.

   5. RRRobert Rodriguez0:14

      Incredible to meet you.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      I'm a fucking gigantic fan.

   7. RRRobert Rodriguez0:17

      Man, I appreciate that.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:18

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

   9. RRRobert Rodriguez0:25

      Right.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       ... is a hero.

   11. RRRobert Rodriguez0:26

       (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:26

       (laughs) Like, that's such a, just an incredible accomplishment-

   13. RRRobert Rodriguez0:30

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:30

       ... to make a movie that people still watch and talk about today for seven grand. You know?

2. 0:35 – 6:57

   Designing El Mariachi as a DIY film school (and a Spanish home-video hustle)

   1. RRRobert Rodriguez0:35

      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-

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:52

      You did the audio for it too.

   3. RRRobert Rodriguez0:54

      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.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:07

      Right.

   5. RRRobert Rodriguez1:07

      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.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:55

      Yeah, for sure.

   7. RRRobert Rodriguez1:56

      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.

   8. JRJoe Rogan2:12

      (laughs)

   9. RRRobert Rodriguez2:12

      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."

   10. JRJoe Rogan2:35

       Hmm.

   11. RRRobert Rodriguez2:36

       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-

   12. JRJoe Rogan2:54

       Hmm.

   13. RRRobert Rodriguez2:54

       ... "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?

   14. JRJoe Rogan3:08

       Mm-hmm.

   15. RRRobert Rodriguez3:08

       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)

   16. JRJoe Rogan5:48

       (laughs) This is how fast you write the script. Wow.

   17. RRRobert Rodriguez5:51

       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.

   18. JRJoe Rogan5:56

       You're getting paid to practice.

   19. RRRobert Rodriguez5:57

       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-

   20. JRJoe Rogan6:37

       (laughs)

   21. RRRobert Rodriguez6:37

       ... 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-

   22. JRJoe Rogan6:55

       Did you do it like that with the index cards-

3. 6:57 – 15:13

   Index cards as a life tool: better questions, better outcomes

   1. RRRobert Rodriguez6:57

      Index cards. I do this for everything.

   2. JRJoe Rogan6:57

      ... and you just lay it out on a table?

   3. RRRobert Rodriguez6:58

      I do this for everything. I tell people-

   4. JRJoe Rogan7:01

      For everything.

   5. RRRobert Rodriguez7:01

      ... 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.

   6. JRJoe Rogan7:11

      And that's a tiny little-

   7. RRRobert Rodriguez7:12

      This is a tiny one you carry anywhere.

   8. JRJoe Rogan7:14

      ... stack.

   9. RRRobert Rodriguez7:14

      I gave this to my kids one Christmas.

   10. JRJoe Rogan7:15

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

   11. RRRobert Rodriguez7:18

       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?"

   12. JRJoe Rogan7:40

       Mm-hmm.

   13. RRRobert Rodriguez7:40

       "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.

   14. JRJoe Rogan7:51

       Mm.

   15. RRRobert Rodriguez7:52

       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-

   16. JRJoe Rogan8:00

       Yeah.

   17. RRRobert Rodriguez8:01

       ... 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?"

   18. JRJoe Rogan8:36

       Wow.

   19. RRRobert Rodriguez8:36

       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-"

   20. JRJoe Rogan9:09

       (laughs)

   21. RRRobert Rodriguez9:09

       "... 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.

   22. JRJoe Rogan9:18

       Wow.

   23. RRRobert Rodriguez9:18

       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.

   24. JRJoe Rogan9:29

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

   25. RRRobert Rodriguez9:36

       Writers, uh, will often put index-

   26. JRJoe Rogan9:38

       Right.

   27. RRRobert Rodriguez9:38

       ... 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-

   28. JRJoe Rogan10:06

       Mm.

   29. RRRobert Rodriguez10:06

       ... 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.

   30. JRJoe Rogan10:29

       So it started off-
4. 15:13 – 29:32

   The ‘creative spirit’ and starting before you’re ready

   1. RRRobert Rodriguez15:13

      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.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:36

      Yeah.

   3. RRRobert Rodriguez15:37

      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.

   4. JRJoe Rogan16:04

      Right, right, right.

   5. RRRobert Rodriguez16:04

      You just shut it right back up because you-

   6. JRJoe Rogan16:06

      Right.

   7. RRRobert Rodriguez16:06

      ... 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-

   8. JRJoe Rogan16:22

      Wow.

   9. RRRobert Rodriguez16:22

      ... "They don't have to be reversed," you know?

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:24

       Yeah.

   11. RRRobert Rodriguez16:24

       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.

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:57

       (laughs)

   13. RRRobert Rodriguez16:57

       Like, they changed... Their idea of what was impossible has just dropped down.

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:01

       That's amazing.

   15. RRRobert Rodriguez17:01

       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-

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:07

       I definitely wanna get into that. (laughs)

   17. RRRobert Rodriguez17:08

       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-

   18. JRJoe Rogan18:02

       Yeah.

   19. RRRobert Rodriguez18:02

       ... 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.

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:15

       (laughs)

   21. RRRobert Rodriguez18:15

       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."

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:22

       Ah.

   23. RRRobert Rodriguez18:22

       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.

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:53

       Right.

   25. RRRobert Rodriguez18:53

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

   26. JRJoe Rogan18:57

       (laughs)

   27. RRRobert Rodriguez18:57

       "I was so smart back then. What, what happened?"

   28. JRJoe Rogan18:59

       (laughs)

   29. RRRobert Rodriguez18:59

       "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."

   30. JRJoe Rogan19:21

       Mm.
5. 29:32 – 35:27

   Turning failure into the next hit: Four Rooms as a hidden launching pad

   1. RRRobert Rodriguez29:32

      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.

   2. JRJoe Rogan29:42

      That was the movie where there was four different stories-

   3. RRRobert Rodriguez29:45

      Four different stories.

   4. JRJoe Rogan29:45

      ... playing simultaneously.

   5. RRRobert Rodriguez29:46

      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.

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:04

      Oh.

   7. RRRobert Rodriguez30:05

      Now-

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:05

      Wow.

   9. RRRobert Rodriguez30:05

      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?

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:14

       (laughs)

   11. RRRobert Rodriguez30:14

       (laughs) What you study... Are you more stud-

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:16

       Me?

   13. RRRobert Rodriguez30:16

       ... are you more ins- are you more instinctual 100%?

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:18

       100%. Yeah, I'm primarily instinctual.

   15. RRRobert Rodriguez30:20

       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.

   16. JRJoe Rogan30:38

       Right, right.

   17. RRRobert Rodriguez30:39

       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.

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:15

       Can I offer a counter to that?

   19. RRRobert Rodriguez31:16

       Sure.

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:17

       It only bombed financially.

   21. RRRobert Rodriguez31:18

       Okay. Oh, no, no. I'm gonna, I'm not done with the story.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:20

       Yeah, artistically-

   23. RRRobert Rodriguez31:20

       No, the lesson is-

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:21

       ... this was a very good movie.

   25. RRRobert Rodriguez31:22

       There's a lot of great stuff in it.

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:23

       Yeah.

   27. RRRobert Rodriguez31:23

       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.

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:38

       Whoa.

   29. RRRobert Rodriguez32:38

       So Sin City-

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:38

       Whoa.
6. 35:27 – 38:30

   Accidents that become action-language: the walk-away explosion shot

   1. JRJoe Rogan35:27

      Is it true that you invented the walk away with the explosion behind you?

   2. RRRobert Rodriguez35:32

      Yeah, that was an accident.

   3. JRJoe Rogan35:33

      You invented that?

   4. RRRobert Rodriguez35:33

      Yeah, yeah. If you could look at all the compilations, it starts with Desperado.

   5. JRJoe Rogan35:37

      Wow.

   6. RRRobert Rodriguez35:37

      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."

   7. JRJoe Rogan36:29

      (laughs)

   8. RRRobert Rodriguez36:29

      "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."

   9. JRJoe Rogan36:44

      Whoa.

   10. RRRobert Rodriguez36:44

       Well, it looks fantastic. I remember when I showed you.

   11. JRJoe Rogan36:46

       There it is. (laughs)

   12. RRRobert Rodriguez36:46

       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.

   13. JRJoe Rogan36:55

       It's crazy because that pre- that scene has been copied so many times.

   14. RRRobert Rodriguez37:00

       It became an action, like, staple. Like, so, this could be-

   15. JRJoe Rogan37:04

       They even used it for Fear Factor.

   16. RRRobert Rodriguez37:05

       Yeah. (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan37:06

       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-

   18. RRRobert Rodriguez37:11

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan37:11

       ... shit up behind me.

   20. RRRobert Rodriguez37:12

       'Cause it's just like, it's this cool attitude-

   21. JRJoe Rogan37:14

       Yeah.

   22. RRRobert Rodriguez37:14

       ... and working with music, and-

   23. JRJoe Rogan37:15

       I thought it was the dumbest shit ever.

   24. RRRobert Rodriguez37:16

       When I first saw it.

   25. JRJoe Rogan37:17

       Because it was a TV show-

   26. RRRobert Rodriguez37:18

       Oh, no, but it's still funny.

   27. JRJoe Rogan37:19

       ... about people eating dicks. It wasn't a-

   28. RRRobert Rodriguez37:20

       Well, it's, it's kinda silly later, but-

   29. JRJoe Rogan37:22

       ... action movie. (laughs)

   30. RRRobert Rodriguez37:22

       ... it's j- it was just an acci- again, the accidents-
7. 38:30 – 49:36

   Tarantino collaborations and casting: from festival friendship to Dusk Till Dawn

   1. JRJoe Rogan38:30

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

   2. RRRobert Rodriguez38:37

      So-

   3. JRJoe Rogan38:37

      Who knew?

   4. RRRobert Rodriguez38:37

      ... 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)

   5. JRJoe Rogan39:59

      Ah, wow.

   6. RRRobert Rodriguez40:00

      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.

   7. JRJoe Rogan40:20

      Fuck.

   8. RRRobert Rodriguez40:20

      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..."

   9. JRJoe Rogan40:29

      Did he want to be the serial killer?

   10. RRRobert Rodriguez40:31

       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.

   11. JRJoe Rogan41:15

       He was terrifying.

   12. RRRobert Rodriguez41:16

       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)

   13. JRJoe Rogan41:23

       (laughs)

   14. RRRobert Rodriguez41:23

       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.

   15. JRJoe Rogan41:31

       He was very believable.

   16. RRRobert Rodriguez41:32

       He really enjoyed that performance.

   17. JRJoe Rogan41:34

       I mean, we-

   18. RRRobert Rodriguez41:34

       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."

   19. JRJoe Rogan41:40

       Yeah, no one could listen.

   20. RRRobert Rodriguez41:41

       He says, "The test of time."

   21. JRJoe Rogan41:42

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

   22. RRRobert Rodriguez41:45

       Oh, yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan41:46

       He nailed it.

   24. RRRobert Rodriguez41:46

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan41:46

       He, he scared the fuck out of me.

   26. RRRobert Rodriguez41:48

       Well, when you get a lot of success, people will tend to, you know, it makes you a target, you know.

   27. JRJoe Rogan41:52

       Of course.

   28. RRRobert Rodriguez41:53

       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-

   29. JRJoe Rogan41:58

       Of course.

   30. RRRobert Rodriguez41:58

       ... 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.
8. 49:36 – 51:59

   A ‘cartoonist’ through-line: comedy, playfulness, and genre-hopping

   1. JRJoe Rogan49:36

      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.

   2. RRRobert Rodriguez49:49

      Y- there's a similarity to them though.

   3. JRJoe Rogan49:50

      You did animated movies, you did-

   4. RRRobert Rodriguez49:52

      Yeah, there's a similarity to them. I'm still that cartoonist.

   5. JRJoe Rogan49:55

      Mm-hmm.

   6. RRRobert Rodriguez49:56

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

   7. JRJoe Rogan50:01

      Mm-hmm.

   8. RRRobert Rodriguez50:01

      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 ...

   9. JRJoe Rogan50:07

      Right.

   10. RRRobert Rodriguez50:07

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

   11. JRJoe Rogan50:11

       Even Sin City.

   12. RRRobert Rodriguez50:12

       Yeah. Even Sin City's very playful.

   13. JRJoe Rogan50:13

       Yeah.

   14. RRRobert Rodriguez50:14

       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-

   15. JRJoe Rogan50:24

       Mm-hmm.

   16. RRRobert Rodriguez50:24

       ... 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.

   17. JRJoe Rogan50:39

       Yeah, like when the yellow guy gets shot in the dick.

   18. RRRobert Rodriguez50:42

       Oh, that's ... Yeah, that's the-

   19. JRJoe Rogan50:43

       (laughs)

   20. RRRobert Rodriguez50:43

       That was a good one. Yeah. That was a really good use of color.

   21. JRJoe Rogan50:47

       That, by the way, was one of the fucking creepiest characters ever in a film.

   22. RRRobert Rodriguez50:51

       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.

   23. JRJoe Rogan51:08

       Right.

   24. RRRobert Rodriguez51:08

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

   25. JRJoe Rogan51:13

       Yeah.

   26. RRRobert Rodriguez51:13

       ... 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-

   27. JRJoe Rogan51:32

       Jamie, can you show me the scene with Mickey Rourke and the yellow guy?

   28. RRRobert Rodriguez51:35

       Oh, this is Bruce Willis and the yellow guy.

   29. JRJoe Rogan51:36

       Oh, Br- excuse me. Bruce Willis and the yellow guy?

   30. RRRobert Rodriguez51:37

       There's three stories in it.
9. 51:59 – 58:41

   How Sin City got made lightning-fast: tests, rights, and green screen theater

   1. RRRobert Rodriguez51:59

      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-

   2. JRJoe Rogan52:07

      Really?

   3. RRRobert Rodriguez52:08

      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.

   4. JRJoe Rogan52:35

      Mm-hmm.

   5. RRRobert Rodriguez52:36

      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-

   6. JRJoe Rogan52:57

      Yeah.

   7. RRRobert Rodriguez52:57

      ... 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."

   8. NANarrator53:55

      (laughs)

   9. RRRobert Rodriguez53:55

      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.

   10. JRJoe Rogan55:02

       Oh, fun. (laughs)

   11. RRRobert Rodriguez55:02

       I just respect the artists-

   12. JRJoe Rogan55:03

       Yeah.

   13. RRRobert Rodriguez55:03

       ... 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."

   14. JRJoe Rogan55:25

       (laughs)

   15. RRRobert Rodriguez55:26

       (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan55:26

       All his little monkeys spit out water.

   17. RRRobert Rodriguez55:28

       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."

   18. JRJoe Rogan55:33

       Oh, boy.

   19. RRRobert Rodriguez55:33

       "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."

   20. JRJoe Rogan55:49

       Wow.

   21. RRRobert Rodriguez55:49

       So he was in and we were shooting the finish- we're shooting the actual movie by March.

   22. JRJoe Rogan55:54

       Wow.

   23. RRRobert Rodriguez55:55

       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.

   24. JRJoe Rogan56:30

       Wow.

   25. RRRobert Rodriguez56:30

       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.

   26. JRJoe Rogan56:57

       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-

   27. RRRobert Rodriguez57:08

       It was like the comic, 'cause the comic was that way.

   28. JRJoe Rogan57:09

       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.

   29. RRRobert Rodriguez57:19

       Mm-hmm.

   30. JRJoe Rogan57:19

       It felt like a real, legitimate comic book art movie. And this is before 300.
10. 58:41 – 1:04:48

    Groundbreaking work is often doubted (even by its creators): Pulp Fiction, Star Wars, The Thing

    1. RRRobert Rodriguez58:41

       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.

    2. JRJoe Rogan59:03

       Mm-hmm.

    3. RRRobert Rodriguez59:03

       Which, by sticking your head in the sand and not seeing where the times are going to the detriment.

    4. JRJoe Rogan59:07

       Right.

    5. RRRobert Rodriguez59:07

       Now the cameras are designed and they, they don't look as good as they could look.

    6. JRJoe Rogan59:11

       Yeah.

    7. RRRobert Rodriguez59:11

       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)

    8. JRJoe Rogan59:43

       (laughs)

    9. RRRobert Rodriguez59:44

       "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.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:11

        Mm-hmm.

    11. RRRobert Rodriguez1:00:11

        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 I was trying to be the supportive friend because I knew how much he put in. "Well, it should be different." He was like, "Nah, this wouldn't, wouldn't happen." It was like 2:00 in the morning, I was dropping him off at home after we'd been out. And so, I went back to Austin and he had had a screening for his, all his director friends that I couldn't be at 'cause I lived in Austin. So I called one of them, said, "How was the screening?" He was a little bummed about it. He goes, "Nah, this isn't the one for him." And I was like, "Really?" He said, "Yeah, it's, it's just too... Yeah, it's just not it." And I asked him this and he goes, "You're right." You know, he'd forgotten about that moment. He goes, "In fact, yeah, people didn't get it and in fact..." And he didn't get it either, he wasn't sure if it was a... In fact, one filmmaker even said, "I want to sit you down and tell you all the things that are wrong with this movie. But I'll wait till you get back from Cannes." (laughs) He goes to Cannes, he wins Cannes and the friend left him a message there, "Well, what, what the hell do I know? I've only made one movie."

Episode duration: 2:32:18