Robert Rodriguez
speaker
1,180 appearances
3 recordings
3 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard 16 Nov
Robert Rodriguez’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Nov 2025 with 1.
Appearances
It's like a bunch of technical things you need to do. But the idea is to whatever performance she gives, she's such a great actress, is to capture all of that. Because then this character that doesn't even exist will will feel very emotional and you have to, you have to be tied to it. You have to feel its heart. She was the heartbeat of it. So she's acting with all this.
Acting with all that, but it just disappeared. You know, she's not even, it's like, it's not even there. Like we don't notice that this is here. It's like that. She can just perform through it.
I just, I just knew she had to be her. It was going to be just so easy with her. She's just so great. She, everything was just so real and everything was like, she's that character. She becomes that character who's seen this world for the first time. No special effects going to help you with that if the performance isn't there.
So it was all about getting the performance and casting the right actors. That's why you get Christoph Waltz there and you get Jennifer Connelly, you know, these masters and, are all on the set, Mahershala Ali, you've got an amazing cast of people. That's really the heart of it, so that the technology goes away. How hard is it to get the actors
We put so much of the world around them. When you see the city, we put a blue screen way in the back to just make the city keep going. But we built the sets there, the town, we built the real set, so everything was very tangible and real, and that way she had to fit into that world and be as real as that. Because if it was all done in CG, well, then now you can fudge everything.
But if you put her in a real environment, that's a real challenge. And that really helps them in Avatar because that whole place is created in Avatar. You could get away with a lot, but they wanted to commit to that kind of detail. And on the next Avatar, that's why it just feels like you're really there. It's just stunning.
And you get there by having something to work on like this to take the technology to the next level. So it was cool to be able to help, you know, uh, knowing that you're being helpful to him in his process and not just distracting him.
But then also he liked that his artists had something else to work on besides just avatar to just work on something, you know, different to freshen up their perspective on things and methodology. And so, yeah, that was a really exciting movie to work on. And then we got to shoot it here, a Jim Cameron movie here in Austin. That was the best, having him here.
And my whole crew, who's worked with me 25, 30 years, everyone had an extra spring in their step because they're like, I mean, that's just like a high bar of achievement for everybody, you know, working on it.
I think any of those guys, George Lucas, you know, him, John Lasseter running into Pixar, it's a mix of... And I got really lucky. My first job was a Photoshop because my dad had a friend who owned a Photoshop. He said, your summer job. And I was 16. Go work for my friend, Mario.
So I go to Mario's Photoshop and I'm, you know, developing pictures or, you know, think you develop photos from film and He said, here, take this camera home. Give me one of those cameras. Take this camera home and some film. I need you to learn how to use the camera so you can help me sell the cameras. So I went home and I have a bunch of siblings. So like, well, the stars are bedhead.
Taking all these pictures of everybody. I take it back and he looks at the pictures when he develops. He's like, whoa, these are really creative. You're a creative person. So when sometimes people tell you something that you can't unhear, and he goes, that's a gift. But you need to know now, now you need to become technical. because most creative people need technicians.
So here, I want you to learn zone photography. I want you to learn this, the technical part of it. So that's why I didn't take a crew in Mariachi because I knew if I'm just a creative person and I need a crew to go actually technically make the movie, I'll always need something. And when you want to really change your life, you want to get your I need list down to little as possible.
Because if you're like, well, I want to shoot my movie, but I need a cameraman and I need somebody who knows how to light it. Your I need list keeps growing. That's further and further and further you will be from what you need to accomplish. So I kind of went down there without any help. So that remember that script analogy where the guy said, throw away three scripts.
I said, no, I'm going to write three scripts and then shoot each one. So I get better at each one of those jobs so I can learn to be technical. My technical capability was so little. Like I'm literally calling the guy on the phone. How do I use this camera? You know, that's how little I knew about it, but I knew by doing the job I would learn. By being both, that's really the key.
So Jim Cameron is like that. Jim Cameron, when you think of those guys, George Lucas, very technical and very creative. John Lasseter, very technical, but very creative. Pixar. Jim Cameron, very technical, very creative. Putting those two things together is really what sets you apart from other technicians and other creative people. And it's very, very powerful.
A lot of creative people, again, it's against their nature to be technical. They don't want to do it. Make yourself do it. Read the manuals, take the lessons. It frees you up because then you can go do like, you know, I just showed you in that demo. You're able to now be a technical person and creative, and then you're unstoppable. He's one of the best at it.
And he just knows how to craft a story. He's very analytical as well. Like we bounce off each other in a funny way. He goes, man, he came down to visit my studio before we did Alita. And he went, you only surround yourself with people who are like you. Like you exude creativity, you know, from every pore. And so does everyone at your studio. And I go, yeah, I didn't hire them that way on purpose.
But I think if you're not that way, you kind of don't belong there and you kind of leave. And then I went to his studio. And there are a bunch of Jim Camerons there. They're like, Oh my God, they're all very technical. You can't get all kind of fuzzy with the logic or the, you can't get, you can't get really creative with a physics or anything. They're like, no, that's not how it would work.
It would be like, and they're just, wow. Super great at what they do. Bar is sky high. And they're all like that. Cause yeah, if you're not part of it, if you're not like that, you can't hang with those guys. You can't hang with him very long.
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