Robert Rodriguez is a director, producer, and screenwriter known for films including "Desperado," "From Dusk Till Dawn," and "Machete." He is the founder of Troublemaker Studios and Brass Knuckles Films. www.brassknucklefilms.com This episode is brought to you by Visible. Join now at visible.com/rogan This video is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/JRE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Robert Rodriguez and what is his filmmaking journey?
Very, very nice to meet you. Incredible to meet you. I'm a fucking gigantic fan.
Man, I appreciate that.
Chapter 2: How did Robert Rodriguez create his first movie with just $7,000?
I just love what you've done because, like, anybody who could start their career off and make a movie for $7,000 is a hero. That's just an incredible accomplishment to make a movie that people still watch and talk about today for $7,000.
It was an experience for sure. 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 Rebel Without a Crew that really inspired filmmakers.
You did the audio for it, too.
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. Right. 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. I couldn't wait to shout from the 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'd read it now and I'd 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 got to 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 want to ask you about that because I know you end up doing the same thing a lot.
Yeah, for sure.
Where it's not manifesting so much in that way. 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 going to go do that summer, I said, I'm going to go try and make a movie. He goes, oh, yeah? Who's going to be your director of photography? And I said, I didn't want to tell them I'm the whole crew.
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Chapter 3: What is Robert Rodriguez's unique scriptwriting method using index cards?
The therapist asks you questions like, why didn't they make you feel? Why did you do that? 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. So I've used this for like, we usually ask unempowering questions.
You know, the words we use in ourselves are so important, but some of the questions like, why am I such a loser? Well, I can 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 would not just change my life, but everyone around me? You don't come up with three. You come up with like 15. You 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, 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? 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 it's funny because he's on Broadway now. It's just like lets you map out your life. Another friend of mine, DJ Catrone, 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 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. I'm going to try that, because I've got a bunch of half-baked ideas that I've never gone and done that with. You did it in three days? Yeah.
Yeah, if you shut the phone off, you can do it in three days. And now that movie's out. It's coming out. It's called Fight or Flight with Josh Hartnett. Wow. After hearing the talk, he went and picked up this old thing that he thought. And 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.
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Chapter 4: How does Robert Rodriguez view the creative process and the 'creative spirit'?
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 said, just pick up the paint. You can use these three methods, any color you want. The paintbrush is going to 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. You're not gonna believe it. Josh Brolin was way into it, 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. We always think, I need to know this, I need to know that. What about the other side?
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 going to happen. You just need to show up. You just need to pick up the pen. You need to do the keyboard. 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.
It was much harder in the faint room figuring out gels and mediums and all this stuff. They go back to the set and they can solve any problem instantly. 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 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.
I think it's all right. Let's see how it does.
That sounds like something he would say to you. That's so funny. That's like a Miyamoto Musashi quote from the Book of Five Rings. Once you know the way broadly, you can see it in all things.
Yeah. So that's where I started piecing together that it was something, because I really wanted to look it up because 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. Like, I didn't make that. I didn't make that. And I didn't do that. And I didn't do that.
What is it? You shouldn't say that. And a lot of comedians say that, too.
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Chapter 5: What lessons does Robert Rodriguez share about fear, failure, and commitment?
If I had engineered it, yeah, I'd be really smart. But again, like I said, I'm not that smart.
Sometimes you stumble upon... But it's got to be pretty cool that it's become, like, a part of, like, action films. Yeah. Dust Till Dawn is so... First of all, who knew Quentin Tarantino would play such a good fucking psychopath?
Who knew? What's so fun is... He's in Desperado now. I met him on the film festival circuit. So in 1992, we both had movies with guys in black and violent movies. In fact, I met him at the Toronto Film Festival for Reservoir Dogs. I had Mariachi because they put us on a panel together to discuss violence in the movies in the 90s, even though it was only 92. And so we met there and became friends.
And he said, oh, my next movie is Pulp Fiction. And I just thought, this crazy guy, he's so funny. And I said, I'm going to 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 stage, 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, it'd be No Dust Till Dawn. When we're doing Four Rooms, he takes me into a room and he starts reading me. It's on the internet. I put it out. Him reading me the first scene of Kill Bill. This was eight years before he made the movie.
And then he said, my very first script I wrote, and I didn't get paid shit for, like $1,500, was Dust Till Dawn. And now, because of the success of Pulp Fiction, they want to make all my old stuff. And these producers have it. 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 because it takes place in Mexico and you're Mexican.
So I was like, all right. That's the second time he read me a scene in 2001. There's one video where he's even younger in four rooms reading me a second version of it. So over the years, 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, show him scenes from Desperado.
And we just became friends there. He was originally gonna make Pulp Fiction for TriStar and then they passed on it because they thought, it's weird, it's long. And he went, did it for Miramax. Did he want to be the serial killer? I asked him to because I knew he liked acting and I just knew him as a person. Like a lot of times I'll cast somebody just by meeting them.
I'm going to cast you because you realize you can. There's something about them that captures you that's going to just be magnified when you put a 50 feet on screen. That's why I've discovered a lot of talent that way. So I found Salma. I just knew she was going to be it.
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Chapter 6: How did Robert Rodriguez collaborate with Quentin Tarantino and develop his iconic films?
You've probably never seen it. He goes, I've never seen the finished movie. And I said, you're great in it. I was showing him some scenes. It was blowing his mind. He goes, yeah, this movie didn't do well. I remember now. Why? Because the Jeffrey Dahmer thing just went, that's just how it's supposed to go. But I saw it. And that's why I hired you.
And that's how you got that second career later on. Because I was there every night because it was in the Dollar Theater so quick. I wouldn't have been able to afford it any other way. So that's how weird shit happens, right?
It's so cool.
It makes you see that you don't, it's just sometimes that's just how the balls roll, you know?
It's just all interconnected somehow. Yeah, somehow it's interconnected.
And you have to trust the process. You just have to trust the process. I had someone in the audience recently, I was talking about Brass Knuckle Films and getting everybody all stirred up about it. And one gal goes, you're real positive, but do you have any doubts? I was like, well, I've never been asked that question before. So whenever I don't have an answer, I'll ask them first.
What do you guys think? What do you guys think? How would you answer? How would you answer that? Do you have doubts? Do you have any human doubts?
Everyone has doubts. It's what you do with them. Do you let your doubts overwhelm you, or do you take them into consideration? Like, are these doubts valid? And what do I have to do to make sure that these fears don't manifest themselves as reality? Do I have to do extra work? Do I have to work harder? Do I have to be more objective?
You know, you have to take into consideration that anything you're going to do that's going to be exciting also carries the possibility of risk. And the risk of failure is a thing that keeps a lot of people from acting.
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Chapter 7: What is Robert Rodriguez's approach to balancing technical skills and creativity?
Yeah.
Like regular people, people that are cops and firemen and auto repair guys. You're just humans. Yeah. So all the people I interact with are just normal humans. That's what I always loved about living here. This is so much better.
It's like there weren't any filmmakers here.
So much better. It's infinitely better. Nicer.
Everyone's waiting. You get a lot more done. I was cranky. Sometimes I'd have two movies out a year. I would be making that so fast because I just had a studio where it's like, let's just make more stuff.
There also has to be something cool feeling about like doing it on your own away from the hive. Oh, way better.
Way better. Yeah. That's why it's like I try to create original franchises. Because if you go direct one of the James Bonds, you're one of the James Bond director. But if you create your own franchise, like a Spike, it feels so much better. Right. When that's successful and someone says, wow, I really like that movie, you go, oh, I did that voice. That's you. Oh, my God. I grew up with that.
You know, it's like, oh, yeah, it's a homemade movie. You know, so it's much more gratifying. And, yeah, I did the right thing by moving out.
One movie that seemed like it could be a franchise is Alita.
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Chapter 8: How does identity and mindset influence success according to Robert Rodriguez?
Yeah, he's doing Man-Ape again.
He's doing Man-Ape in a different version of it. And, you know, I drew a lot of things that were like that, like a different version of Frazetta stuff. Everybody did. But, yeah, I was more of a Frazetta guy than a Boris Vallejo guy. I loved it. It was great. I was happy that he was doing it.
Like the one where he's crucified to the cross.
That's pretty dope. That one's pretty dope.
Oh, and the one in the far bottom left is the first issue of Savage Sword. Oh, wow.
That one was really cool.
Yeah, I thought that was cool. Yeah. But it doesn't come close to, you know.
No, it's just Frazetta just had, it was more fantastical. I think it's because of that process.
It was just the way he did them. Yes. There's some magic to them. And I'll show you a couple of things that will blow you away when you see them in person. But the in-person thing will really floor you. Just how much even the best books cannot capture the art as it exists. I'm sure. I saw your gym. Your gym is awesome. I thought I had the best gym ever.
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