WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 630 - Robert Rodriguez / Jonathan Ames

Episode Date: August 19, 2015

Robert Rodriguez has been making movies on his own terms since he was 12 years old. Before Spy Kids and Machete and Sin City, he famously made his first feature, El Mariachi, for $7000. And, as Robert tells Marc, it’s possibly all just a prelude to the new television network he created. Plus, writer Jonathan Ames stops by to talk about his latest show and how he’s adjusting to Los Angeles. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category.

And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talked to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters

what the fuckadelics this is mark maron this is wtf the podcast thanks for joining me if you're new to it welcome welcome it's nice to have you. I'll be piping into your head twice a week or however often you want to do it. It could be every day for hours a day if you're just getting started and you're dipping into those archives. First, I'll tell you who's on the show. We have a couple of guests. We're going to do a shorty with Jonathan Ames, the famous writer, once a memoirist, now a novelist, and also a showrunner and show creator. Did a Bored to Death series for HBO. Now he's doing Blunt Talk. That stars Patrick Stewart. Very funny. I watched the first couple of episodes, and Jonathan Ames has

been on the show before. And we catch up, and we talk a little bit about Blunt Talk. But we also talk a little bit about him shifting from being a memoir guy, very graphic, very, is lurid the word, provocative, sexually perverse at times, interesting, revealing, to being someone who writes fiction for very specific reasons, which I found interesting. And you can hear me and Jonathan talk about that in his new show, Blunt Talk. to being someone who writes fiction for very specific reasons, which I found interesting. And you can hear me and Jonathan talk about that in his new show, Blunt Talk. Also on the show today, film director, producer, empire runner and manager Robert Rodriguez is here. You might know him from El Mariachi, Desperado, from Dusk Till Dawn, Spy Kids, Spy Kids 2, Spy Kids 3. You might know him from Sin City, from Grindhouse, Machete, Machete. But right now he does a lot of television too, and he does a lot of producing. He's now at the helm of his new TV network, the El Rey Network, and they've just created season two of From Dust Till Dawn, the series,

and that starts Tuesday, August 25th at 9 p.m. on El Rey Network, and they've just created season two of From Dusk Till Dawn, the series. And that starts Tuesday, August 25th at 9 p.m. on El Rey. But Rodriguez is kind of a wizard, an inspiration, a dude who gets shit done. Do a nice hour-long chat with him. My driveway, I'm doing it. Talk about change. I've been dealing with this driveway. Some of you who listen to me for years know that there's no drainage in the driveway.

And apparently there's going to be apocalyptic rainstorms in L.A., which it's bittersweet because we need it. We need it. My trees are crying literally on the street. You hear like, what's that weird sound? It's the sound of trees crying because and they don't have many tears in them because there's no water. Everything is just drying out. Finally, I just got a contract over here to do the driveway so now they dug up the entire driveway with the caterpillar is that what it's called it's just a just like there were mounds of concrete and they hauled them away and now my driveway is dirt and as you can imagine i find that charming and i'm fighting the urge to just leave my dirt driveway dirt.

That could get kind of messy, but it's rustic. It's exciting. Right? Right. Wrong. Going to get the driveway, going to get the drain so the garage isn't threatened. And I don't have to rely on a ambiguous hole to drain my water. And I don't have to rely on the overflow into my neighbor's yard. I'm being proactive, but change is difficult. I now have a dirt driveway and I don't have to rely on the overflow into my neighbor's yard. I'm being proactive,

but change is difficult. I now have a dirt driveway and I like it. I'm going to be on real time with Bill Maher tomorrow night, Friday. I'm going to be on the panel. No idea what the topics are. I don't know what we're going to talk about. I'm not big into the politics, but I can usually get up to speed so that should be fun in terms of gigs coming up i can tell you about them uh tonight is thursday i will be at the comedy store doing a short set 15 minute set i don't always announce the comedy store stuff because they're just short sets i'm just working out but i will be in dublin ireland on september 2nd at vicar street i'll be at the South Bank Center in London, England, September 3rd and 4th. I will be in Sydney, Australia, October 15th at the State Theater.

I will be at the Palace Theater in Melbourne, Australia on October 16th and at the Brisbane City Hall in Brisbane, Australia, October 17th. Okay. I'm telling you that because I'd like you to come if you're in any of those places. Look, this Saturday is the premiere of Blunt Talk on Stars, folks. Now, if you go way back with What the Fuck, then you know that Jonathan Ames is somebody I know. We had him on episode 114, which you can now get over at Howl.fm or get the Howl app. And before Stars became a sponsor, I told Jonathan he could come on for some garage time since he had Blunt Talk. So here it is. Me and the great Jonathan Am ames creator of bored to death

and blunt talk and a fantastic uh comic writer both novels and memoirs let's talk to jonathan ames like yeah it's been five years since i talked to you in your house in brooklyn where you were you were a writer with one show on the air that did not stay on the air. That was a good show. What happened to that? We had a good run, though. We were on three years. I mean, that felt-

That's good. On cable, and it was interesting and fun and funny. Yeah, it was kind of like, well, I don't, it was a little bit like a baseball player who made it to the majors for a couple seasons, hit about 250, you know? Yeah. So then what happens? I mean, you haven't put another book out since, right? Well, I last put out a book in 2009.

I published an e-novella, a thriller, completely non-comedic, I think about two years ago, called You Were Never Really Here. I was reading all those Jack Reacher novels and also this crime writer, Richard Stark, which was a pseudonym for Donald Westlake. So I just wrote this very violent, you know, kind of like you're using a nail driver to write sentences. But that was the last bit of prose I published. of incredibly self-prodding, experiential, memoir-style books. Do you journal? I mean, you're going through this interesting time in your life where success is coming your way in a different avenue, in a different venue.

Well, yeah. I mean, I don't write. I haven't written autobiographically in a long time. a different venue well yeah i mean i don't write i haven't written autobiographically in a long time you know uh i did so much of that i guess towards the end of the 20th century you know back i don't know when there were horses but um and i so over did it and now i'm completely uh freaked out by it i i because i think I used to feel that I was telling the truth. Of course, it was all exaggerated or I was playing a character. And now I had to write a piece of nonfiction and I just had to stop. I'm like, I'm doing the old shtick. It's not truthful.

And I just can't do nonfiction anymore. And I don't write in my journal either because a few years ago, maybe around the time when you last interviewed me i had blown up my life and i would read my journal i'd be so horrified by my behavior and the way my thoughts and i just i i was it was kind of like looking well i don't know why immediately going scatological kind of like looking in the toilet or something so i've stopped keeping a journal every now and then i write down goals and then hide the goals someone once told me to do that that's about as close as a magic trick yeah a little magic trick so so so is it is it the correct read that uh that you finally became consumed with shame and could no longer face uh you know who you were on the page with

your personal experiences well i think i've always been consumed with shame i mean it was like consumed and then consumed again it was like we consumed for the public's enjoyment it was like a snake that had eaten a snake that had eaten snake. There's so much shame going back before I even was born, I think. So I think what it was was that if I did want to write nonfiction, I would actually want to be honest. But the things I might say, I wouldn't want to disturb people like my parents. So I just stay away from it. I'd rather write TV shows or fiction or genre stuff and be completely hidden. That's an interesting choice to make after you've exposed so much of yourself.

And also, I imagine, I don't know your life, but I imagine at the level you're attaining professionally that it might behoove you not to put that stuff in the world. uh you know not to uh yeah put that stuff in the world well well yeah i guess so because and well the thing is you know there is the outer self now i don't derive any pleasure from any of what you might or anyone might consider my success i'm still just as upset as i was at the age of eight when i was crawling on the floor with back spasms really yeah i i really am um i mean why do you think that is because i have not not quite that experience i feel better to have certain um i don't worry about certain things anymore uh so i feel better in that way like you know it's nice to have a few bucks in the bank. Yeah, that's positive. I do like that, you know, after being broke for the first, you know, 25 years of adulthood.

But that I don't necessarily gain too much pleasure for myself because then I think, well, I'm going to lose it all. But I have, you know, actually, I don't know if you know this, but I have a son and a grandson. Right, I was going to ask you about your son because I know that we talked about reuniting and, you know this but i have a son and a grandson i was going to ask you about your son because i i know that we talked about the reuniting and and and you know that relationship my son is wonderful and and but you have a grandchild yeah yeah and he's beautiful and um but yeah i don't know i mean one shouldn't complain you know but it's your brain maybe gets a certain groove like a record sure you know an anhedonia groove you don't know how to experience happiness yeah but i i think every now and then i i have moments like like a shut-in pulling aside a curtain it's like oh there's the world ah fuck the curtain went closed again well you must it must be uh uh unavoidable to have some joy when you uh you're with your grandkid

yeah no that how old is it no that's wonderful because then you don't have a sense of self. You know what I mean? Once you can get away from you, then you can experience joy. How old is he? He's 16 months. Wow. He's a little baby. Yeah.

He's quite spectacular. And they live in town? No, no. Back east? Yeah. Oh. Are you doing granddaddy stuff? Like you go back and you spend time? Yeah. Oh, are you doing granddaddy stuff? Like you go back and you spend time?

Yeah, I was there when he was born and I got to hold him about an hour after he was born, which was incredible. Did you cry? I don't know that I cried in that moment. I was ecstatic though. I bet. And I was glad to be present and heard his first cries. He cried. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you didn't want to compete? Yeah his first cries. He cried. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So you didn't want to compete? Yeah. You didn't want to steal the moment? Yeah. That's mature of you. You're going to upstage your kid and they're crying. I know.

Well, it's like being a good actor, I guess, you know, giving them their moment. Now, the new show is called Blunt Talk. I think I talked to Richard about it a bit, Richard Lewis, who was very excited to be playing against type, which I still have a hard time picturing. When does it start? August 22nd, it comes out on the Starz network. For some reason, I want to say Starz backwards as Z-rats. Is Chris Albrecht still over there?

Yep. Oh, great. He's the head guy. Now, let's walk through the process. So, you have Bored to Death on, and then you go back to the drawing board basically well yeah i had bored to death gets canceled i sort of i don't know i wouldn't say i fell apart but i you know i i just i don't know suddenly i had work and then i had no work and so i had no work for about a year and then jerry stall your good friend yeah i wrote jerry he and i began to whine back and forth over a series of emails about, you know, our lousy careers and all that.

And, you know, he loves to, you know, he's great at that. And I was trying to top him. Oh, great. And then and I and I said, you know, we started talking about agents and all this stuff. And and I said, I don't know, the agency hasn't got me any work and I don't know what's going on. I don't know if they even care about me. Maybe I should leave. Not that I would, because I'm very loyal, and I don't do anything confrontational.

And then Jerry's like, oh, what's your literary agent's email over there, by the way? Or what's his name? I say his name, and Jerry writes back, what's his email? I'm like, ah, I've got to do everything for Jerry. So I type in the email, copy, paste. Then you're supposed to delete and hit send, right? Right. So I do copy, paste for Jerry.

Yeah. Don't delete. I hit send. My agent gets these email exchange with me and Jerry Stahl where I'm saying they haven't gotten me anything for a year. And it was also a lot of suicidal ideation in the email, like all sorts of crap. And then suddenly I'm like oh my god i didn't even have my agent's number in my phone so i quickly look up you know the agency in new york

get it i had such an old phone i started hitting it the phone froze i had to take the battery out put the battery back on by the time i call he goes he goes what's this about not being attentive you know so that it was my literary agent i was like oh shit anyway he spread the word that you know this guy maybe is not happy and so what happened was suddenly they started sending some things my way and i got an email that said would you like to get on the phone with seth mcfarland and he's looking for a writer i said sure i'll get on the phone with seth mcfarland that'd be very cool what's about? And I said, they need an idea for a comedy for Patrick Stewart. I said, okay. And you'll talk to him the next day. So that night I happened to be channel surfing and I saw Piers Morgan on CNN and his head was kind of looming in front of this blue background. I thought, wow, Patrick Stewart would look really cool as a cable

news host with his head, like something out of Orwell. Yeah. Kind of like a beautiful pill of a head, you know, with his electric candy behind him. So the next day I got on the phone with Seth McFarlane and he said, you know what I'm looking for? I said, yeah, comedy for Patrick Stewart.

And he said, you know, basically, do you have any ideas? I said, what about Patrick Stewart sort of playing a cable news host, you know, and we go behind the scenes kind of like Larry Sanders.

Yeah. You know, and we sort of live behind the scenes. And he said, I love that. And so next thing I know, I met with Patrick Stewart a few weeks later and he very generously read one of my books. And he put himself through one of your books? Yeah, he put himself through. An old one? An old one from 2004.

And yeah, he belted himself into a chair and forced himself like the guy in Clockwork Orange to read it. And so he was happy to try to work with me. And then I developed it. And then I emailed Patrick Stewart, what should we call this guy? Because I came up with the first story in a sense, which is your usual beginning of a TV show. Put the character in a crisis. And I said, what should we call this guy? And Patrick Stewart wrote back, how about Walter Blunt?

That was the first role I played in Shakespeare. And I used to use it as an alias. And in the character's role in Shakespeare, I think it's Henry VIII, he delivers some news to a king, but then is killed. I was like, perfect. The guy delivers news. It's an alias he killed right it was like perfect the guy delivers news it's an alias used to use i love the name walter blunt and right in that moment i said we'll call the show blunt talk that you know like o'reilly factor okay so i i even like within 30 seconds

i'm like i love it perfect walter blunt we'll call the show blunt talk yeah his in the show within the show will be blunt talk and so that's that was the process what's your role here do you are you there every day are you in the room are you yeah i'm the creator showrunner executive producer um were you all those things on board to death yes oh you were and so with board to death i'm there for the first shot of the day and the last shot of the day i like to be there all the time i mean as you know with your show yeah it's not like with drama if a scene's not working in comedy you gotta like sure fix it in the moment it's not like you're just getting information across or something like that if this you know and you don't have time to rehearse you have one table read so i like to be there for every scene you

know sometimes you get shots at the end of the day which are maybe you know uh not verbal or something and i could leave but yeah i'm there from the know, by 7 a.m. home, get home like, you know, 9.30. And then I have all the final edit. I spent the last two and a half months in the editing room. Yeah, you stole one of my guys. I know, stole one of your wonderful writers, Duncan Birmingham. Great writer. Great writer.

Duncan backwards is neck nude. Neck nude? Yeah. Do you call him neck nude? No, I should right now. We called him, he played a clown in one of our episodes. We did an homage to, I know it sounds fancy, to Peter Sellers' The Party, you know, the Blake Edwards film.

And I just had all sorts of characters walking around. So Duncan played a clown. And we called it, the clown I think was called Skunkin. Yeah. Or Skunky the Clown. Because Duncan's dog had gotten sprayed by a skunk and then got into bed with Duncan. Snacks.

Yeah, snacks. And we named a character named Snacks. Duncan is all over this. There's a pornographer in the show named Ronnie Birmingham. So you know, and then I had a character played by Jason Schwartzman named Duncan. Somehow Duncan who's very sweet and self-effacing, his name and his presence is like all over the show. Good man.

I'm glad it's working out for him. Maybe I'll have to start talking to him again. Oh, you should. He said to say hello. I mean, he holds you in high esteem. Now, is it like Larry Sanders in the way that what you see when the camera's on is significantly different character-wise than when the camera's off? Oh, yeah. I mean, I think we try to, you know, I mean, the show, I mean, an obvious reference is Network, you know, a little bit with Howard Beale.

But, yeah, we get the feeling of like, here's Walter Blunt on air, you know, and then even the way it'll look on screen is different. And, you know, we do the graphics below. And then, you know, then there's a break and, you know, then we, you know, it's behind the scenes. So you're having fun in L.A.? I mean, are you getting out? I imagine you are. Well, I don't know. I went through a trauma and a breakdown recently.

How did that manifest itself? Oh, well. What kind? Well, just, I don't want to go into detail, but do you want to hear a kind of quick, beautiful LA story? I was really despairing yesterday, like kind of mad despair. I want the details of the breakdown.

Oh, I know, but there's other human beings involved. But so let's say I was screaming. I literally was in my house, in my underwear yesterday, screaming in pain, right? And then... Physical or?

No, mental and sorrow. Yeah. And I fell to the kitchen floor. And again, I guess I brought my eight-year-old spasming self because I began to spasm on the kitchen floor and I was crying out for help, just spasming on the kitchen floor like my inner eight-year-old spasming self who had a bad back and they put me in a corset you know in New Jersey back in the 70s yeah I guess from fear or whatever and suddenly there's a pounding on my door I'm like oh my god it's the cops but it was four neighbors and I went to the door and they said could you please open up

are you all right I opened up the door and they said you okay and they sort of asked me what was going on and then one of them turned out to be a social worker and they asked me if i wanted to go for a walk and it was like i mean i'm a i'm kind of agnostic and pantheistic you know i sure i believe in many gods with the same amount of confusion or something but uh so here i was crying out for help and four strangers came to my door it was almost christian that was like prophets at my door right and there was like three races too there was lots of different races of people outside there and then i went for a walk with these two nice guys they said why don't you clean yourself up the guy wanted to shake my hand and literally because i've been crying snot was coming out of my nose and i think there was some snot on

my hand but he's reaching out his hand yeah anyway they were very accepting generous human beings and anyway they took me for a walk and and I'm much better today I think I had some kind of personal primal scream therapy was that yesterday yeah just yesterday oh that's sweet now you know your neighbors yeah and they gave me his number and he lives right below and Are you going to buy him a nice cake or some wine or something? You know, he kept saying, like, let's exercise together or something. So I don't know if he's sober or not. Cake would be nice. Yeah, I got to do something.

You're right. But anyway, they texted me later and checked on me. Oh, that's sweet. You built a little emotional security network right in your neighborhood. Yeah. Someone said, next time you scream like that, you should do it into the pillow. I don't know. I lost my mind, you know?

Well, eventually it'll get to the point where they hear it and they're like, no, it's just Jonathan. I think there was a cleaning lady from next door and she saw me and she's like, she thought like someone was getting knifed in there. When she saw it was just a guy in his boxer shorts with snot coming out of his nose. She was like, oh. And this just was un-precipitated? No, I had been going nuts for about 12 days now. I'm much better now. And actually coming to talk to you gave me purpose.

You know, I think having purpose is helpful. Well, you know, maybe it's that sort of like the comedown from finishing the work. Yeah, finishing the work. Realizing you're still just you. I know, the horror of that. So, yeah, so it was coming down from work and other factors. finishing the work. Yeah, finishing the work. Realizing you're still just you. I know, the horror of that. So, yeah, so it was coming down from work and other factors, but I'm much better today. All right, so do you want to stay here for a while or are you going to be all right? I'm good.

No, that's kind of you to offer. Do you need? No, I'm all right. I got this iced coffee and I'm going to go in my car and be isolated. All right, buddy. Thank you. a car and be isolated. All right, buddy. Thank you. He's an intense guy. I like talking to Jonathan Ames. I always enjoy it and I feel like I could talk to him for a long time. Now, here's a weird thing that's happening. I know you've noticed it happening,

is occasionally I get people that I have auditioned for. I do a little acting. I don't know if you know, I have a show that's on IFC. I guess the third season will be on Netflix eventually, but I do a little acting. And I think after the first season of the show, I actually auditioned for a Robert Rodriguez movie.

And I don't always know if they know me at all when they come in here, when they come to the garage. I don't know if they've listened to the all when they come in here uh when they come to the to the to the garage I don't know if they've listened to the show I know now that a lot of them know that Obama was here and that you know that's something but I don't know if they know and I certainly don't know if he knows that that I auditioned for his movie but I'll bring it up I'll bring it up I auditioned for a Sin City a Dame to Kill for it's awkward sometimes because

I talk to directors and it's hard for me not to go like, you know, come on, put me in your movie. But now then I'm just a guy in a garage who hosts a podcast wanting to be in a movie. You know, I could be like that. Hey, there's that guy. Be that guy. Hey, was that that guy? That was good. That was like, that guy had a little scene. He played, he was the cranky guy the cranky uh old guy with the mustache he did good he had a little scene just one of those that's all i'm looking for again robert rodriguez is here we're going to talk a little bit about the el rey network about season two of from dust till dawn the series which is coming up on august 25th 9 p.m on el rey network and his movies and his process and where he comes from and how the fuck he managed to do all the stuff he does.

These guys, these empire builders, you know, it's amazing to me. And he's done it all on his own. He's cut his own path. I have too, but my empire is tempered. It's not that I can't visualize an empire, but about right at the beginning of visualizing it I start breathing quickly and I have a hard my chest tightens

so I'll have to settle for slightly panicky empires of the mind and my podcast Hi it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company

competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that an epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by james clavelle to show your true heart just to risk

your life when i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Cast. Yeah, so like you're out there in Austin with that. I had Richard Linklater in here. You guys buddies? Yeah, you know what? I actually met him after I made a mariachi he called

me and said so we should we should meet we've never met because people always ask me if i know you and they ask you if you know me and i said yeah no we never met we were just kind of doing our own thing we both kind of hit at the same time yeah and we became friends you know right away and uh had visions of what you know we both wanted to stay in Austin. And it's like, what can we do to build this place up so we can shoot here? We'll need stages. Maybe when the airport moves, we'll try and get those stages. You know, all that stuff ended up happening. And you guys were in conversation about that.

Oh, yeah. A long time before. Just visions of dreams. Yeah, yeah. And then we actually built a film community that kept our movies there. And one of the things early on that we talked about, too, is he said, one of us has to get into distribution. That's the big thing. You have to distribute your own product.

That's the key. You know, somebody's got to do like what the Weinsteins do or something. And now I got this television network. So I went to him and said, hey, look, remember 20 years ago we were talking about one of us needed to get into distribution? I got a distribution channel. So now El Rey, you see that as a distribution channel yeah because as a someone who makes films or television you know normally a filmmaker just creates product and he's got to go to a distributor and make a deal with them so they can put it out what have you had your own pipeline

sure you got a pipeline to an audience we're at 40 million homes now and then through what's it who's to deal with originally it was a network i got from comcast they were they're going to merge with universal right and um they weren't going to be allowed to merge unless they gave away some networks to mom and pop type owners right i put an idea for the lra network and he has a mom and pop hispanic yeah it'd be like owned owned by yeah um not owned by by you know yeah and um i had this idea for the l-ray network an english language kick-ass you know visceral entertainment network english language you know very diverse in front of and behind the camera and uh and we got it and comcast had to

carry us for 10 years well with that i was able to go to other distributors and get them to sign on too and then univision saw what we were doing yeah and thought we'll fund what you're doing um because it'd be a cool thing to be a part of and they brought us distribution that they already had with direct tv time war so we didn't have to go knock on all those doors and it got us you know really quickly into a bunch of homes and do you you find that, you know, through Univision that they're, they're, that the, uh, the Latino audience is responding in a, in a, in a bigger percentage? Well, they're only on as financiers. Right. So it's not, um, they're not like us do the content because, you know, they thought English

language, Hispanic, um, skewed, but it's really general entertainment. I mean, it's for everybody to watch. Of course. It's kind of where, you know, they were seeing a good direction to go into,

but then they thought, well, who's going to run it? So you guys are already doing that. Right. We'd just rather invest in you and see what happens than to go try.

We could, they could create a network like that tomorrow, but who's going to program and who's going to do it? And I think that's why they backed us. And it's been, it's been so fun. who's going to do it and I think that's why they they backed us and it's been it's been so fun it's been fantastic coming up with shows to put on because you got you got a network now you got to fill it

yeah and most new networks don't don't put new shows on right away right they just see had sure they buy a show for 20 years you buy movies or syndicated pieces build up an audience but I thought you know we really needed to kind of come out swinging so people could find us right and through the content people would find us and like the thing i was watching last night the series from dust till dawn is on there yeah so i thought let me do stuff that nobody else could do for us till dawn is a title that was very popular as a film you know people still come up to quentin and i saying you know oh that's still dawn the movie love that yeah we controlled the rights to it so nobody could ever people had wanted to do

a show i don't know before but we had it locked down but we did it for the l-ray network right oh that'd be that'd be a cool draw because people know the name and they'll say from dust till dawn where's that again l-ray what's l-ray and then they would find us sure and i and also the the sensibility that that you guys are it seems that the two of you created is something fairly specific right and uh a certain type of uh of audience a certain type of person who is into those types of movies is compelled by it yeah and they'll go find it and they're very dedicated loyal people really really dedicated really loyal they see what else we have on the network and they're gonna what you have kung fu thursdays yeah creature feature fridays and right brass knuckle mondays i mean it's really these

cool franchises that bring people back because all the all the content on the network's curated it's only stuff that we genuinely love and have seen now what did what was quinn involved in tv one oh he uh allowed me to do it and he's uh an executive producer but um he just let me go make it because the the original script that he had written it had vampires in mexico but the whole thing with the temple and the snake call that's just stuff that i added because i wanted to so yeah the tv show i thought let me let me explore more into that area that i was kind of hinting at in the film that whole last shot in the film where it shows the back of the bar being a pyramid and the Aztec temple was something I invented.

So it was actually now I could go in and explore that. And that was the pitch to him. He said, oh, yeah, go. He loved what he didn't even see him in advance. He wanted to see him when they aired. And he watched every episode and really loved it. It's good, man. Propel this to keep going with it.

It's good. Nice to see Don Johnson for a few minutes. You know, I worked with Don. I turned Quentin onentin onto don i worked with don on machete yeah and uh i said you know the biggest star that i've i've worked with a lot of big stars biggest star by far was don johnson i mean as far as the crew stopping work hanging on every word people love talking about miami vice episodes or how they did that i mean he was just like a real man's man really people just gravitated towards him and he went really go yeah so he put him in uh you know his next movie was dangle yeah yeah and um and then i thought about him to play that character that you know was played so brilliantly with michael parks in the original film to continue that character and have him go throughout that whole first season yeah he came and man we had a blast he's he's really terrific he's a pro right there's a oh he's a pro and

what's great doing television with him yeah and he was um he's in that whole first season yeah but i shot him in the first four days of shooting the whole season and you shot him in the first episode yeah he shows up in many more episodes but i shot all all his work in four days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he really started us off on the right foot because he told us about the days how they used to shoot Miami Vice and all that. So he actually had production. He had production skills.

I mean, doing Nash Bridges, this is what you got to do. You got to figure out how to shoot the dialogue quickly so that you have time for the action. And he was right. And he was right. Yeah, he said, I used to put the camera on a camera car and i would drive fast behind it and get my close-up spin over and get cheech's close-up

get the two shot all in one knock out seven pages and it's like brilliant brilliant stuff you know the guy's really savvy so he taught you stuff taught us all schooled everybody really great that's amazing and you you were in you're you're a fan of uh of the of his shows of nash bridges and miami vice i got to guest star on nash bridges once cheech invited me up he said hey i need somebody to play a commercial director i think the episode's called bombshell yeah what how i think it was like that's probably 97 98. yeah i went and i got to and you know when you show up on a set there's never anything going on there's always like a dialogue

scene yeah I walk on I turn him a little video camera I can't believe I'm about to meet Don Johnson and he comes around the corner they call action I got there right on the take yeah and he's like hit it and then bullets start flying all the but it was all in one yeah in one take with like three cameras yeah yeah they blew up the whole place and he's doing the whole Don Johnson I couldn't believe star flying all the it was all in one all in one take with like three cameras yeah yeah they blew up the whole place and he's doing the whole don johnson i couldn't believe it i was like i was i was so excited to be able to witness that and what about working with cheech and cheech i've worked with cheech so much i mean i put him in desperadoes and he's like 10 of my movies yeah he's gotta

always have a teacher you know what cheech is very savvy about and i tell us the other actors yeah who get bummed that they don't get to work more in my movies even if I worked in them before I said well you know I did you gotta remind me you got to be like cheat you know what teach does she just calls me out of the blue it's a what do you got he just goes how my part coming like part and I go oh you know what I'm working on this thing call me you know you would be great as machetes brother shit you should be Danny Trejo's you know you get suddenly he doesn't even know if you're working on yeah I called, you know what, you would be great as Machete's brother. You should be Danny Trejo's brother. You know,

it clicks suddenly. He doesn't even know if you're even working on anything. He just said, that's just his opening line when he calls you. I had them both in here. I had Chi-Chan Chong in here.

And it was crazy because I grew up listening to those records. So I'm sitting here with those two guys just telling stories and I'm like, oh my God.

Right? The voices are so distinct. Well, you know, growing up in San Antonio, Texas, when you would hear these guys talk especially they would every christmas they would play that one christmas thing on don or on tom or on beto on jew it's like god that's like three of my uncle's names right there you know when you would hear your name and popular culture right kind of what i

why i do what i do right as far as uh because it's his. Because it cheats. It really hit me in a completely different way. It's why I wanted him in Desperado. Yeah. Because it made you feel like you're a part of the zeitgeist, you know, in a way. Uh-huh. And it really was an eye-opener as far as attracting all kinds of audience through something like that. Well, you grew up in San Antonio. Mm-hmm.

Because the movies, the way your movies are, the tone of the films and some of that B-movie stuff and the slasher movie stuff. I mean, that, and Machete specifically, those were popular with Latino kids, right? Yeah. I mean, it was a whole mix of things. You liked all kinds of stuff. When you grew up fifth generation, you liked everything. You liked all kinds of movies.

Because I see kids around here, because this is a Latino neighborhood, is that like wrestling, like you can see kids what they're into. Right. You know, on skateboards and they're wearing metal shirts. But there is a thing. You know, what was the thing?

I know there's a lot of things, but I mean, we're almost the same age. Yeah. You know, what were you doing like when you're 14 or 15? No, it was, you know, like Ruben said,

it's a very rock and roll town. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a rock. It's a real rock town. Yeah. It had that sort of sensibility. And it just kind of permeated everything. You kind of went, uh, even how you just lived your life. It was kind of a rock and roll mentality. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I went to make films. It was like, you know, that was the beginning of the rock stars director when Quentin came out and the whole independent, a new wave began where people were making movies for no money when did you get interested in it though i was doing this since i was 12 12 making movies at 12 my dad had one of the early vcrs around on the market had a camera the big camera camera that you have to turn on your tv to see what you've been pointing right right yeah or even a manual manual focus and

only had a 12 foot cable so you could only film as far as the deck was i had to take extension cords and the TV set. I mean, it was a whole operation. Specifically for it. But I'd make kung fu movies in the backyard. For family events. It was weird. Why do you think? What was the logic on those?

Well, it was like he had it for sales tapes, because he sold cookware. He would show sales presentations on it. Oh, really? So he recorded his- I took that. Yeah. And used it to make movies. What kind of cookware?

It was like this um really heavy duty like door-to-door oh yeah pots and pans yeah he was able to support 10 kids selling pots and pans 10 kids because you sold it you know by um whatever you sold is what you made so if he would need another set of braces he would go all right that means i gotta sell four sets this week he would go on he would sell it and so just about every one of my family ended up being an entrepreneur because that was the only way you'd ever make the money that you would need to survive is if you could just work as much as you could to make whatever you needed. There were 10 kids.

10 kids. Third oldest. Third oldest? Yeah. And all my early movies that I made in the backyard with that VCR starred my siblings because they were all younger and they were all just sitting around watching TV anyway. Yeah. And they were all sort of precursors to Spy Kids.

They were like little action comedies with kids doing the action. So you didn't expect any great performance. So if they acted even half decent, it seemed amazing. And we'd win awards all the time. And one of them is online it's called bedhead that was the movie i made just before mariachi that made me realize it was an eight minute film cost me 800 bucks shot on film i was cutting in the camera and i thought god that won all these awards it's crazy i bet if i multiply that times 10 i could probably make an 80 minute movie

for eight thousand dollars if i shot it the same way no crew we mean the editing the camera you just wanted i would just i wouldn't shoot a lot of footage because those footages so you'd lay it out film narrowly lay it out i shot it pre-shot it on video got it and then i would just go get the shots i would need so i would say okay action they would start moving then i would start filming stop filming then call cut so that i wouldn't shoot beyond the takes that I needed. You shot it all on video first so you knew exactly how it fit together. Yeah. Is that something you brought to El Mariachi as well?

I didn't pre-shoot it on video, but that really helped that exercise, seeing how little I actually used, made me preserve even more the film. Yeah. Nobody cares now because now you shoot digital and you can just let it run and run. I'm like the opposite now. You just let it run because you want to capture a performance. But back then, that was your biggest expense.

Yeah, you had to make a movie like that for that little. You had to shoot almost like a, you know, a one-to-one ratio, 1.5 to one ratio. What'd you shoot it on? 16? 16 millimeter,

a little Ares 16S. Because I remember when that came out, it was like a monumental, it was like, this guy did this for nothing. Yeah. It was one of those things where i made it the reason it's even in spanish and it was it was for a spanish home video market i didn't want anybody to see it it was really a practice film because my short films were winning enough awards that i thought wow someone's gonna scout a festival yeah my short film and hire me to make a feature and i don't know how to make

a feature i've spent the past 10 years making short films right i gotta go practice but you you were that you were career aware enough to know that that was gonna happen that was gonna happen so i needed to get that practice till in a feature so i thought let me go make one in spanish for the spanish video market no one will see it no one will see it how many robert rodriguez's are there you know my friends later i can, hey, they like foreign films. I say, hey, I made a foreign film. It's over there in the Spanish section. So I thought, I'm going to go make a couple of these for no money.

Yeah. If I turn around, if I make it for $8,000 or $5,000, turn around and sell it for 20? Yeah. As a college kid, that was amazing. Who were you working with? This is a film school. It was just me and the guy who was in it. It was just my whole brainstorm.

I had a really solid plan. Make three of these things. Yeah This is a film school. It's just me and the guy who's in it. It was just my whole brainstorm. I had a really solid plan. Make three of these things, like a dollar trilogy. And then sell them, make the money, invest it in the next one and the next one to get my skills down and be the whole crew. So I would learn camera, sound, editing, everything all in one. It's like a film school that you get paid for. That was my brainstorm.

Right. It's funny because you still think like that I still think that way yeah but I would cut together the best parts yeah and show that as a demo reel but then take the money make a real independent American English language first film that was that point that was my plan is I'm gonna give up some practice films out of the way cuz it's been working good in the short film first film goes out Columbia Pictures gets it as a demo of my work from my agent sent it to him.

And they asked, this is great. What do you want to do? What stories do you have? I didn't have any stories. I thought I had another five years to think that through. And I panicked and said, well, I haven't really thought of anything yet. This all kind of happened very fast. I was only 22.

Yeah. Well, do you like mariachi? How about we just remake that with like Antonio Banderas or something in the lead? And they said, okay, okay, well, let's test it first. We want to show it to an audience because the ending might be a downer with a girl dying and all that. So we want to just check that out.

All right. So they screened it and it played great. They played it to a mostly Latin crowd. We went nuts for it. Oh, yeah. And they said, we're going to take this to the film festivals. Isn't that interesting though

that they could handle the ending? they loved it yeah i thought there was nothing wrong with it fit the story right so i thought um i told them don't show this movie i can do much better i mean the only reason it was that inexpensive because i thought no one was gonna say yeah i had to shoot because look if your biggest cost is film if you shoot even one more take of everything just in case yeah doubled your budget right so i only shot one take one take one take thinking okay i'll go back to texas i'll edit it the stuff that really didn't come out because it was out of focus or wasn't i'll come back and just shoot those pieces yeah all right you're very sure you ended up never

coming back and fixing it's like this is the first one i'm just gonna sell it see how much i can sell it for and then it went off and i told them don't show this movie please give me two thousand dollars i'll reshoot half of it just knowing people was going to watch it i would probably do a million things different i would have spent more for one and they said no no you don't know what you have it's very special and they took it to tell your ride play tell your ride took a toronto and they said um scout from you know the head of sundance came and said don't show it any more festivals and you can bring in and put it in competition at sundance one sundance right and and i was floored it was the movie i didn't want people to see but then i realized

what it was that it was made as pure as a film could be i mean no one makes a film with the intention of not showing it to anybody right i mean look at the title even at the action market they were selling it to if you went to the action video section of the spanish section there you wouldn't rent a movie called the guitar player that promises no action at all i just did that as a joke you know i thought i'm gonna just call it mariachi and if someone happens to get it they're gonna be blown away that it's got action right and that it's actually pretty cool yeah you know and that's how and that's how it started and then i realized when i when i they're going to be blown away that it's got action in it. Right. And that it's actually pretty cool. Yeah. And that's how it started.

And then I realized when I won at Sundance, what I'd said at the podium when I got the award was, you're going to get a lot more entries than this year. Because when people hear that this is the one that won, a movie made with no crew, no money, everyone was going to pick up a camera and go start shooting. And they've been flooded with entries since. That was like really the start of that that independent wave of the 90s right where people could then just go and do it themselves well when when you were growing but you had you gone to film school at all i i had

been making movies since i was 12 in that manner and when i tried to get into the film school i made that first short film bedhead the one that i went with a wide camera in film one yeah film the first film class right and that summer i went and made mariachi so i was done finished school yeah i was out of there before i learned it and what they would teach is how to do it the traditional way that you would do in hollywood but what i was applying was something that i created myself born out of having started on video because we're on video you don't need a crew it's got a automatic exposure it's got automatic sound you sound right right and i adopted that technique to shooting with a film camera and that's how i got on mariachi but when you were a kid i mean what what was like because

now you you have a vision you have a style but when you were starting out when el mariachi what what who were your primary influences which films were blowing your mind when you were a kid you know what was coming in well you know tonally that was like what the fuck my my um my mom used to take because there's so many of us used to take us to the revival theater we had a revival theater near us where they play double right triple features old classics that she grew up with i remember seeing a hitchcock double feature once that blew my mind i was like nine and yeah within three years i was making movies I started thinking which movie that it was spellbound and notorious yeah Salvador Dali sequence and spell down I thought I dreamt it you know it was just really got it in my head and it

was so cinematic and so you well crafted and you could tell it was intentionally put together more than anything else I had seen um and then i got off on things like uh you know sam raimi movies john carpenter movies guys that that came from the independent world where they were making genre films and creating their own worlds um but you like string budgets and doing multiple jobs that looked fun but you like you like suspense and horror yeah i like suspense for action and comedy yeah comedy I started as a cartoonist so I would put a lot of that and that's why all the movies are really linked by fantasy and humor right all kind of just funny yeah because I can't take it that seriously because I come from that comedic background well

mariachi was a little intense so at the end, wasn't it? Yeah, it's got jokes all the way through it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just watched it recently for the 20th anniversary of it. And it was funny to see it again on the big screen with like a full house, like 1,500 people. And yeah, the first few shots come up and I'm like, yeah, this looks like a movie made for $7,000. And then about two minutes into it, I'm starting to sweat going, oh my God, how the hell did we make this thing? It's, I don't know how, just willpower.

I mean, it's like nothing. It's held together with scotch tape, but story just wants to kind of happen. Right. And it propels you along and it's funny. It's funny. And everyone's kind of comedic. Yeah. And I think it's because you're throwing it away.

Right. I didn't think anyone would see it. You kind of were free to just do what jazzed you. Right. You're learning. You were just learning. And you're throwing it away. Right. I didn't think anyone would see it. You kind of were free to just do what jazz do. Right. You're learning. You're just learning. And so you throw it away and it ends up being

one of your best works because you're not putting anything precious about it. I remember we took it to Telluride and because it was subtitled and it was in Spanish, I think they added more

to its meaning than we intended. And you see some of the, you know, the older audience come out and go, oh, it was like an opera. Yeah.

It's like a grindhouse film in Spanish. But hey, And you see some of the older audience come out and go, oh, it was like an opera. It's like a grindhouse film in Spanish. But hey, the Telluride, they kind of saw it with those eyes. It really elevated the whole thing. Everyone's going to come to it with their own thing, you know? So how did you get the money to make that, though? That one was famously made for $7,000. And people would think that's so inexpensive. And it was like, when you're a college kid,

nobody's got that kind of money. I already had two jobs paying barely for rent and tuition. Yeah. From a huge family. I'm not going to get borrowing any money from any family members that I can assume. You have to like figure out a score you had to do. And there was UT Austin.

It was the biggest university in the country at the time there was a place called pharmaco yeah that would you could go sell your body to science for the weekend because they knew they needed college kids always need money yeah and you go check into there for the weekend and you turn you into a pin cushion and you get 500 bucks right they test all the latest pharmaceuticals that are going to come out it's like a fourth stage it's not like they're mixing a couple things up and giving it to us. This is like, in fact, the drug that I went in to test ended up being Lipitor. Oh, yeah?

So it was called X5-321 or whatever. So you had great cholesterol levels. Well, what's great is you're locked in there for a month. Yeah. And they feed you a really high cholesterol diet. So you had bacon. And you ate really well. And you're stuck in there.

Yeah. So you have to shit at a certain hour. You have to pee at a there yeah so you have to you know you have to shit it in a certain hour you have to pee at a certain hour you have to do everything they say but there's only one blood draw day so it wasn't that painful right and i could write the whole time i would just get on a night schedule and write i wrote the script while i was in there i met the bad guy who played the uh the character of moco he was in there saying you know what you look kind of like rudger howard and mix of j James Spader, Rudger Hauer. People will think I hired that guy.

I'm like, I hired you to be the bad guy. And we all had dreams of what we were going to do with our money when we got out. Ours was, you know,

we're going to go make this little Mexican action picture. And I made $3,000 that first visit, you know, while I wrote the script and then my star

of the film sold a piece of land and he put in the rest. And we went and shot it. Carlos Gallardo in the original mariachi. Yeah. And then we went and shot it. Are you guys still buddies yeah yeah very much and i can't believe you know how how far that that thing went well i i imagine that being 22 and being offered this opportunity like holy fuck now all of a sudden there's millions of dollars involved and i mean how did

you like make the adjustment it was um it helped I did a little movie for Showtime between that that gave Salma her first job because they didn't think she was right for the movie because she had never worked before in English. And I thought, I'm going to make her a calling card. I did a little movie for Showtime. It was only a 13-day shoot called Road Racers. And it's a great little movie, greaser movie.

You can get it on Netflix now. It was really a cable movie, but I shot it like a feature. I really wanted to test out a 35-millimeter camera shooting. You've never done it before. I've never done it before with a crew. I didn't know what they did. I didn't know what the crew even did. This is a gaffer.

I remember when I put the camera on my shoulder, and then a guy comes over and starts focusing for you. I go, you mean you focused for the guy in the camera? Oh my God, this is easy. When I was doing mariachi, I was having to focus, trying to focus through this thing and operate at the same time. It's impossible. Oh, this isn't so bad.

You have people to help you with everything. So, um, yeah, I shot that and then I went and did Desperado and it was really, I was just hell bent on and showing now what i could do with it with a medium and shown to myself because i hadn't really done something purposely for an audience to see and so i i loved john woo action movies but he shoots those for you know 200 days we had 30 like a 33 day schedule on desperado so i had to shoot really really fast and uh it was just exhilarating when you shoot fast and you don't have them much money was the lowest budget studio movie for sure yeah it was only a few million dollars um and which one went really far and because i went to that same border

town that i shot the original mariachi so i went further down there but really only got us about 30 34 days or something and um and it made money right it was about yeah it's one of their whenever they would have a new medium come out, whether it be DVD or Blu-ray, Desperado is the first title they put out because that audience, early adoptive audience, is going to get that movie. When did you meet Quentin?

I met him during the El Mariachi phase. We were both on the film festival circuit at the same time. Because he was Pulp Fiction? No, because he was with Reservoir Dogs. Oh, with Reservoir Dogs. Yeah, Reservoir Dogs. And we were having to uh do a lot of panels together defending our movies because of violence in the movie in the 90s even though it

was only 92 i don't know what it's called the panels discussions that but uh both our guy movies had guys dressed in black and they were violent in their action films you were taking a task for that i was just so they have something to talk about right we do a panel together and our movies with screen and their movies were popular there at the festivals. And I met him on some of those panels and we became fast friends. And he was like, I'm writing a script that you're really going to dig. It's called Pulp Fiction. And I went back to the Columbia Pictures lot to go work on Desperado.

And he had an office next to me. Originally, he was making Pulp Fiction for TriStar. Right. Because Danny DeVito had a deal there. Danny was a producer on it. had an office next to me originally he was making pulp fiction for tri-star right because danny devito had a deal there danny was a producer on it so we ended up writing together so i would come over and he would come in and read and act out sequences from pulp fiction i would come show him with all my storyboards for like desperado and um when he turned in the script they turned it down yeah they're like no it's too weird eight million dollars don't get it it's too long we'll go do the polyshore movie instead yeah and he went to miramax and it had just been bought by disney and so he made pulp fiction the way he wanted and it was you know awesome and both of you

guys have been able to maintain your sort of control and auteurship what's great about that place was that they were just starting as a studio and they'd been around for a while miramax but they didn't have really any money until they got bought by disney so now suddenly they had the backing of disney but the freedom to do whatever they wanted quentin was first with pulp fiction i came joined quickly after to um from dusk till dawn and i stayed there and they would adapt for us you know there was a horror genre arm called dimension that i would do my movies for with bob weinstein right. But if I said, you know what? These kids' films that I made always won awards.

I want to do one called Spy Kids. Do you think you could put that through your Dimension? I was like, sure, why not? We wouldn't make even a Spy Kids movie there. There was like no rules. It was a perfect combination of distributor and film. They must have loved you, though. I mean, for them it was,

I don't have a sense of the Weinstein's. I don't live in the film world, but they you know, they're sort of mythic figures. But it seems to me that if you're making money. If you're making the money, yeah. They're like, whatever you want to do, buddy. Yeah, since we were the first ones there. And then to entice us there, we were given, you know, final cut. And we had all kinds of freedom to know what a filmmaker really had after that,

which is where the problems for any filmmaker usually complains. it's because they don't have final say on their movies but we did yeah so we got to kind of do whatever we wanted there it was a great place to work and was the the impulse to do spy kids you like kids i guess i just grew up that way i mean there's 10 10 of us and then i had five i didn't have kids at the time when i wrote it but by the time i was making it i had three already really yeah they're in there as stunt kids because when you're making an action film with kids they don't really have stunt kids they used to use you know like little people so it was either my stunt coordinator and me we both had kids we put our kids in there and they would get banged around there's never no backlash on that no back then i couldn't complain it's like hey this is a family business

you know if we had a restaurant you'd be pushing the broom and taking the orders. But, you know, it's a film business, so you got to go take a hit for the team. So 10 kids. So you were brought up pretty Catholic? Yeah, very Catholic, yeah. Mexican family. Yeah, so definitely it's about as many kids as God gives you, that's how many you should have. Yeah.

You never questioned it. I never thought it was that many kids. Yeah. Because you knew them all by their first name so people would come over i had a friend who is an only child and he came in and he literally said how can you stand the noise and i was like what noise i had listened with his ears for a few minutes and i realized yeah i guess it is pretty noisy here you totally block it out it's just how it's like oh my god this must be so loud to this guy yeah that's that's just how this house sounds is you didn't know any different so like you must have like dozens of nieces and nephews at this point there's so many there's so many of us and you know them all they've all got great personalities very distinct that you

seem to be sort of fascinated at the fact that you know your siblings you know you would think you would lose track right and you don't there's so many and you know them all yeah they've all very they've made themselves very distinct are any of your siblings in show business um my oldest sister angela started went to new york to be an actress she actually is in desperado and a couple of my things um and then i have a younger brother and a younger sister who write also write and do cinematography they all kind of man they're musicians everyone kind of is in the creative art somehow even if they're a pharmacist or something they have an art side to them are they all still in texas yeah most of them really my sister's still still in new york but the rest are in texas what what is exactly the the grindhouse genre i mean

how what are the the movies of that genre that define it the older ones when you say a grindhouse genre i mean how what are the the movies of that genre that define it the older ones when you say a grindhouse movie a grindhouse man it was a theater the it was a name for a theater that would just like grind the movies that they would have double and triple features and so like the one you went to when you were a kid yeah when you see you'd seen it okay the prints are damaged and it's like the that same print's been traveling the country right right and they didn't make very many of them the prints and uh were they primarily b movies some of them were b movies yeah some of our b movies or genre films and uh lurid subject matter a lot of times because that's the only way to attract an audience with

such a low budget right but a lot of times too they'd be very timely so like if some thing was happening in the country they'd go make a movie about it right away to exploit it it's like corman exploitation would come from was it corman type corman types yeah new world picture yes or you know a number of a lot of horror movies and riffs on other movies that were popular yeah yeah that's why when i did machete it was like the first me exploitation movie i think i even called mariachi that i would call it me exploitation um but when quentin and i quentin would show me a bunch of movies in his theater he had a you know a home theater and and even before he had a theater he would string up movies like bird reynolds and white lightning and we'd check out these movies

and it was such a fun experience sitting there hearing him talk about them put them together he would put trailers in between them and show me like a double feature sometimes we'd watch a triple feature of some movie that I had never seen before Yeah Me on to and his prints were damaged and that became part of the patina of the film sure I remember one time he showed me an amazing print. I went home cuz I said I think I have that blu-ray I went home and put it on and it was so clean. I was like, oh I it took away from the experience What moved it was a it was think was a good the bad and the ugly Yeah, his print I loved, it was, I think it was The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Yeah, yeah. His print was so damaged, it added a patina to it that it was the best screen I'd ever had of it. And I'd seen it before. I went back and watched it again. And I don't like Quentin's print. Right. I want to get a copy of his print.

Because it's washed out from age and beat up. And that's when I came up with the idea, like, we should do a double feature. Yeah. You know, like two short features with trailers, fake trailers in between, and we'll mash it up and grind it up so it looks like one of those, because, you know, theater-going experiences are going down. We've got to do this one last stab

at a theatrical experience where you can only see it in the theater. Yeah. And he went, oh, we've got to call it Grey House. We've got to call it Grey House. And it works, right? And we put it together, and it was so funny. It got great reviews,

but most people didn't see it in the theater because it would just seem like too long of a night of movies. But it was one of our favorite failures because people to this day still really love that film. And it was a great experience. What did you take from seeing those movies? Because they do inform your tone and pacing, some of the style of those movies. What is it specifically about those films? Economical.

They're economical in every sense in that they don't have very much money. They got to get to the point. It's an economy of process and story. So the story just comes at you really quickly. And it's got to grab you by the nuts because it doesn't have time to sit around. They just don't have the money for it. So that immediacy and urgency that you would get from that um it's a rush it's the rush it's the same as if you know we got to record this band with just these four tracks and we got

to do it now as opposed to let's go spend two months in the in the recording studio you know one's going to have a life to it and the other one's going to feel a little sedated but when you guys shot grindhouse you had a little more money and time than that didn't you we had more money and time than the guys that originally did it but we pushed i mean i pushed myself to go as fast as possible because um i just learned that from the early films yeah when you have less time and less money you're forced to be more creative and that's the thing someone's going to come up to you constantly and says i love in the movie when this happens yeah and it's like oh that's because the flight had blown out and we had to and we had to rig this other thing and so and that's always the thing that they're attracted to the mistakes so you want to set it up in a way where you're constantly making mistakes in a good way because there's an

authenticity to that right there's so how'd your relationship with Danny Trejo unfold? I worked with him. He was on my TV show. Oh, he's the best. Dude, it was hilarious. We had a lot of dialogue, and we had cue cards everywhere, so he could wrangle it. And at some point, we're sitting in a car, and there's literally cue cards on the dashboard.

And he goes, there's so many words, man. They hire me for my face. There's more words than all five years of movies I've done that guy's hilarious he's great he called me from

Dallas one time he said hey I'm working on a movie here with Mickey Rourke and I was like ah cool what's it called man I work

he doesn't know what movie's on he's like he goes where they tell him he's just like he shows up in everything. He's in over 200 movies. But even his mom would call him Machete.

That became his definitive character. And when I met him on Desperado, he walked in. I was looking for a guy that would be the silent killer with the knives that he'd spin in his hand and throw. It was a very visual idea I had. And I saw his photo. I went, ooh, this guy looks cool. He walks in. And I just handed him the knife. He got the part without having to saw his photo. And, ooh, this guy looks cool. He walks in. Yeah.

And I just handed him the knife. He got the part without having to say anything. I said, here, start practicing. Yeah. And he walked back out. And I said, that's the guy. That face on that guy. Right.

And he came down. And then you meet what a cool guy, sweet guy he is. Oh, yeah. For sure I'm not going to give any dialogue. Yeah. Because he'll open his mouth and he'll spoil it. Right. He looks so menacing.

Right. No words. A sweet, deep dude. Hey, put me in, coach. Put me in, coach. Give me a line, me in coach give me a line coach yeah no no no no daniel talk i finally let him talk and dust till dawn because it was funny to hear him talk and you see what a sweet guy is yeah but um and even on the set of desperado what it was interesting is uh antonio was the star of the film right but he was from european you know sure film so the mexican crowd they didn't know who he was so they see a camera on the street and two actors in costume they all gravitated to danny trajo they thought this guy must be the star

right there's cameras it's got to be this guy yeah he had a star quality yeah then that i took note of and i pulled him aside and i said i've got a character i'm working on called machete this was in 1994 yeah and i want you to play him someday yeah so that was like 20 years in advance really and we I kept putting him in movie after movie where'd you meet him

10 or 11 movies you just met him in casting for Desperado really because like we shot around here and man

you can't walk down the street with him yeah people would come out of windows machete and they call him machete yeah he's been in over 200 movies but he'll go from now on

he's machete well he loves it oh he loves it yeah so it's so that's how definitive that character was for him and that he was the lead and the star and he you know when i met him he had just worked in heat where you know deniro puts a bullet in his head he's one of his guys by the time we finished with him he's a machete deniro's his co-star. So it's really cool to see his evolution as an actor, as a star, as a personality, as an iconic image. Well, what do you think? I'm not harping on this, but it seems to me that there is a different audience in the Latino community. They appeal to him differently in a way. It's almost like a superhero. It's like a Latino superhero. Totally. to him differently. Right. In a way. You know, it's almost like a superhero.

It's like a Latino superhero. Totally. That was the idea is I wanted to see a Mexican superhero. I wanted to see like a James Bond but he was Mexican.

Right. I wanted people to, when I would walk out of a John Woo movie, you know, in college, I'd come out and I would say,

I want to be the Chinese guy. Yeah. It had nothing to do with race. It had to do with this is a heroic killer character. Yeah. This guy's awesome. I want to be the chinese guy yeah had nothing to do with race had to write but this is a heroic killer right character yeah this guy's awesome i want to be this guy i want to model myself after this person so i wanted to do that for hispanic audiences give them heroes

like the spy kids or machete as funny as that danny's actually in spy kids as machete before we did machete he's called uncle machete so he's in this weird double world where he's in a kid friendly film his machete and then he's in the r-rated machete so he's in this weird double world where he's in a kid-friendly film his machete and then he's in the r-rated machete world um there's just not enough machete to go around but um well you can create you've created this whole universe the whole universe across poland yeah it's it was really exciting just to see him step into that and put him in movie after movie to build up sort of his recognizability in these films so that we could finally get around and it was helping happen in the most organic way when we did grindhouse we

wanted to do those fake trailers yeah i thought well you know let's do a fake trailer for that movie we always talked about since desperado i never did let's do at least get it out of our system let's do a machete trailer yeah that was amazing awesome yeah shot the trailer yeah and people loved it so much they would chase us down all the time danny too like when's that movie coming out so five years like five years later we went and made a movie yeah and i used every shot that i had in that trailer yeah i worked it in somehow yeah because i just made that part of the creative process like i'm gonna force myself to figure out how to reverse engineer this movie. Honor the trailer.

Utilize every shot of that thing. And that's hilarious. So you made good on it. Made good on it, yeah. The trailer was the thing, but then when he had to make the movie, you're like, you got to honor the trailer. You got to honor the trailer. Yeah. How bizarre is that? Yeah.

And how did, with Sin City, you know, I actually, I know I make it about me sometimes, but I auditioned for the second Sin City. Yeah. I was trying to remember which part you were going to play. The rich guy. That was, we ended up using, you're actually a really terrific actor for that role. Yeah. I didn't feel too hurt.

Yeah. It wasn't too bad. You've got to find something. It wouldn't have been the right fit for you. It wouldn't have taken advantage of what you can do the way I would like to do with somebody if I bring him in. So what was the relationship with Miller on those things? What made you make those movies? I was a huge fan of his books in the city.

I would collect it since it came out in 92. So I was collecting it for 10 years straight. And it was one of those that I would go into the comic book store and I would look for a couple things and I would look for a nuisance city I wouldn't be one I would buy a collection I'd go home and go I've already got three copies yeah and I never put together that I should make a film of it because you'd have to do it visually like the book which wasn't possible but then in 2003 I did spike it's 3d which is the first like big green screen yeah movie and I looked at the books again I thought oh my god I know how to do this now if I do it on a green screen I can make it

look like the book so I did a little test looked crazy so I took it to Frank Miller met him showed it to him and we're shooting it within three months it was the fastest any movie had ever come together because his books he had already drawn him he'd already written him so I just shot out of the book just honor the storyboard on the So I just shot out of the book. Just honor the storyboards. Honor the story. I just wanted to see this book's move. I knew him so well. I thought, man, this is, it's visual storytelling in a way that no one tells in movies,

but it's being done on paper. Why don't we just make the paper move? If we do that, I think we'll have something that's really unique. It should still work. Instead of adapting it to a movie, let's take the movies and technology and adapt it to his book.

So it was fun. It made him come direct with me. Because he knew it. Yeah, and that was like the first that it actually worked in the way that like, because you remember Dick Tracy, you know, with Warren Beatty, that they tried to do it with colors

and with sets and with, you know, sort of prosthetics, but it still didn't feel like the comic. I mean, it's a different comic it's a different kind of comic this one is so distinct in its visual style even on paper in black and white when you saw it it just didn't look like film right because when you would look even at the comic book it didn't even look like a comic book it looked like something else completely he just was and it made you um realize how little information the brain needs to recognize

a human face or an object it was stripped down to just its bare minimum well that's the amazing thing about graphic novels is like you don't know why it's a magic that they're so compelling yeah you know because if you've got the brain for locking into them you don't even think about it but you're way in it yeah and for me the whole thing was because i started as a cartoonist i thought i i don't see the difference i really think visual storytelling is the same whatever medium you're in so traditionally hollywood take that book and go oh this is an amazing book now let's go turn it into a movie let's strip it all down right let's let's put it into the norm of what a film would be like right instead of embracing

it for what it was so that's what the flip was about and it was um actors came aboard they wanted to be in something that was that true to the art form and we had a killer cast and it would that was a one where I was like and most of these are like that you know grindhouse was the same way since they do same way where you go I don't know if anyone's gonna come see this yeah you know but you don't really care you're making it not very expensively it's like don't stuff discover later on blu-ray or DVD that's fine for me i just really feel like i have to make this film and sin city for sure no one's going to show up and they're going to see the trailer they're okay what is black and white

it's an anthology it's all voiceover all three things you're not supposed to do right off the bat and it was a big success yeah it was really uh it was really cool when that happened and no one had ever seen anything like it no one had seen anything like it yeah so when you started doing this green green screen stuff so you were a pioneer in that as well well because um and i learned this from i knew george lucas and um he had said the same thing he said uh it's a good thing you're in austin stay in austin that's why i'm in moran county when you live outside of the box yeah just automatically and i think outside of the box you're going to just stumble upon right innovations and you'll rethink everything and i was down there going why are we shooting on film anymore they start shooting digital yeah when george showed me those first digital cameras i went

man i'm gonna shoot digital you went out what he's from 2001 he had you over digital i was there using his mix stage until around 2001 by 2002 i had put in my own mix stage in my garage i still mix all my movies in your garage. In your garage? Yeah, that's why I love that we're in your house. I do everything from my house. I mean, right there, do the editing there. I do the scores for the film. It's better, right?

Oh, it's the best. You cook, too, right? Yeah, it's being creative all the time. There's no separation of work and play. So he turns you on to the digital camera. He turns me on to the digital camera. And I started just putting it through the paces to see what it could do. And right away, I thought, wow, we could shoot on green screen you know what i bet we could do 3d and i did the

first digital 3d movie was actually spy kids 3d that was the first that started that whole 3d really yeah it was the biggest of the spike but there was no part of you because i've taught who i talked to the other day vince gilligan you know there's no you know given your sort of, uh, respect for, for film, you know, even in watching, you know, Quentin's, you know, uh,

his, uh, his cut of, uh, of the good, the bad and the ugly. There was no weird sort of like, the film is like to be a slave to tradition.

That's the worst thing that can happen is that when you start confusing the meat, the, you know, the technique or the medium or the art form, medium is not the art form. Right. Filmmaking storytelling visually is the manipulation of images right whether you use film or video or paper right it shouldn't really matter what you're using but you don't want to be

slave to one of them right especially when it's really holding you back from being able to create stuff that you would never see before right like digital 3d or sin city yeah those will not be possible the other way right so you're automatically stepping into a whole nother world that you want to get into and if i wanted to make i wanted to make grindhouse look like an old film i didn't go shoot on a film camera yeah i shot it on digital and i put so much distress and grain and splices that it looks like film quentin said no no i'm gonna shoot mine my story'm going to go and shoot on film. I said, okay, you can, but I tell you,

mine's going to look more like film than yours. As much as he tried to scratch it, go look at him. This looks like it's a digital compared to mine. Mine looks like an old film print, and it was shot on digital. Because you can put all that in a post. Yeah, I have to shoot it with the thing. And it made it more economical to shoot.

It was faster to shoot. You could try more things every shot could be a digital shot at that point um so it definitely freed you up a lot yeah yeah yeah and and and so you don't you don't have any desire to shoot out film anymore um because you don't see a point necessarily yeah you make it look like film yeah i don't really you don't get you don't get you don't get hung up on the difference between pixels and grain. People don't realize that's a technology, too. I mean, it doesn't grow on trees.

You know why it's more organic? It doesn't grow on trees. It's a technology. It's just such an old technology. You start to think that it's organic. It's nostalgic. It's more nostalgic, and it's more amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You really could get beyond that. And you could push. You get the digital cameras to look better and better, where the film cameras, they're not going to get beyond that. And you could push. You could get the digital cameras to look better and better, but the film cameras, they're not going to get any better. The film stocks weren't any good anymore. The processing was terrible. It was just not being done well anymore. But I guess another question then is,

given the option to just let a camera run, the intensity that originally defined your style, which was economy, is not necessary. So doesn't that add time onto the other side of it if you're shooting for hours to find that one bit? No, I mean, you still know where it is. I mean, I'm very much, I don't even shoot, I'll shoot one take, but it'll be a long take

with little mini takes within it. You may go through the dialogue four or five times within that take. And the microphone comes up to me when I'm, before I call cut. I say, I like the first part of take two and the third part of this. And then when I'm editing, oh, they actually, the assistant editor listens to that and he marks all of it. Yeah. And, um, and they have it clipped as if I had cut it.

Right. You know, but what happens in when you've got a big crew is that when you call cut, suddenly the hair people come in the makeup people come in the whole thing kind of dies in its energy so the reason you want to keep rolling is to keep the intensity it's different it's different right when you're by yourself and no one's gonna come in and disturb the set cutting would help preserve right city it's the opposite once you got a bunch of people in there oh and they want to keep them all out of the frame. It's like, no, no, we'll just keep rolling.

Right, so it's not picking at hair. They're coming in and they're doing things that they think are important and you just suck the energy out of the room. Then you've got to start over. It's almost like you start over each take where this is like, let's just run through, we'll get there faster. The relationship with you and Frank in terms of the co-directing thing, what's the story behind that?

I really felt Frank was a co-director already. I mean, he was already... Because he did all the artwork. Did the artwork, and he was directing his paper actors. Get amazing performances out of them. So man, I started as a cartoonist. I'm telling you, it's the same thing.

You sit in there drawing, it's going to feel the same when you're on the set, except those characters are now going to come to ask you questions about their motivation. You're going to die and go to heaven. It's the best feeling in the world. Come with me. Do you want to direct any of them?

He says, I always thought about maybe trying to direct Big Fat Kills. Oh, come do all of them with me. You're the one who's been to Sin City. I'm just going to be copying your stuff. You should be right there. I want to get it right. I'm calling it Frank Miller's Sin City for a reason. It's not Robert Rodriguez's Sin City.

Come direct it with me. So we're like all gone oh we're having so much fun it's great having a collaborator like that yeah some of you were so like brothers right away we just got along so great and yeah a week before shooting the directors guild comes you know you can't have two directors on a movie like really what are you talking about yeah it's against the rules I'm like I see two directors all the time. Yeah. I see two directors all the time, really.

Oh, no, no. They were a director. They were a group before they joined the DJ, where they worked together once. Right. If one of you produces and the other one directs this movie, the next film you can direct, co-direct together, because then you would have had a directing relationship.

Who makes this stuff up? Right. Are you serious? Yeah. So one of us was not going to be had a directing relationship. Who makes this stuff up? Right. Are you serious? Yeah. So one of us was not going to be able to direct it. Oh, and in name. Yeah. They said you can direct, you can both direct if you want, but only one of them, and it's,

they're trying to preserve the, that there's only one director on the movie. Because some of the other guilds, you know, writers and producers, there's always like 20. Yeah. Oh yeah. 20 names. By committee. So they, so you can understand why they want to like not have, you know, 50 directors.

Right. And also because what if, you know, there's say like a Harvey Weinstein who goes to one of the filmmakers and goes, I'll make your movie, but you've got to make me a co-director. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's to protect against stuff like that. Sure.

And so I can understand, but that's clearly not what the case was. But so I had to basically just leave because I asked Frank, I said, Frank, how about you direct and I produce? Yeah. Because that doesn't seem very fair. Yeah. So what would you do? He goes, well, my tombstone's going to say, just not play well with other kids. I said, oh, same here.

Okay, I'll quit. So I left the guild and then. And what happens when you leave the guild? Well, you know, there's all kinds of repercussions. You don't get a lot of residuals and money, like profits and stuff that normally would go through the guild and then come to you. It's kind of how that keeps you.

So you're still out? Still out. And then you won't get an award ever because that's the ones that nominate you. The DGA awards, yeah, right. Well, even again. Oh, really? Not that I'm down that track anyway.

It's not like I was like, okay, now I won't get the nod. I didn't have that coming anytime in my future. So that was easy to give up. But, um, uh, I totally, you know, just wanted to support the artist and I, and I kept it quiet, but some of them must have leaked it to the press cause it was out in the press that I had left in it. And, uh, and it just turned out badly for me.

I, they got bad press cause of that. Cause people sided with the support in the artist and it was great for us because all the actors suddenly wanted to be part of this movie that was like really true to art actors love that stuff yeah yeah they want to be part of this is the real deal oh yeah i'm going there put me on a plane i'm going to that set and it was uh it was really exciting so wait when you say that though when you say like you're not the kind of guy that's going to get a nod or going to win awards and stuff, I mean, do you really feel that way? I mean, you know. Well, I mean, I'm not, that's not, I'm not seeking out those kinds of films.

Right. Well, you never know. But, I mean, it wouldn't really matter. I mean, I'm not, why I do what I do is always because of the fulfillment you get in working with creative people. Yeah. And that's the best thing, you know. And I've gotten awards awards i mean i i got so many awards for el mariachi i felt like that's it i'm done i don't have to i don't have to seek the award thing anymore yeah i can just go have fun make movies and do cool stuff do you have a do you do you find do you is there a

competitive spirit to fighting the the studio system i mean mean, do you enjoy that maverick sort of renegade role of like, you know, fuck you, I just made this movie and look how good it did. Oh, you know what? It's very satisfying when a movie that's not done in a studio does well. Right. It's rare, it's hard.

Right. Because a studio's got a lot of places. A lot of juice. A lot of juice. I mean, like the way I had to buy every ad that went out. Where if you're Fox, you can promote it on your television series. And you can do all kinds of ways to get the word out. Right.

So you're really at a disadvantage when you're an independent. So when you have any kind of success, it's an amazing success. And it feels really good. But mainly what I do is not i mean not anything against studios at all it's just that and i learned this from george lucas i mean he you know he tried to make flash gordon but he couldn't get the rights yeah so he wrote star wars instead right so i always kind of adopted that philosophy of a studio had a film that seemed like it might be interesting and they wanted me to direct it well i don't really want to go be a director for hire because i'm working

for them it's their property yeah how could i make it they get all the benefit i'd rather go spend the time inventing my own series right you know like the desperado series or the spy kid series or the machete series or the sin city movies you know very few filmmakers actually make that many franchises right their own it's because i stayed out of the studio system that came up with that because you had to you had to just create your own properties which is a lot more gratifying so it's more about the gratification and it's your own business and you have control and you just have the control and i don't need that much money to make it obviously if i made mariachi being my first movie really taught me a lot i'd rather have less movie and more less money and more freedom than more money

and they're suddenly as they should be panicking about how they're going to get the money back saying no you have to cast this person you have to do this right it has to end like this the girl can't die yeah yeah the guy's gotta you know be the hero by the end you know you can go against all that because you're just doing what feels right for the movie because you're not spending very much and if it's successful it's a great success if it's not it didn't cost very much you get your money back eventually anyway right win-win situation so now like but now like you do like you have a you're producing a lot like you know you have you you're overseeing a network right and and now yeah i would imagine that your your role as producer is is is out it's surpassing your directing almost let me think yeah

i guess you could say that, sort of. I mean, like, we're doing The Dust Till Dawns, but last year- You're directing all those? No, out of the 10 episodes, I directed four of them, which is a lot in a season for a David director. Sure. Who's also running the network. It was a lot of work.

This year, I directed two of them. I mean, I did the premiere episode and then the season finale, which is bonkers. And brought in a lot of filmmakers. I'm trying to cultivate new voices and new talent, so I'm not taking as many slots. What are these short teaching videos you do? Oh, my DVDs.

I would do these 10-minute film schools showing how I made the movie, but in 10 minutes. I know people didn't have a long time to see a big making of, and it would show you just all the innovations that happened on that movie, so you could go do it too. Where can you get those? Those are probably all on YouTube now.

They're usually on the DVDs. And then I started adding a cooking, 10 minute cooking skills because so many of my movies had recipes in them or food that were being featured. So many people have come up

and said, I want you to try how to make breakfast tacos and homemade tortillas from Sin City breakfast tacos. And it's really good people love food man love well because i realized that i would give this little 10 minute talk on how to make a movie but anyone watching their living room's not going to go make a movie the

next day yeah but they can go in their kitchen and cook that thing you just showed them did you grow up with food all the time cooking well my dad sold cookware yeah we could we cooked every meal we'll have to know how to cook and um and. And I love it. It's art you can eat. And you talked a lot about cartooning. Like, how much was that type of stuff, you know, the printed stuff, like how much effect as a young person did that have on you? Were you consumed with comics or art in that way? Art in that way.

I mean, I loved music. I loved making movies. I didn't know what I was going to do. I loved photography. I kind of picked filmmaking it was it was a neck and neck between cartooning professionally and and filmmaking because i had a daily cartoon strip at the ut paper the same one that chris ware came out of he's yeah surprise winning i love that guy that's great billy what the yeah billy corgan he um most of the stuff that he first put out was actually his college work that's how good it was yeah um it's so funny because you remind me

more of s clay wilson like your movies are like that's s clay wilson man so yeah i mean i i would uh i picked filmmaking because it kind of would all my favorite hobbies would fit under it like i could do the music i could do the photography i could do the writing i could do the storyboard it kind of was a an umbrella over all my favorite hobbies where cartooning would have just been drawing but um being able to visualize something the best thing about drawing or even painting yeah especially drawing is you take a blank piece of paper put it down right in 10 minutes you'll have something that doesn't exist before yeah immediately you've been able to create something that quickly it's gratifying and that could turn into like my friend kevin eastman he sat down he drew something one night laughed and

went the next morning teenage mutant ninja turtles wait that's kind of i think that's got a ring to it you know you can literally create yeah a world massive property yeah from a pen and a paper that's still so addictive to me i've been getting back a lot into drawing because one of my kids wants to do that yeah come up with stories visually like that right i said that's smart because it's you don't need any money yeah you know pen and paper yeah and it's all it comes down to having a great idea just keep knocking those out you'll come across you know crank out 100 of those you're gonna have 10 great freaking how old is he he's 18 world by the. He doesn't even know it. Yeah, yeah. You think about that, you go, man, if I could go back and do what I know now, oh, man.

What do you mean? It sounds like you did all right. I guess I did okay, but I didn't know what he knows. I think it's what's interesting, though, about you, unlike some of the guys I talked about, I don't talk to a lot of directors, but there is a very specific work ethic around owning your own shit and making a living, which I think you learned as a kid. Like this entrepreneurial spirit of this idea that this is a product. Yeah. And I think it's very much in the blood, you know, because my dad was like that.

All my brothers were like that. They all owned their own businesses, whether it's an insurance company or a pharmacy or real estate. No one could really work for someone else I think there's just something the personality that was in the gene pool that I don't want to work for you I rather work for myself right and you have a chance to be more successful like that I used to go as a kid see my dad's an entrepreneur magazine yeah laying around and look at those and go wow this guy put video game you know consoles in a truck and drove it to malls and put video game, you know, consoles in a truck and drove

it to malls and made money that way. You know, just seeing how people innovate their own job. Right. And I, and I point that out to my kids. I go, look how busy I am. I'm so busy all the time and I'm not working for anyone. All these jobs that I'm doing are ones I've created for myself. I've created my own nightmare in a way, in a good way i mean you're keeping yourself so busy does it register with them it does they get it and they want to do that they want to build that for themselves where you innovate your own your own job and you create your own path it's a very powerful thing to learn at a young age you know yeah i think it is thanks for talking to me man absolutely man that was great he's intense robert rodriguez is intense and i don't even know where he had the

time to sit down for an hour to talk to me to be quite honest with you i'm glad he did uh what else go to wtfpod.com for all your wtf pod needs check the schedule get on the mailing list all the posters are up with artists attributed so you can buy those posters sorry the books are gone now you can listen to the podcast there still as well okay all right and yeah do it do what you got to do man i yeah okay let me just tell you when i was in high school my best friend's name was david bishop dave bishop was a great guy. His dad owned a stereo store and he liked cars, but he's passed away. And when we were in high school, he was sort of this, he was sort of a guitar prodigy and he just didn't have the confidence to own it. Like he could effortlessly play beautiful things on a guitar. And he'd been playing since he was a kid, and he had just sort of a completely natural knack for it. And when we were in high school, you know, I've never been a great player, and I certainly wasn't much of one then.

But we used to play together. We had a band, and I think the band knew three songs, and we played out once or twice the three songs. But Dave had this black Les Paul custom, um i just thought it was like just a professional guitar it was not a guitar that i could have and when i did this thing for gibson and and instead of paying you know they they offered the possibility of getting one i asked for a black westpaw custom and now i have one and i and i think about Dave, and I think that I'm not worthy of it, but I have one. And now I have it for you through the champ, through the little fucking monster. Boomer lives! You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything.

So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth

at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com.