Video:Robert Rodriguez Interview - Shorts
with Rebecca MurrayRobert Rodriguez returns to family-friendly fare with 'Shorts,' a PG film based on an idea his son, Rebel, came up with. 'Shorts' isn't the first film dreamed up by one of his kids, and Rodriguez talked about that and more on the red carpet.See Transcript
Transcript:Robert Rodriguez Interview - Shorts
Rebecca Murray from About.com Hollywood Movies at the premiere of Warner Bros Pictures' Shorts.
Shorts Writer/Director/Producer Robert Rodriguez
You're so good with kids. I know you have kids yourself...
Robert Rodriguez: "I'm from a family of 10 myself. I don't know it any other way. I was the third oldest in a family of 10 and I've got five of my own."
So you have to be good with them.
Robert Rodriguez: "I wouldn't imagine my life without kids. I think that's why I got married so young. When I left to go to college, it was suddenly so quiet. It's like, 'What the hell is going on?' It was just so quiet, it was creepy. I felt like I was in an insane asylum."
So your kid came up with this one.
Robert Rodriguez: "My third son came up with this."
What are you doing to your children that they can up with these ideas? This is great that they can do this.
Robert Rodriguez: "They just came up to me. They're creative all the time. They're always being creative. We can make up our own games, so it's just sort of a natural extensive. He actually just got jealous of my other son coming up with Shark Boy and getting the press. After the press junket he was like, 'Okay, I'm coming up with the next one.' He was six at the time. I said, 'Okay. Well, I'm all out of ideas right now. We just finished one. What do you got?' He said, 'Something like The Little Rascals.' He came up with the Rainbow Rock and the crocodile. He really got me going. For years we'd sit around at dinner time coming up with more ideas and building it slowly. And here it is."
Does it help your imagination too, to have them feeding into you like that?
Robert Rodriguez: "Totally, because you forget what it's like to be a child who needs empowerment. That's their biggest wish fulfillment is empowerment, and you've kind of already got that as a grown up. You forget that you want a wishing rock or that you want a jet pack to fly around as a spy kid or be half boy/half shark. That's something only a kid would come up with."
Is it easy for you to go back and forth between the adult ones and the kid films?
Robert Rodriguez: "Well, when I'm doing the adult films, you get drawn by the kid films. Because really, that's what you live and breathe. They're all around you. So you've got to end up...all those ideas you end up coming up with, you've got to put them somewhere so you have to make your family films."
How do you make this so that it's not just for kids, that adults are going to like it too?
Robert Rodriguez: "Well I've been doing that since the Spy Kids movies. I know parents have to take their kids, otherwise kids would just go by themselves and I wouldn't have to worry about that. If they could drive or had their jet packs, we'd be fine. But you want to include it so that the family feels good about it when they're driving home - there's something for everybody."
And Machete?
Robert Rodriguez: "And Machete..."
That's coming up?
Robert Rodriguez: "Yeah."
That trailer was awesome so what are you going to do with the movie?
Robert Rodriguez: "Just keep going. We're shooting right now."