Robert Rodriguez was born in San Antonio, Texas, on June 20, 1968, into a family of ten kids. One day, his dad brought home a VCR/camera combo, and the rest is history. His large family came in handy when Rodriguez needed actors, and actresses, for the amateur videos he shot and directed. After high school, his goal was to enter the film program at the University of Texas at Austin, but his grades weren’t good enough. He developed a comic strip, “Los Hooligans” that was based on his siblings. The strip was picked up by a local paper and ran for three years.
In the fall of 1990, Rodriguez entered a local film contest with his 16mm short Bedhead. It was about a young girl’s attempt to tame her brother’s tangled mess of hair. The film got him into UT’s film school, despite his poor grades. He funded his next project by being a human guinea pig at a local medical research lab. For only $7,000, he shot El Mariachi, and planned to sell it to the Spanish speaking video market. Rodriguez luckily signed on with a powerful agent at ICM, which led to Columbia Pictures buying the rights to the movie. Columbia signed him to a two-year writing and directing deal. El Mariachi wowed audiences at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival and won the coveted Audience Award. He even wrote a book about his experience of working on a low budget film, called Rebel Without a Crew.
Rodriguez’s next project was a sequel to El Mariachi called Desperado. This time around, he had the attention of Hollywood and attracted Antonio Banderas to star in the project. The film introduced Salma Hayek to American audiences. He then collaborated with Quentin Tarantino on a vampire flick, From Dusk till Dawn in 1996. This was followed by a collaborative effort with Kevin Williamson on the sci-fi film, The Faculty.
Rodriguez had his first “hit” by Hollywood standards, Spy Kids, a film for children that spawned a trilogy. In 2003, he made his third “mariachi” film, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, again starring Banderas. In 2005, Rodriguez adapted Frank Miller’s graphic novels for the screen with Sin City. He insisted that Miller receive credit as co-director, but the DGA refused to recognize his efforts. Rodriguez decided to resign from the DGA in protest, which resulted in the loss of his next directorial assignment, John Carter of Mars.
Rodriguez’s seven-year-old son, Racer, shared writing credits with his dad in 2005’s The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl. The movie featured 3-D effects and gave Rodriguez another financial success.
Rodriguez is currently developing numerous projects including a Sin City 2 and Sin City 3. Eventually, he hopes to adapt all of Miller’s works. Sin City was viewed as a break-through film in terms of it cutting edge technology utilizing green screen in a realistic and audience-pleasing manner. Film critic Roger Ebert dubbed it “comic book on steroids.” He is an inspiration to many future filmmakers and continues to encourage novices with his series of “Ten Minute Film School” features that explain the basics of moviemaking, digital cameras, cheap special features, etc.
Filmography
- Sin City 2 (2010) (pre-production) | IMDB / Wikipedia
- Machete (2008) (V) (in production) | IMDB / Wikipedia
- Shorts (2009) (post-production) | IMDB
- Grindhouse (2007) (segment “Planet Terror”) (fake trailer segment “Machete”) | IMDB / Wikipedia / Amazon
- The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005) | IMDB / Wikipedia / Amazon
- Sin City (2005) | IMDB / Wikipedia / Amazon
- Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) | IMDB / Wikipedia / Amazon
- Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003) | IMDB / Wikipedia / Amazon
- Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams (2002) | IMDB / Wikipedia / Amazon
- Spy Kids (2001) | IMDB / Wikipedia / Amazon
- The Faculty (1998) | IMDB / Wikipedia / Amazon
- From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) | IMDB / Wikipedia / Amazon
- Four Rooms (1995) (segment “The Misbehavers”) | IMDB / Wikipedia / Amazon
- Desperado (1995) | IMDB / Wikipedia / Amazon
- Mariachi, El (1992) | IMDB / Wikipedia / Amazon
- Bedhead (1991) | IMDB / Wikipedia / Amazon
