The Peter Pan of Hollywood

With his looks and, as one US fan magazine puts it, "flaming sex appeal," not to mention his enormous talent, 35-year-old Robert Rodriguez should make his presence felt not so much behind as before the cameras. Yes, in person Robert is easily mistaken for an actor, very attractive with his ubiquitous cowboy hat. But the guy dubbed by People magazine as "Peter Pan of Hollywood" because of his "never-wanna-grow up" lifestyle ("I can talk to kids at their level because I’m at their level") is enjoying his behind-the-camera stint to the hilt, directing one movie after another as if he’s racing with time, as if he has a deadline to beat, as if he’ll never have enough time to put on the big screen the many bright ideas spinning in the movies of his mind.

Just through with Columbia Pictures’ Once Upon a Time in Mexico (currently showing in Metro Manila theaters), his reunion movie with Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek (first seen together in the 1995 smash-hit Rodriguez action-thriller Desperado), Robert has chalked up quite an impressive track record after his first direction in 1993, El Mariachi (also starring Banderas as the guitar-playing hero, with Robert sinking into its meager $7,000 budget the $3,000 he earned as a pharmaceutical-company guinea pig).

In 1995, Robert wrote, directed and edited The Misbehavers (also with Banderas, which is one of the four segments of Four Rooms) and then teamed up with Quentin Tarantino on the outrageous From Dusk Till Dawn, followed in 1998 by The Faculty with Josh Hartnett, in 2001 by Spy Kids (and its sequels, Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over) and now, Once Upon a Time in Mexico which continues the saga of El Mariachi, completing what Robert called his "El Mariachi trilogy" (including Desperado).

Robert is a dozen roles rolled into one – in Once Upon a Time in Mexico as its director, writer, producer, director of photography, production designer, editor, visual effects supervisor, re-recording mixer and composer. Heavy, isn’t he? He and his wife Elizabeth Avellan have three sons – Rocket, 7; Racer, 6; and Rebel, 4 – and they live in a home in Austin, Texas, which is described as "part Neverland and part Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Very Peter Pan, yes!

Funfare did a one-on-one with Robert recently at the press junket for Once Upon a Time in Mexico in New York, three weeks before the movie placed No. 1 at the box office when it grossed $24 million on its opening weekend across the US.

Here are excerpts:

• On working again with Banderas and Salma: "They’re very creative, easy to work with. We had a lot of fun on the set."

• On Sergio Leoni (father of spaghetti westerns – such Clint Eastwood starrers as For a Few Dollars More; A Fistful of Dollars; and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, etc.): "He’s my idol, my inspiration for going into filmmaking. People call Sergio Leoni’s films ‘spaghetti westerns.’ I’d rather call my films ‘Taco westerns’."

• On being Peter Pan: "It’s hard for me to grow up. I’m fond of video games; I play video games with my kids all the time."

• On Enrique Iglesias (one of Banderas’ sidekicks, along with Spanish actor Marco Leonardi): "I wanted to evoke memories of Ricky Nelson, so it was right to cast a pop star like Enrique. The Mariachi has a couple of musicians who are guitar-fighters, too. So it would be nice if one of Mariachi’s two sidekicks could sing. When I asked him to be in the movie, Enrique said, ‘I don’t know how to be in a movie. I don’t want to blow it.’ In fact, Enrique was great! It’s actually my tribute to Ricky Nelson who appeared in the Howard Hawks western Rio Bravo."

• On Johnny Depp (who’s impressive as the corrupt CIA agent Sands who recruits El Mariachi to sabotage an assassination plot against the President of Mexico and, this early, being touted as a probable contender for the Best Supporting Actor plum in next year’s Oscars): "Johnny’s character is very edgy. You have to have an actor who’s willing to embrace that because so many actors don’t want to come in and be unlikeable. But Johnny didn’t seem to care about that as long as the character was interesting. What’s funny is that, no matter how vile we made him, Johnny still has this incredibly likeable nature so the character still ends up being sympathetic. I don’t think you can really hate a Johnny Depp character, no matter how rotten he may be, and Sands is rotten to the core."

• On Willem Dafoe (as the evil cartel kingpin who conceived the assassination plot against the President of Mexico): "I remember when I asked him to play the role, Willem said, ‘Do you really want me to play a Mexican drug lord? I don’t speak Spanish and I don’t play the piano.’ I told him, ‘Don’t worry about it. I can show you a couple of tricks. Besides, you’re such a talented actor, you can do anything.’ Sure enough, the second day on the set he was playing the piano and speaking Spanish."

• On being a film lover: "At seven, I was already a fixture at the revival moviehouse in San Antonio. The MGM musicals and Hitchcock double features were my favorites. As a kid, I watched Gone With The Wind three times. At 11, I commandeered my Dad’s Super-8 movie camera. At 13, I converted my adolescent lair into a primitive control room, with two aging VCRs hooked together by an umbilical cord so I could edit tapes and a Radio Shack cassette recorder rigged for crude sound fades."

• On his high school days: "They called me Video Bob because I usually carried a video camera, I needed actors so I recruited my brothers and sisters (we’re 10 children in the family) for my stock company."

• On being a father: "As soon as I wake up usually at 2:30 in the afternoon, I pick up my kids in school and, after working overnight, I’m a regular family man again, enjoying juice boxes and soccer balls and glow sticks with my kids. At 8 p.m, the kids head to bed and my wife, also my business manager, turns in at 11 p.m. From that point on, I work, work, work. I go to sleep at around 7 a.m."

• On why he seems to be in such a great hurry: "I’m 35 and I don’t think I’ll be around for a long time, so I rush."

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