Robert Rodriguez, director of quirky films such as 'El Mariachi' and the smash hit 'Spy Kids' trilogy, is living proof that never growing up can have its advantages, writes Donald Clarke
I last met Robert Rodriguez two years ago, right before the release of the first part of what has now become the Spy Kids trilogy. At that stage, he was still fending questions about how unlikely the enterprise seemed. Having come to prominence directing modestly budgeted action pictures such as El Mariachi and From Dusk Till Dawn, the Texan-born director seemed an unusual choice to helm a breezy, candy-coloured children's picture.
Here we are in the summer of 2003, and the third episode, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, has just débuted at No 1 at the US box office. This is a particularly impressive feat: it managed to hold off a challenge from both the hugely hyped Tomb Raider sequel (which bombed admittedly) and the well-reviewed horse-racing drama, Seabiscuit. Nobody doubts his credentials now.
"Yeah, it was cool," he says. "We thought we would be in fifth place and we are first. And all those movies cost so much money. Seabiscuit cost about $80 million. I don't know where it all goes."
When it comes to movie accounting, Rodriguez is nothing if not frugal. Partly through a terrifying dedication to multi-tasking - he writes, directs, composes the score, designs the effects and may very well make the tea for all I know - he has kept the budgets of his films bewilderingly low.
This has greatly endeared him to his corporate handlers at Miramax, who did not blink an eye when he told them he was going to make the latest Spy Kids film in 3-D.
"I didn't have a third one in mind," he explains. "But I was working on this 3-D project called Game Over, which was a science fiction movie about these kids who get stuck in a video game. And it suddenly occurred to me that it could be a Spy Kids movie. I have always loved the idea of 3-D, but I had never much liked the way it was used before. It had always been just a gimmick."
A huge craze in the 1950s, the 3-D process is now trawled out about once a decade to revitalise flagging horror movie franchises. The last such film to get a major release was a 1991 Nightmare on Elm Street sequel named, with insincere finality, Freddy's Dead.
"Oh yeah, in the 1980s you would get things like a Jaws film in 3-D for absolutely no reason. You have to make it part of the story. It's not just us throwing things at the camera, though obviously we do a fair bit of that too. But kids are the real natural audience for this. They are the ones who love putting on the goofy glasses and having a crazy time."
Rodriguez unquestionably succeeds in making the 3-D process part of the story in Game Over. The film sees juvenile secret agent Juni Cortez entering a virtual reality game to rescue his sister who has been imprisoned there by nasty Sylvester Stallone. Unfortunately, the (quite literally) dizzying stereoscopic effects do ever-so-slightly overpower the characters. But this remains the most entertaining series of family films in many years; for that we should give some thanks to the Rodriguez children, who helped design the new film and acted as stunt doubles on the second episode.
"We played video games together as research," he laughs. "So, I got a lot of my ideas from them. That's how I learned that all video games have lava. The kids had this dream that they were drowning in lava. And I thought about it . . . Maybe the lava is cold and that is how you get to the next level in the game. I'm going to put that in the movie, I thought. This worked as good therapy for the kids. You can have a nightmare and make something good out of it: you can put it in a movie."
I had forgotten what a big child Rodriguez is himself. Wearing a silly, oversized cowboy hat, he laughs his way through the interview, apparently unable to contain his delight at being allowed to do this wonderful job. His seeming relaxed amiability is not what one might expect from somebody so driven.
Working out of the garage of his house in Austin, Texas, he has delivered three Spy Kids films in just over two years while simultaneously directing (and writing and scoring) Once Upon a Time in Mexico, the sequel to 1995's unhinged western, Desperado.
"It's not work, it's play," he enthuses. "I play my ass off. How could I not be relaxed when I play all day? When the process is more convoluted, it feels like work.
"I have other directors call me and ask me how they can have fun again working. I say: 'You have to start over. Go back to your hometown and teach everyone there to make a movie and do it your own way. Otherwise,you are just going to go crazy.'"
But doesn't he ever wish he could find the time to focus his attentions on one of his chosen disciplines? Doesn't the amount of work grind him down?
"No, no, no," he says, forcefully. "There is not more work this way. It's actually easier this way. You probably think Rodriguez must really like work to do all those jobs, but it is more like hard work to split them up. It's like trying to be a painter and you want to create the work yourself. But, no, you can't put the canvas together and you can't mix the paints and Mr Turpentine has to do the thinning. You have to find a paint applier and someone to dry the paint. And all you wanted to do is put some yellow paint there. That wears you out."
Starring Salma Hayek, Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe and Rodriguez's regular collaborator, Antonio Banderas, Once Upon a Time in Mexico brings to a close a cycle which began with the director's famously inexpensive 1992 début, El Mariachi. Made for a reputed (and much disputed) $7,000, the comic thriller served as a calling card to Hollywood. Desperado, a virtual remake of El Mariachi, featured a cameo from Quentin Tarantino, who has remained a friend and mentor of Rodriguez.
It was Tarantino who suggested the allusion to Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West in the new film's title. "Quentin showed up on the set of Desperado to do his bit and said: 'This is like your Dollars trilogy. Nobody has done this since Leone. El Mariachi was a Fistful of Dollars. Desperado is For a Few Dollars More. You have got to do the third and it has got to be called Once Upon a Time in Mexico'. I said: 'Yeah, yeah. Just do your bit'."
When it is released in September, the film will offer further evidence of the increasing visibility of Latin culture in mainstream American life.
Like the Spy Kids pictures, which also buzz with energies from south of the border, Once Upon a Time in Mexico will become part of the same accidental revolution that has seen Jennifer Lopez become one of the world's biggest stars.
"Yeah, that has improved a lot," he agrees. "When I did Desperado, I had to go and discover Salma Hayek. Jennifer Lopez actually read for that part, before she was famous. There just weren't any Latin actors around then."
But there is no sense of him forcing the issue. He is Mexican-American, so he makes films that come from a Mexican perspective. He is not on a mission.
"Exactly," he says. "That was always the idea. I am not making these films for Latins. We don't want to think we are part of some little niche group. James Bond happens to be British and the Cortez family in Spy Kids happen to be Latin. By making it specific, you somehow make it universal."
Given his irrepressible desire to have fun, it comes as no surprise to learn he is already at work on a new movie which will be entirely computer generated.
"Oh yeah, I'm doing a CG movie, and it is my best story yet." He puts his finger up to his lips. "But the plot is a secret."
So, given that it is all done on computers, he should never have to leave his garage this time round.
"Yeah. I can get back to my night-time schedules. Working at daytime you just get nothing done: phones, going to the store and so on. This way I can really keep myself busy."
I feel tired just thinking about it.
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over is on general release