Top 75 Robert Rodriguez Quotes
#1. If you want to be a rock star, you're not going to just walk on stage. You gotta go practice in the garage until your fingers bleed. I always say that - the same with writing and the same with filmmaking - if it's really your passion, you've just got to stick with it and do it.
Robert Rodriguez
#2. A lot of people who watch DVDs are people who are interested in, if not moviemaking, then creativity in general.
Robert Rodriguez
#3. For me, Mexploitation seemed like something that should have existed, but didn't.
Robert Rodriguez
#4. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a dream world, because it doesn't always seem too logical how things work out.
Robert Rodriguez
#5. If you create a good story that has a lot of story value ... I think audiences like that. It's why they stick with the same TV show over and over.
Robert Rodriguez
#7. You create superheroes to take care of problems that can't really be solved another way.
Robert Rodriguez
#8. When you go off in the world and make your life, and you come back to your home town, and you find your old high-school friends driving in the same circles, doing the same things, that's what Hollywood's like. It's a little block, little town. It doesn't really grow or change.
Robert Rodriguez
#9. The accidents are things that audiences always remember most, I've found on my own movies. The things that they like the most are the things that were just by accident. So you have to create a situation where nothing but accidents can happen the entire time.
Robert Rodriguez
#10. Everything I've done has always been my own made up world with its own rules and its own made up stories.
Robert Rodriguez
#11. A movie goes from several stages, from idea to script. As you continue shooting, you will make some adjustments. You're constantly adjusting. It's like a piece of music. You're constantly trying to make it better.
Robert Rodriguez
#12. There are real issues going on in just about any movie that's got fun elements to it.
Robert Rodriguez
#13. When you use the same actors a lot, you get to know them and you realize that one movie can't explore all the talent that they have. You really have to give them several different kinds of roles, in completely different movies, to push them and to push yourself.
Robert Rodriguez
#14. I always wanted to be a stay-at-home dad making art, making movies.
Robert Rodriguez
#15. When you make an exploitation film, you always want to have a real issue. That's how they were always done.
Robert Rodriguez
#17. Very few people have a lot of time to dedicate to one hobby. I was fortunate to have started so young, because when you're young you have nothing but time. Hours and hours to burn up on something as silly as a movie.
Robert Rodriguez
#18. If you do a film with a studio, agents step in, they start saying, 'My actor has to get this amount of money', and it becomes about deals.
Robert Rodriguez
#19. I don't think anyone can be more of a predator than a human being.
Robert Rodriguez
#20. The challenge is what was making it exciting. You don't want to do anything that's too easy or that you know that you can pull off, otherwise it's really not worth doing.
Robert Rodriguez
#21. A lot of 3D movies have so much on the screen that you almost don't know where to look.
Robert Rodriguez
#22. It [lighting the set up] is quite a process. It's like drawing. It's like being an artist. You pencil it in first, and then you ink it. When you're filming, it's like you're penciling it all in. You know where everything is going to go. But, that application of the final ink takes some time.
Robert Rodriguez
#23. I usually have a couple of projects going on that are different. A 'Sin City' while I'm doing a 'Spy Kids' at the same time. I need different things going on.
Robert Rodriguez
#24. I was a cartoonist when I was at university, but I decided to go into movie making knowing that I could still draw by doing movies, design work, story boards, and such.
Robert Rodriguez
#25. Any time you do action and horror, you've always got to try to find a way to make it fresh for the audience, but also for yourself, and there are so many different ways to freak people out and create tension.
Robert Rodriguez
#26. The studios don't finance anymore, they get outside funds.
Robert Rodriguez
#27. Low budgets force you to be more creative. Sometimes, with too much money, time and equipment, you can over-think. My way, you can use your gut instinct.
Robert Rodriguez
#28. When given an opportunity, deliver excellence and never quit.
Robert Rodriguez
#29. I wish I could freeze time or go back in time and watch my kids grow up all over again because it is just going by too fast.
Robert Rodriguez
#30. Sometimes a movie series that becomes popular can be a blessing and curse because you get known for that. People don't give you a chance, after that ... I'm a big proponent of getting somebody that you always admire and giving them a chance to do something else because they can redefine themselves.
Robert Rodriguez
#31. Exploitation films were famous for taking an issue an exploiting it because they could move much faster than a studio could. If there was any hot topic, they would run out and make a quick movie and make a buck on it, by changing it around and using it, in some way, to give some relevance.
Robert Rodriguez
#32. I try to remind people, whether you have a growth manager or a value manager, you're going to go through cycles where you think you have a village idiot.
Robert Rodriguez
#33. Tell everyone that your mistakes are art. You can get away with a lot that way.
Robert Rodriguez
#34. People talk about immigration, but they won't talk about the corruption that actually exists between Mexico and the U.S.
Robert Rodriguez
#35. You ask any moviemaker what their favorite movie experience was, and they'll say it was one of the first ones, where everyone had to pitch in and do everything together, and you had to struggle.
Robert Rodriguez
#36. I want to push technology boundaries to be more efficient.
Robert Rodriguez
#37. Don't look at all at what other people are doing. Think of what you're doing as completely fresh because if you imitate you're dead.
Robert Rodriguez
#39. What could make my life better? Oh, if I could only find that magic bottle that lets you never have to sleep. I have so much stuff I wanna do, but ... That six or seven hours you have to be in bed with your eyes closed. What a waste!
Robert Rodriguez
#40. Anyone who can only write about themselves or their life experiences, in my mind, isn't a very good writer.
Robert Rodriguez
#42. Don't be told something is impossible. There's always a way.
Robert Rodriguez
#43. What I love about new technology is that it really pushes the art. It really pushes it in a way that you can't imagine until you come up with the idea. It's idea-based. You can do anything.
Robert Rodriguez
#46. The only thing I ever wanted to do is never have to work a day in my life.
Robert Rodriguez
#47. I'm all about freedom in art. I'm from Texas, so when someone tells you which way to ride your horse, you think 'I'll just go to a different ranch. You guys are riding it backwards anyway.
Robert Rodriguez
#48. Really, children will support anything that is empowering to them.
Robert Rodriguez
#49. People don't live in Austin to work, they work to live there.
Robert Rodriguez
#50. I do like strong women in my movies. I have five sisters, so I've just grown up with that model.
Robert Rodriguez
#51. When you put on the glasses in a 3-D movie they just kind of sit there and you forget about them.
Robert Rodriguez
#53. If you're just creative, you'll always have to rely on technical people. If you're creative and technical, you're unstoppable.
Robert Rodriguez
#54. Hollywood wants to own everything. I don't want to own anything. I don't want people just to make content, I want to empower and teach them to create content they own that they can exploit in any medium.
Robert Rodriguez
#55. I definitely want to produce more because I have a bunch of projects that I've either written or half written and I want to continue developing them and if cant direct one right away cause I'm doing something else I will love to still see it get made.
Robert Rodriguez
#56. I realized that everything I do is fantasy, whether it is an adult movie or a kids movie.
Robert Rodriguez
#57. Television series always have a lot of characters because you want people to identify with someone on the show, who will be your eyes.
Robert Rodriguez
#58. Creative people are notoriously the slowest to adopt new technology.
Robert Rodriguez
#59. I get a lot done considering I spend half my day sleeping.
Robert Rodriguez
#60. Everyone applauds each other's success in Hollywood because they know how tough it is, but it really comes down fundamentally to the process.
Robert Rodriguez
#61. Don't give me any money, don't give me any people, but give freedom, and I'll give you a movie that looks gigantic.
Robert Rodriguez
#62. If I'm excited about it, I'm pretty sure an audience is going to enjoy it. If I'm bored with an idea, you can bet they're going to be asleep. So I try to only do things that I'm fairly excited about.
Robert Rodriguez
#63. It's rare for the studios to find a filmmaker who wants to make a family film. To find someone that has an idea, embraces it, has kids and wants to make something exciting - well, they don't see that too often.
Robert Rodriguez
#64. Only by seeking challenges can we hope to find the best in ourselves.
Robert Rodriguez
#65. I have 5 children of my own. They are bilingual, like most second and third generations. But they speak primarily in English and they couldn't find anything on television that represented who they are in this country.
Robert Rodriguez
#67. When you take technology and mix it with art, you always come up with something innovative.
Robert Rodriguez
#69. I like to keep my budgets at a certain price when I work for someone else, and even more so now that I'm working for myself, and use new technologies to deliver films that look like they have high production levels.
Robert Rodriguez
#70. Usually, I'm just pleasing myself and I have very similar tastes I think to an audience, what that core audience really likes.
Robert Rodriguez
#72. It's easier making a smaller film like El Mariachi. There are no budget worries because there is no budget. There is no crew problem because there is no crew. And if you screw up, no one is around to see you screw up
so it's no longer a screw up.
Robert Rodriguez
#73. Make DV movies so you can learn how to make films, but don't try to distribute them until they are fantastic.
Robert Rodriguez
#74. Frank is such a great visual storyteller, that if you study his artwork you see that his Sin City books are already the best movies never seen on the big screen.
Robert Rodriguez
#75. Your mind just goes to the craziest idea to lure people into the theater, and then you write your script around those elements.
Robert Rodriguez
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
