Interview – Robert Rodriguez on ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’

Penned by, and starring, Quentin Tarantino and directed by Robert Rodriguez, From Dusk Till Dawn is an over-the-top 90s fave. Reimagined as a TV series by Rodriguez for his own El Ray network, the show’s second season has just begun airing in NZ on SKY TV’s The Zone. We figured that when it came to Rodriguez we’d bend the rules and let him talk telly with us instead of just being big screen bullies…


FLICKS: The film From Dusk Till Dawn was made nearly 20 years ago and people still love it. What qualities do you think are needed for a film or television show to be timeless?

ROBERT RODRIGUEZ: It comes down to the characters first and foremost. Quentin [Tarantino, writer of From Dusk Till Dawn the film] creates some of the best characters in the world, that’s why I really wanted to retell the original film in the first season because I didn’t want to just use the name Dusk Till Dawn and do a whole new set of characters ‘cause people have such a love for his characters and they’re just so rich. So I wanted to use his characters and create new stories from them.

So I think characters and then also the world that you build, and this has a really exciting and different look of a vampire world with these new twists on what we’re doing with it and creating the mythology around it. I think it’s a combination of both of those, the world that you create for your characters and then first and foremost the characters themselves.

Film has influenced television a lot, with many adaptations being made, and it’s said we are in a new golden age of TV. Do you think the current television landscape could influence the film world?

Yes I think so, I know I have several ideas for series that could easily become films as maybe a starting point. I think nowadays when you come up with an idea you don’t think of it as just a show or a movie; you think of it as much as a multimedia idea as possible: how can I translate it to different areas, is it a strong enough idea to do that?

You’ve had the final image from the film, a painting of the temple pyramid on your office wall, so you had been thinking about expanding From Dusk Till Dawn for a long time. When it came down to it, did it work out exactly how you’d imagined it for all these years?

Oh, much better. I mean, I didn’t imagine getting to remake the original and in an expanded way that used more of that world, I never would have imagined that. I knew that it had some importance to me but I didn’t know completely what. I didn’t know I would have a network [the El Rey Network] or anything, so it’s been a pleasant surprise to see that my instinct was right. I needed to do more with it, it’s gone beyond what I’d imagined, for sure.

You’ve described the film as the short story and the TV series as the novel. How many chapters have you envisioned for the series? Do you have a complete story arc in your mind?

Well, we talk about it sometimes. We talk about a fourth and fifth season as far as key events that we know we want to happen. But, you know, we don’t have all the details of it worked out until we write each season because it kind of grows and it changes as you write. But we definitely have plans to keep it going for a while.

At the end of season one, Richie and Seth Gecko had gone separate ways. Where will we find the Gecko brothers this season?

Yeah, they start off separate and not on their game. They’re have different destinies, they’re going on a different track and it’s exciting because it feels like a real sequel to From Dusk Till Dawn the film, really, because you’ve never seen them not together. Fans of the original film and the original season one are going to, I think, really be excited to see all the new developments. It hooks you right away and you know they’re inevitably going to get back together but you just don’t know how. This is really why we made the first season based on the film, in a way, to retell it in a new way to build for the second, third and fourth seasons and it’s now finally paying off, so I’m really excited for people to see it.

Season one played out the film and laid foundations for future storylines. How different is this new season going to be from the tone and ideas of the film and the first season?

I think it will just feel like a fuller version of the world, beyond what was ever served up in the movie. We left the film way back in last season and we’re exploring and building the world now. We have lots of plans for that.

How much more are you delving into Mesoamerican mythology in season 2?

A lot this season. It really comes down to what they’re trying to figure out, which is some of the clues left behind in ancient carvings and tablets and the glyphs. So season two really gets to explore some mythology and myths and legends the whole season. So it’s been exciting to get to really pay off these things that we set up in the very first film.

How many episodes are you directing this season?

There’s 10 episodes and last year I directed four, this year I’m directing the season premiere and the season finale, which is awesome. The season finale is really big and cool. I’m really excited about that, I just finished it. I wanted to bring a lot of new directors in so I didn’t want to take up many slots.

Talk about the new characters this season – we hear Danny Trejo (Machete) has a pretty great role?

Yeah we wanted to bring Danny in. Originally we thought he might play one of the lords, then we thought there’s this cool character called The Regulator. And he was described completely differently in the script but I thought that would be a great role for Danny. He’s just this relentless hunter who goes after characters who have gone off the reservation and chases them down, and what better force than Danny to play this character? He’s perfect, he has really cool Western garb and he does some really crazy things.

It seems actors who have worked with you are in awe. Benicio del Toro has said of working with you: “It’s like getting to work with the Wizard of Oz”. What do you make of that quote?

(Laughs) Yes, he used to call me The Wizard because I was doing all this high-tech filmmaking. Back at the time nobody was shooting green screen and using digital cameras. This was really early, 2000, and I was doing a movie called Sin City with him and whenever I would start telling him about whatever I was doing it would get so complicated that he said ‘hey don’t tell me anymore, that’s wizard talk’. He would just call me The Wizard, ‘I don’t want to peek behind the curtain, don’t tell me what you’re doing!’

So did that approach of focusing on the characters help you tread that line between pleasing hard-core fans of FDTD and drawing new people in?

Yeah absolutely. I mean it was easy to cast, everybody wanted to play those iconic characters because people love them and then their job is just to build the world of the season so there’s an exciting story to tell and an exciting world to present.

FDTD is quite artistic in appearance, and you have an arty background yourself. How do other art forms influence or assist you in the film world?

Anything outside of filmmaking that you do in an exercise of creativity just helps you and your creativity more and it helps your primary job. I enjoy doing different things, I enjoy approaching these ideas to drawing or painting or music, photography, besides just writing and directing. It really helps make you a more well-rounded and creative person.

Did you encourage the actors to do art on the set the show?

Yeah, we haven’t finished our paintings yet. We started them but we haven’t finished them. The actors got in there right away. It’s such a fast-paced thing when you’re shooting, you hardly ever have the time to paint but many of the actors started. Eiza’s [González, plays Santanico] is coming along really great. Hers is already hanging in my gallery, even though she’s not finished, it looks so great, even as a work in progress. Madison has a really good one, DJ is working on one.

It’s a painting of the character they play, it’s a portrait of their character and we create it together. I take a photograph of their character that I like and then it becomes the basis of the piece.

Season two of ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ is now playing on SKY TV – Wednesdays at 8.30pm on THE ZONE