Once Upon a Time...

Texas multi-tasker filmmaker Robert Rodriguez has made the last in his El Mariachi trilogy. Once Upon a Time in Mexico. He reunites much of his original Desperado cast including Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek and he ads hot Enrique Iglesias and that lawgirl from 2 Fast 2 Furious, Latina hotbody Eva Mendes. Rodriguez also managed to recruit this summer's hottest actor Johnny Depp to play a manipulating CIA agent who turns old-west style gunslinger.

Eva's parents are Cuban and her mom barely got to the states before she was born. She grew up in L.A. and was discovered in an unusual way. "My neighbor was a photographer and took a picture of me when I was having a garage sale. He had a photo of me he liked and asked if he could put it in his book. I said 'go ahead' and when he shopped his book around, a manager saw it and said 'hey, who's this girl? Does she act?' I met with the manager and it was at a time in my life when I was so bored with myself. I took up acting just like that! I didn't take any classes and did a film Children of the Corn 5 and I was horrific! I quit school and started with an acting coach".

The way Eva got her part in "Mexico" wasn't what she was expecting. "[Robert] did the worst thing you could do to an actor. I go to Texas to read for him but he didn't want to release the script so they said 'you're just going to meet him'. Never believe that. I go in and sit down and we're just talking and then he hands me the script and says, 'here, why don't you read a few lines?'. I was like 'nnoooooo oh, my God'. You want to be prepared and have it broken down and perfect. Of course you can't say no. But there were all these cool one liners. I liked the character but mostly I just wanted to work with Robert so bad".

Cast and crew alike seems to love working with young Rodriguez, who does practically everything on his films. Eva elaborated for us. "It makes it easier for me. If you know what you want so clearly, then I know what you give you. I come to a job with a lot of ideas and that can annoy a lot of directors but that's me. With Robert, he just tells you what he wants and you trust him because he's cutting it in his head as he's shooting you. He's also there holding the camera. Usually your director is off in the dark background yelling 'action' and Robert's right in front of you. I love it. Also, shooting tape, if you mess up, you can just do it again right there. It's really cool."

Eva's character is a tough, kick-butt gal but the actress saw a soft core. "I could easily have made her a bad girl in my head but I didn't want to judge her. This is a sad girl who wants to make her dad happy and wants approval and love from him. How sad. He just didn't give her any love or attention. I made a decision that her mom died when she was little and I came from a place of hurt rather than just being evil".

Johnny Depp, who plays an offbeat rogue CIA agent in the film, had only praise for his director. "Long before meeting Robert I was impressed with that kid who went out on his own and made his dream come true. I've watched him become an amazing auteur". Depp also spoke about being given the chance to write a bit of music for the score of the film. "Robert said 'write a themesong for your character. I did and he took it and orchestrated it. I was amazed"! Rodriguez filled us in on how this came to be.

"I know all these guys are musicians, Johnny, Cheech, Ruben Blades, Antonio plays, Enrique [Iglesias] is there, Salma sings so I'm like 'hey, can you guys help me out with the score? I've gotta do the whole score'. I said 'give me something even if it's four notes that you think musically represents your character'. Johnny sent me a whole piece, the piece that plays when he steps out of the cab, it's Sand's theme. Then I took that melody and orchestrated it for the beginning and kept making it bigger and more iconic. It was what he was feeling while on the set. Antonio wrote the song he sings on the spot. I had Salma sing a song. Ruben gave me a bass line that I used. He just hummed it over the phone".

The filming down in Mexico was evidently a blast for everyone concerned. Eva certainly had fun. "Everything was very light. Robert really works really hard, he and his wife Elizabeth. She's an incredible woman, part of the whole machine. But, between takes Robert plays music and there's food and you're hugging and kissing and it's like a family. I think I got really spoiled".

We got Eva to spill a very big secret. She had a childhood crush on her co-star Johnny and still thinks he's mega-hot! "Oh my God. First of all there's the beauty factor. He's like one of the most beautiful men I've ever seen in my life. Just knowing that when I was a little girl I had his posters up on my wall from "21 Jump Street". Stuff from Tiger Beat and Teen Beat. I was just like [dreamy voice] Johnny! He was the guy that I had a total crush on. So, he was the first and only person I ever worked with that dated back so far. I have to admit I was a little nervous".

The actress avoided gushing all over her former crush, however. Did she tell him about those pics on her wall? "Nooo. You don't tell Johnny Depp that. He's the epitome of cool. I was just like 'hey, man, no big deal. I can handle this'. He really surprised me how funny he his, not only in the movie but in person, he's really funny as well. He's dreamy".

Johnny's take on his character, Sands, the CIA dude, was far from dreamy and kind of grim. "He's a great manipulator. It's like playing chess. He's using all these people as pawns and putting them in the positions he wants them in. What Sands wants ultimately, is to position all those pieces into a place where it puts him in more danger. There is the possibility he could be taken out and I think that's what his goal is".

Eva also loved working with hot Zorro and Spy Kids star Antonio Banderas. "He's just a nice guy and I was a fan from the Pedro Almodovar films. He's really handsome, sweet and affectionate". The actress was disappointed that one of her scenes with the gorgeous Latin actor was cut. "There was a scene where I save Antonio Banderas. I get him from the desert. He's all beaten and tired and stuff. I pick him up and he sees me and when I grab his hand. He sees Salma Hayek's face and then it goes into my face. It was really cool too".

Banderas thinks his action-packed character is very sympathetic. "It's a guy who wants to be at peace with himself and the world but he's doomed in a way. He's chased by fatal destiny. He lives in an environment that doesn't allow him to live as he wants. He has to settle things with the people that are provoking him. I love the mystery of el Mariachi. I love the fact that nobody knows his name. They just call him 'the guitar player'. We discuss sometimes 'hey, what is his name?'. But I love the romanticism. There's a certain sweetness he has".

Mendes had no problem with the score-settling violence in the film since she feels it's very make-believe. "In Robert's films it's not realistic so it doesn't bother me. It's such a fantasy. [El Mariachi] is shooting out of his guitar case! That's fantasy". Eva will soon appear in films that will prevent her being typecast. "I think 'what about me reads cop?' I'm not sure. I keep getting all these cop roles but I'm not complaining. In a new comedy by the Farrelly Brothers, Mendes gets to change gears. "I'm a wanna-be actress who can't get a job so she has her boobs done. I had to wear a prosthetic boob thing. It was very interesting. Guys are a lot nicer. Crew members or actors who weren't sure if they were real... at night we'd go to have a drink or something and I didn't have them on, you could tell they were so confused. 'Did you do something to your hair?'. They were sneaking peeks. They think they're so slick. You feel the heat from their eyes. It's a trip".

The rest of our conversation was with Robert who gave us tons of info on the origin of his latest film, how he works and works with his cast. Here is the Q and A:

TeenHollywood: How was Venice?

Robert: Wonderful. It's the home of Sergio Leone over there so they loved the movie. There's something Quentin has always said, the more movies he's seen the more he thinks The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the best-directed movie ever. He's the one who raised the bar when I was doing Desperado. He said 'you have to do a third one now so you can have a "Dollars" trilogy. You've got to make the third one epic and call it "Once Upon a Time in Mexico". That was in '94. Years later Sony called and said Desperado has picked up a lot of cult audience on video and cable. Desperado was the first DVD that Sony put out. I said, 'okay but if we do another one it can't be "Desperado 2". It's gotta be more epic and called "Once Upon a Time in Mexico". They said "sure".

I thought how do you get someone as strong as a guy with a guitar case full of guns? I started doing drawings... the man with no eyes. The man with no face...now we're getting somewhere. The first scene, the three-armed scene I wrote with Johnny, I thought this is gonna be fun. Anything can happen.

TeenHollywood: Did Johnny change anything?

Robert: No, he just comes in and takes it to another level. It was my favorite written part, the first part I wrote. He already did crazy things, the three arms, he shoots the cook, he gets his eyes plucked out with a little boy showing him around. We'd be on the set and we'd do a scene and I'd be constantly checking the script and be saying 'Is that the line in the script?' It is but just the way he would say it, I didn't recognize my own words. He would paraphrase things to make it sound more like the character he was building up; a much whimpier kind of character. Things like 'this is no time to screw the pooch. This is supposed to be the big dance number'. That changes it a lot. His idea was to bring the different t-shirts and bad disguises. The idea I had was he was a CIA agent kind of running Mexico with a cell phone, very arrogant. He thought 'why doesn't he be like a constant tourist just wearing tourist t-shirts and bad costumes that everyone can see through but he thinks he's fooling everyone. You get somebody like Johnny to get those kinds of contributions.

TeenHollywood: How did the final cut end up different than your original?

Robert: It was a strange movie. There was an actors' strike coming up. I was excited to use these new high definition cameras. I told the studio and Antonio, we can made another Desperado real quick but, because we have a tied in McDonalds' date with our Spy Kids movie, I'll have to go out and make that. I can shoot this now but I won't be able to edit it for more than a year. It was wild. I'm going to do that from now on. It gives you a lot of distance from it. Johnny Depp was on the set for eight days. That's how fast we shot it. At the end he was like 'is there anything else I can do'? Who is playing the priest? How about I do a Brando voice? We shot the priest on the last day. He'd never shot a movie that fast. He was just warming up.

When I went to edit it, I cut it very quickly. I didn't remember how all the scenes ended. Then I scored it and had to go shoot Spy Kids 3. I kept hopping back and forth but it didn't change very much at all from what it was first supposed to be.

We just kept pushing the date. It was going to come out in March and we said, 'let's just wait until after the summer because Eva will have Fast and Furious out, Johnny will have Pirates so it'll be like fine wine, just get better with age.

TeenHollywood: You are a one man band. Do you just hate to delegate?

Robert: No, I started that way. Kids coming up today are going to be very similar because they're all using digital video cameras and editing on software that comes with their computer. They are looking at [their films] right now and saying 'wow, this looks like a real movie' and it is. That's how I started. You can make a movie at home. El Mariachi, we didn't have any money so I was the whole crew but I found it was so fun. The bigger the movies got, the less fun they were getting so I wanted to get back to that. When I got to do Mariachi three basically, I used that as an excuse to go back and do production design and the score. It's actually easier. Everyone on the crew does multiple jobs. The actors love it. No one is sitting in a trailer. Making a movie is like running a marathon and to have it get overblown is like gaining 500 pounds and expecting to finish the race. You're going to barely crawl across the finish line. This way it's leaner and meaner. It's all about the creativity. Everything else gets pushed away. A lot of directors call me and say 'You seem like you're having fun. I want to have fun again. I'm not having fun anymore'. Look how much movies cost and how long they take. Then you see the movie and go 'wow, they had all the money and all that talent and that's it?' The process has gotten too cumbersome and weighty. It becomes about getting the bureaucracy to work. The way I do it you have to be at your creative peak because you have no resources. It's more fun to struggle like it's your first movie.

TeenHollywood: Did you base a character on your uncle?

Robert: The Ruben Blades character plays my uncle. His character name is my uncle's code name that he would use when he would infiltrate drug rings. He was Jorge Ramirez. He told me a bunch of great stories so I put a lot of it in the movie. He was on the set doing security for us.

TeenHollywood: What is with the gore and the style you have?

Robert: It's very accidental. Before I did Mariachi all I did was family comedies. Like Spy Kids, basically. When I went to make my first movie for the Spanish video market all they wanted was action. I thought I'll make it funny. I'll make it about a guitar player who becomes a hit man. Then Columbia bought it and released it. It was a crazy time. I was never thinking I'd do part two and then they wanted part three and I'm thinking who is that guy? Well, let me give 'um a band of guys and they're mariachi gigolos. A guy with three arms and no eyes. How far can this go?

TeenHollywood: Is there something special about being a Latin filmmaker?

Robert: I'm Mexican-American so I get to choose the best of both cultures. I can make a very American movie or something very Latin. It's kind of like having two souls. You speak two languages. It's a great gift so I'm teaching my kids three languages, three souls, they're learning French. They've been learning Japanese from their gym teacher.

Robert is now working on a CG animated movie. He was a cartoonist and thinks this is a logical progression for him but the subject matter is still a secret.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.