Tarantino and Rodriguez: Who's the Man?

March 30, 2007 — --

TAPPER:
: You guys are known as filmmakers that are always trying to top what you did last. In terms of narrative, in terms of cinematically, certainly. At some point, do you reach a level where you can't go any higher? Do you ever fear, "Oh, God. I don't know how I'm going to top a woman with a machine-gun leg."

(LAUGHTER)

RODRIGUEZ:
: You don't fear, but you know that's always a challenge. I finished two series at the same time. I finished the "Spy Kids" Trilogy and I finished the "El Mariachi" Trilogy within two months of each other. And they both did really well at the box office.

I try to take a left turn. So I'm going to do "Sin City." I'm going to go do something that's just cinematically a lot more challenging for me and gets me excited. Because if I don't get excited about the next project myself, I know the audience isn't going to get excited. And you almost want something that has built-in challenges, something that people haven't seen before, but, mainly, something you haven't seen before.

And I did that one, then I had the same problem. "Well, now, what am I going to do?" We took the color out. And then I thought, "Double feature." Can't be better than that. So, now, the more you raise your bar on yourself, the more the audience benefits, because they'll end up seeing things that are more original, or just something that they haven't seen before, because you get tired of doing the same thing. So already I'm thinking, "OK. Now, what can we do that's going to get me excited?" And I won't do it unless it makes me excited.

TAPPER:
: What about you? I mean, you've certainly had the same kind of career practice, constantly trying to challenge yourself.

TARANTINO:
: Well, yes. I would never stop trying to challenge myself, because that's always my favorite -- it's the scariest stuff that I do when I'm really kind of throwing it on the line as far as testing my filmmaking abilities, as far as pulling off this sequence or that sequence. And those are always the scariest ones to go into because if I fail, then I'm not as good a filmmaker as I thought I was. Kind of scary.

But getting through it is always the most fulfilling, the most rewarding and usually the best filmmaking. By being scared and climbing that mountain anyway. If you look at my whole career, though, I actually didn't try to top myself after "Pulp Fiction." With "Jackie Brown," I actually purposely went underneath "Pulp Fiction" to do more of a character meditation. And I knew I would be in the wrong mood to try to top "Pulp Fiction." I can only just show my strength as a filmmaker and as a character-oriented director and go the other way. Then, after that, then, with "Kill Bill," I wanted to really go to the moon…

I was talking once to Eleanor Coppola, who is the wife of Francis Ford Coppola, and I was talking to her and she asked me what I was doing next, and I had just finished up "Kill Bill," which was like climbing Mount Everest. Come down off of there, you're not going to quite be the same man you were that started it.

And she's talking about what I'm going to do next. So I had another big idea for a cool project, but it would be another Mount Everest, and I was like, "Look, I want to do it, but I don't want to be climbing that mountain again. I just got off."

And we were talking a little bit and everything, and she goes, "You know what, Quentin? I think this is your time in life to climb Mount Everest. These are your mountain-climbing days." And I knew she was right the minute she said it.

TAPPER:
: Meaning what?

TARANTINO:
: Meaning this is my time to do big projects. If I've got a grandiose idea, this is the time. If I'm going to do something that's going to take a long time and be very difficult and "Screw life, it's all about this, life can't get in the way, I've got to do this mission." You know, when it comes to whatever project, this is the time for that. It's not going to be when I'm 60. It's not when I'm 55. It's right now. Now, I think it'll be that way when I'm 55, too, or I'll stop, but it's got to be on line. It's got to be I'm really trying to do something.

TAPPER:
: Robert, you're 38, Quentin you're in your 40s. You're no longer the fresh kids. It's not 1992. You're not filmmakers in your 20s and 30s. I mean, obviously, you have retained a lot of the same spirit as when you were young and just completely self financed. Back when you, Robert, did medical experiments to finance your first movie.

RODRIGUEZ:
: I come from a family of 10. I couldn't go hit mom or grandma for money. So, yes, I did medical experiments.

TAPPER:
: You took pills or something?

RODRIGUEZ:
: Well, Austin is a big college town. So the pharmaceutical company there is called Pharmaco. They would get students to come in and they would test the latest drug on them, because you have to do that to pass through the FDA. And you would get money for it. And so I did anything from like a cholesterol-lowering drug -- which is on them market now, but they were still testing it -- to a speed-healer drug, where they punched holes in my arms and then put speed healer on one and a placebo on the other and cut it away. Went and did tests on it. I got $2,000 for seven days work. That's how I'd go pay for my movie.

TAPPER:
: And it cost $7,000?