Did you have any expectation that Sin City would be as successful a film as it’s become?
Frank Miller: “No. I was for years determined to keep it from getting on the big screen. It took this crazy guy in the cowboy hat to sell me on the idea and to agree that we would make a movie together for me to go there. But I was very scared. I was really worried about my baby. I’ve created a lot of characters and stories and series in my career, but there’s none I’ve been more alive with and intimate with than Sin City. I always thought I wouldn’t go there, but once I went there, I went for broke.”
It’s not the traditional kind of comic book movie, but it seemed to appeal to an even broader audience than the usual superhero fare.
Miller: “Yeah, didn’t it! This is what actually happens when they let the lunatics take over the asylum. It works.”
Have you been permanently bitten by the directing bug after working with Robert? Do you have your own solo directorial projects in mind?
Miller: “Yes. I love the job. Sin City worked out so well that I don’t have to look real hard. I love my drawing board, but I learned I also love actors. Everything is in play, but mostly I’m working on [adaptations] of the comics.”
As far as a sequel to Sin City, what stories are you thinking about?
Miller: “It’s my book ‘A Dame to Kill For,’ and I’ve come up with a new story that I’m going to weave into it. It will be something that people won’t expect. If we can get near Jessica [Alba], it will involve Nancy Callahan.”
That’s a story you’ve kind of had in your head for a little bit, right?
Miller: “They’re all in my head.”
I’ve always liked your character Blue Eyes, and thought she’d be something that would just pop off the screen. Any plans for her?
Miller: “We don’t have any plans for her just now, but if we don’t, we’re idiots! That’s my favorite character. I adore Blue Eyes.”
There’s so many great actresses who could play that part.
Miller: “Oh yeah! I’m telling you, it would be absolute agony to cast that part. Reading beautiful blue-eyed women, one after another. I don’t know if I could suffer the pain!”
Are there any specific actors you’d like to see come into your cinematic Sin City universe?
Miller: “A lot, a lot. In particular, I would like to say that I would love to work with Angelina Jolie, who I find utterly captivating, and I think that she IS film noir. There’s a lot of other people I’d like to work with. Especially because so many of the guys I’ve already got to work with are the best! I’m a spoiled brat. My first movie, and I’m working with Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke and Clive Owen. And then let’s just throw in Jaime King, Rosario Dawson, Brittany Murphy…The list goes on.”
An amazing cast, and just dead-on versions of your characters. Especially what Mickey Rourke did with Marv, who had to be difficult for you to create on-screen.
Miller: “And it was Mickey’s creation. Of course he was directed and he took direction and all of that, but he figured the guy out. Mickey’s a method actor, and he turned himself into Marv. It was amazing to see him transform, beyond the fact of the amazing prosthetics on him. One day Mickey says ‘Here’s how Marv can walk. I learned it from an Irish assassin.’ And he’s pretty much walking as Marv. And I never thought of that! I mean, I never would have thought of that. Mickey, like Bruce, does a lot of his acting in his shoulders. He twists them around in a way that uses masculinity, and often I think as a viewer you’re not even conscious of it, but you feel it. And that’s what Bruce does. If you look at his performance as Hartigan, particularly in the scene at the docks where he’s being shot by Michael Madsen, if you see the roll of his shoulders, that’s the whole story, right there.”
It’s astounding how much of your artwork Bruce caught with his body.
Miller: “Wasn’t that weird?! I was just going ‘How is this happening?’ I mean, you know the old cliché, that you pinch yourself? I must still have wounds from how many times I had to pinch myself during that shoot.”
And Robert says a second film is a done deal, and you’ll see if you have enough material for a third?
Miller: “Well, as far as I’m concerned the plan is to keep going.”
When will we see, in comic book form, a new Sin City work from you?
Miller: “It’s going to be a few months, because I have to finish up a Batman graphic novel I’m doing. I’m writing a Batman series with [artist] Jim Lee, and I’m also drawing a graphic novel. The graphic novel is a new piece of work–I’ve drawn 120 pages of it–and it’s called ‘Holy Terror, Batman!’ Gotham City is being attacked by Al Queda, and what it is, to me, is a propaganda comic book that nobody had the balls to do. So I want to do it.”
And how is the collaboration with Jim Lee on DC’s All-Star title, “Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder,” going?
Miller: “It’s wonderful. I scarcely knew Jim up until we hooked up in Chicago, but the chemistry’s there. This guy’s a dream to work with. The great thing about working with a really superior artist is that you take them to school and they take you to school. In this case I think we’re both doing that. I mean, he’s showing me stuff in the drawing where I’m going ‘I gotta do that!'”
You took a lengthy break from working on Batman, a character you’ve done so much groundbreaking work on. Was it easy to jump back into that character? Having stockpiled ideas over the years, was it like ‘I’ve got to finally get this on paper?’
Miller: “Yeah. At DC Comics, the editorial team of Paul Levitz and Bob Schreck wanted me to do this book with Jim…My first condition was that it include the words ‘The Boy Wonder,’ because, I said, ‘It’s about the kid.’ I can do a pretty cool Batman–don’t worry about that. But I’m going to make everybody fall in love with Robin. And I’m going to take as long as it takes to get there. And the boy is 12 years old, and his entire world has gone completely insane. He’s gone from having parents catching him on a trapeze to sitting in this bizarre super-car with this really crotchety weird guy who dresses up as a bat. His journey is the true subject of the series.”
A lot of your seminal work on Batman greatly influenced the movie Batman Begins. What was your take on that film?
Miller: “I really, really liked it. I came out of that movie with a big smile on my face. I’m not so petty that I would say ‘I worked on this’ or ‘They used that scene,’ or whatever. I knew when I was working on Batman I was working on a collective work. And I just always prayed that if they were going to use something I came up with, they’d do it well. And as soon as soon as I saw him press that little button in his shoe and all of those bats coming, I went ‘Okay, I’ve got no complaints with this movie.’ Also I really liked Christian Bale. And I thought Michael Caine was amazing. He brought a muscularity that I’d never seen the character have before. When he goes in and he upbraids Bruce when he’s under that beam–when it looks like Bruce is down for the count, he upbraids him: ‘What were all those push-ups for?’ And Bruce can’t live without him. And then Michael Caine has an amazing line toward the end where Bruce says ‘We’ll rebuild Wayne Manor exactly the same, brick by brick,’ and Alfred just says ‘There’s a bit of work on the foundation we might do,’ and the Batcave is born. It’s just one of those great moments. I also thought Gary Oldman was so good that I wish I had another half-hour with him. Because he was my Gordon. It felt like ‘Batman: Year One’ more and more.”
What’s happening with another of your books, “300?”
Miller: “It’s moving forward. I’m going to be straight up with you. I’m cagey when it comes to what happens to a movie I didn’t make, because I don’t want to be one of those jerks that says ‘Yeah, it’s green-lit-We’re goin’! Uh-hunh.’ And then have it not happen, and have everybody snickering. But it seems to be moving forward. Zach Snyder is the director, and we’re in constant communication.”
Would you ever let Robert Rodriguez come into the comic book world and maybe write a Sin City story that you’d draw?
Miller: “Nobody writes Sin City but me. I adore Robert. He’s my brother. He has been completely solid with me and he has taught me the ropes like nobody’s business. He’s gold. But nobody writes Sin City but me.”
