On his emotional response to co-directing his first feature film:
Frank Miller: “Terrifying. On the face it was terrifying, because I came and didn’t exactly know what direction was. But I’d done most of my directing before I ever saw the set, when drawing the books. Robert [Rodriguez]’s vision of this movie is to show what the books were showing. But what I found when I was on the set on the first day was I loved working with actors. Actors are very creative people. They are very smart. When Truman Capote said that actors were stupid, he proved he wasn’t a director. When you direct, you learn how smart they are and how much they give you. They take direction beautifully. It’s a wonderful cast.”
On seeing characters he creates with pen and ink brought to life by the actors:
Frank Miller: “It’s amazing. Mickey Rourke as my Marv, who is a series of drawings I did. To see him come to life in the manner he did, with his manic masculinity, was astonishing.
(Story continues below…)
Robert Rodriguez commentary: “Mickey I worked with on Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and when I looked at the book again I told Frank ‘There’s only one guy I know who can be Marv, and you’re not going to get it from any of his other work.’ Because when I told him ‘Mickey Rourke‘ he said [doubtful] ‘The guy from 9 1/2 Weeks? ‘You have to sit down and meet with this guy, because you’re not gonna get it from any of his work. It’s only because I know him and what a tortured soul he is, that he’s as close as we can get to Marv without hurting ourselves.’ He almost steals the movie, actually…That’s such an iconic look for that character, the angles Frank would draw. We tried to recreate that on an actual human and when they first did Mickey it didn’t look quite right, and I said ‘Hey, he’s got a lot more character in his face than that. Look at my friend [character actor] Danny Trejo’s face and model the creases after that!’ So the next one had Danny Trejo‘s lifelines all over the face, but with the angularity that Marv has, because we know part of it is that look. It’s supposed to be this monstrosity that couldn’t even buy a woman to be with him. That was sort of the tragedy of the character, is that he’s always had a face like that so people always assume he’s a criminal. So he became a criminal.”
Frank Miller: “I turn around, and there’s Rosario Dawson as my Gail. I’m seeing her ground out a cigarette with her foot, and the camera climbs her figure. When she holds up her Uzi, she’s Gail. I was blown away.”
On the future of the Sin City comic books:
Frank Miller: “I’ve got more Sin City stories planned. I came up with one today. They take a long time to percolate. I take a few years away from them for a while. I attempted to do my first, and I plan to do a much more. It’s going to be a couple years–a year or two. But it might be sooner.”
Robert Rodriguez commentary: “That was a great thing about having him there on the set is that he could tell us what the future adventures of Nancy would be. She’s studying criminology, that she’s going to be a detective, all this sort of thing, and you’re like ‘Wow, that’s really great for the actors to know,’ because they don’t just go off with the books, they see where these experiences with the characters are going to lead them. And that can help build a really well-rounded character. He’s eager to do some more stuff–can’t wait to go back. That was the main reason I didn’t want to screw up the movie: You do a bad movie and you kill the comic as well, and he wouldn’t be able to return to Sin City either, so that was why I was making sure I was sure before I started, because I didn’t want to do that to him.”
On the possible future storylines for Dwight, Gaile, Marv, Nancy and the of the Sin Citizens:
Frank Miller: “I always get in trouble with that question, because I end up doing something completely different, and people get really pissed off at me.”
