obert Rodriguez was playing around the pool with his three sons, Rocket, Racer and Rebel, when the idea for Sharkboy came up. His son Racer kept telling him stories about this boy who was separated from his father and was raised by sharks. He ended up growing a fin and sharp teeth and befriending a girl who is made out of lava and burns everything she touches.
Then, Bob Weinstein from Miramax called Rodriguez while they were lounging around his pool in Austin and told him that Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over did exceptional business for them and asked if he had any other ideas for a family film franchise in 3-D. Rodriguez pitched his son's idea and made it a family project.
They came up with wild creatures for Planet Doom, including an evil teacher, Mr. Electric, played by George Lopez. The story follows a daydreamer named Max (Racer's middle name) played by 11-year-old Cayden Boyd, and his parents are portrayed by David Arquette and Kristin Davis. Sharkboy is Taylor Lautner, 13, and Lavagirl is Taylor Dooley, 12. To prevent confusion, they were "Sharky and Lava" on the set.
Rodriguez and the cast talked to Science Fiction Weekly about making the movie, which opened June 10.
Kristin Davis, after playing Charlotte on Sex and the City, would you do a role in the next Sin City if Robert asked you?
Davis: Well, he was editing the first while we were working, so he'd be like, "Come here," and show me parts and I'd be like, "Oh my God!" [Laughs.] So I was relieved he didn't call me to be in that movie, though if he had, I would've tried to do it for Robert, I really would have tried to do it, but I would've been very nervous, yeah. I don't know that that's how Robert sees me, do you know what I'm saying?
Well, look what he did to his Spy Kids mom, Carla Gugino, in Sin City!
Davis: Carla, that's true. She was very good, so I don't know if he sees me in, like, bondage wear. I had already been playing the mom in The Shaggy Dog, so this was really my second mom part. And when they cast me in Shaggy Dog, I was surprised, honestly! I really was like, "Wow!" I'm happy and surprised that Disney wants me to play a mom. And it seems to be continuing.
Was it the first time you did anything with the green screen, working on a set with nothing behind you?
Davis: It was pretty much the first green screen I'd ever done. I had to learn the flying. I'd never flown in a rig before, right, and I had never worked with the green screen, and I'd certainly never worked in 3-D. But I was fascinated by the technical aspects of it, and the thing that's wonderful about Robert is that he is really on the forefront of the technical advances, but he sees them as a creative tool to tell stories, rather than that the technology is going to take over the film. For the tornado, we had to grab, like, a twig, David [Arquette] had to hold on to it in the middle of the green screen.
But it's like playtime, I mean, that's what's really fun about it, and that's Robert's attitude, and all of his crew, they kind of make stuff up as they go in certain ways. Like at one point where there are the giant cookies, he was like, "Well, I've got to go out and talk to Racer." So he ran out and he was like, "Now Racer, what do the giant cookies do here?" And Racer's like, "Well, they stomp in the milk!" You know, it's a give and take like that, in a kind of adorable way.
How about the kids? What about working against the green screen? How hard was that, and how helpful was Robert?
Lautner: The first two weeks there it was kind of difficult because we'd never had anything like that. You had to have a great imagination, and then Robert Rodriguez would tell us specifically, "This is over here. This is what you're doing." He'd help us a lot. I think we'd be lost if Robert wasn't there. Literally, 90 percent of it was filmed in front of a big green wall, so, at first, we didn't know what it was going to look like.
Dooley: He'd show us pictures of what the background looked like or digital pictures of what we should be doing.
Was Racer Rodriguez helpful in giving you suggestions for your characters?
Lautner: He'd offer ideas like "This would be cool if Sharkboy would do this." Whenever they were at home he'd offer an idea, and if Robert liked it and thought it was a good idea, he'd write it into the script.
Dooley: Yeah. Some of the ideas inside the script were his, but he was never, like, on set helping Robert come up with ideas.
Boyd: And I guess I'm a bit like Racer or Max. I can't count how many times in the day my mom has to tell me, "Focus," just stuff like that. Sometimes I used to draw little superheroes like Cosmic Man. I'm somewhat like him. [Cosmic Man] could shoot little asteroids out of his hand and defy gravity and stuff like that.
Taylor Lautner [Sharkboy], are you a gymnast? You were flipping all over the place.
Lautner: None of it was on wires. I do this extreme martial-arts stuff. It just takes the traditional martial arts where it's slow and strong to the extreme, where I do flips and all kinds of acrobatics and tricks. I've been doing it for six years, but Robert didn't know I did the martial arts before he booked me. I was there and he saw a DVD of me, and he asked me to choreograph my own fight scenes, so I was like, "Cool!"
What was the hardest thing to imagine?
Lautner: Probably the Land of Milk and Cookies, because all we had was a cookie, and we were just sitting on it.
Dooley: Yeah. We're sitting on a giant cookie, and it was moving.
Boyd: So imagining all that ice cream and cookies around us was hard. And it was also hard to imagine the cookie giants or, like, the Train of Thought.
Does anyone have a favorite superhero either in the movies or comic books?
Lautner: I love the Spider-Man movies.
Dooley: Definitely Spider-Man. I want to see The Fantastic Four. That looks good. I don't read superhero comics, but I do read Archie comic books. I read those all the time. Those are my favorites.
Boyd: I love Sharkboy and Lavagirl. When my mom told me, "This is the director of Spy Kids," when I got the part, I was blown away. And once I heard that it was a superhero movie, I was more blown away. I love superheroes. I still do. I love these guys.
Was it fun working with George Lopez?
Boyd: He's a riot.
Dooley: When we were doing the classroom scene. In the middle of the scene he'd start throwing paper wads at us. We'd all be trying to say our lines.
Lautner: And you would see a paper wad go across the camera.
Dooley: And Robert would say "Cut. George, please don't throw any more." He'd do it again.
George Lopez, what was it like working finally with Robert Rodriguez? You didn't do Desperado even though there was a part for you, right?
Lopez: I have never met anyone in Hollywood who is as childlike and free as Robert. It was really fantastic working with him because of his compassion, and if I was sitting on his lap like a ventriloquist dummy he couldn't have been feeding me the lines any better. I wanted to be precise, and I wanted him to be happy. The Desperado thing, I auditioned and they said, "All the good parts are taken." I wanted Cheech's part.
Robert Rodriguez, have you had teachers try to squelch your dreams before?
Rodriguez: I remember art class was always my favorite. I remember Miss Molina coming in and looking over my shoulder, and I was drawing a caveman-versus-dinosaur fight. The caveman is always losing, and I remember her saying, "Robert and his monsters." I don't remember doing it, but I must have drawn that a lot. I do not remember doing that before, but now I see kids drawing and I say, "Racer and his monsters."
You're so expressive, George, how did you do it when it was just your head in a box when you were Mr. Electric?
Lopez: He told me from the beginning the camera was going to be that close, and it was going to be that precise. I was doing this thing like I was kind of winking, and he goes, "I really like that, the winking thing. Is that, like, a tic, or what?" And I said, "I'm acting," and he said, "That's pretty good."
Rodriguez: It was good because I saw him doing it, and I thought I could put a spark there.
Robert, how do you keep that childlike enthusiasm in yourself and your work?
Rodriguez: I know they say that when they ask younger kids, "How many of you can write an opera, write a symphony?" and they all raise their hand, and 10 years later you ask the same question and it's maybe half of them, and then 20 years after that all the hands start coming down, and it's the same people. You know, they start believing less and less, and I always want to be the kid with his hand up. You can do anything.
Back to the top.
Also in this issue:
The cast and crew of Howl's Moving Castle
