SIN CITY
Tour Guide
Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything.
Sin City: Welcome to Town
Welcome to Sin City. This town beckons to the tough, the corrupt, the
brokenhearted. Some call it dark. Hard-boiled. Then there are those who call it home.
Crooked cops. Sexy dames. Desperate vigilantes. Some are seeking revenge. Others
lust after redemption. And then there are those hoping for a little of both. A universe of
unlikely and reluctant heroes still trying to do the right thing in a city that refuses to care.
Their stories – shocking, suspenseful and searing – come to the fore in a new motion
picture from co-directors Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, and special guest director
Quentin Tarantino.
With verve and invention, Miller and Rodriguez plucked the stories of Sin City
right off the comic book page. Then, using cutting-edge digital filmmaking, they pasted
these ultimate urban tales of louts, lugs, heroes and hussies to the screen without losing
any of the comic’s silhouetted look and staccato rhythms. SIN CITY is brought to life
through light and shadow - through clipped dialogue, stylized performances and visual
invention.
Three Tales from the Dark Heart of Town
The central story follows Marv, a tougher-than-nails street-fighter who has always
played it his way. When Marv takes home a Goddess-like beauty named Goldie, only to
have her wind up dead in his bed -- he scours the city to avenge the loss of the only drop
of love his heart has ever known.
Then there’s the tale of Dwight, a private investigator perpetually trying to leave
trouble behind, even though it won’t quit chasing after him. After a cop is killed in Old
Town, Dwight will stop at nothing to protect his friends among the ladies of the night.
Finally, there’s the yarn of John Hartigan – the last honest cop in Sin City. With
just one ticking hour left to his career, he’s going out with a bang as he makes a final bid
to save an 11 year-old girl from the sadistic son of a Senator . . . with unexpected
results.
SIN CITY is directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez based on Miller’s
graphic novel of the same name. The film stars Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Elijah
Wood, Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncan, Carla Gugino, Josh
Hartnett, Michael Madsen, Jaime King, Brittany Murphy, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke,
Nick Stahl, Marley Shelton, Powers Booth and Rutger Hauer. Produced by Elizabeth
Avellan and executive produced by Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein.
Sin City: Town History (Est. 1991 by Frank Miller)
Sin City is a town that exists – literally and figuratively -- in black and white, a
world every bit as stark and hard-edged on the outside as it feels on the inside. Only the
rarest flashes of blazing color light up this city. Likewise, it is a place of deep contrasts.
Contrasts between the corrupt, the power-hungry and the unredeemable on the one
hand, and those still clinging by their fingernails to morals, hopes and broken-hearted
dreams of love on the other. An imaginary metropolis drawn to be not just bad, but
bursting at its seams with raw impulses and emotions.
The city was born in 1991, emerging from the heated imagination and skilled pen
of modern comic book master Frank Miller. It was to become one of the most critically
acclaimed graphic tales of its generation. Miller, a vital player in the modern revolution
in comic book storytelling, had previously won fans -- and a dose of literary acclaim -working on Marvel Comics’ Daredevil and the influential Batman graphic novel, The Dark
Knight Returns. His mark on pop culture continued with the creation of such popular
characters as the ninja assassin Elektra and the futuristic samurai Ronin.
He was already an iconoclast, but his stories from Sin City broke all previous
molds.
There are no superheroes in Sin City. Just tough-guys, hard cases, guns, girls,
lovers and losers trying to make it through the dark, dark night. All exploding off the
page in white-silhouetted drawings that riveted many who had never been comic book
fans before.
From Pulp Origins to Digital Destiny
Sin City descended from the great American pop culture tradition of pulp tales.
Like hardboiled crime novels and noir films of the 40s and 50s, Miller took the comics
into an off-limits realm: the dark heart of the city. Here was the quintessential American
urban frontier rendered with true grit. A place where the dialogue always snapped,
outlaws were perpetually fighting the system, and a current of heated rage and sexual
desire buzzed just under the cool surface.
Miller’s men were built like thick blocks of muscles, his women were drawn with
pure seductive voluptuousness and his city was one of infinite alleyways, winding
staircases and cold, steel monoliths. His stories were filled with hardboiled thrills, but
also drew on classic myths and tragedies to tackle themes of human loss and yearning.
The success of the fictional town was unmistakable. Miller’s acclaimed books
were honored with the prestigious Eisner Award and National Cartoonists’ Award.
But if there was one thing Miller didn’t want to do, it was to entertain the idea of a
Hollywood movie. He knew enough about them to know he would likely have to
compromise his vision - the tightly woven vision that had made Sin City such an
irresistible place to visit in the first place.
Miller: “In the beginning, I felt that it couldn’t work. Not that the stories wouldn’t
work in the form of a movie, but that the movie industry as I understood it wouldn’t be
able to process my material without turning it into something it wasn’t.”
Meanwhile, he was about to meet up with Robert Rodriguez. Miller: “I had
simply thought, ‘I’ve got a good life drawing the comic books, and there’s really no need
to let anybody have my baby.’ And I held to that thought until this Rodriguez guy started
bugging my attorney, and then my editor, and then hunting me down like a wild dog, until
essentially . . . well . . . I was seduced.”
Rodriguez has never been averse to risk – his diverse body of work has ranged
from the ultra-low-budget classic “El Mariachi” to the horror film “From Dusk Til Dawn” to
the hit “Spy Kids” franchise. He had been enamored with Sin City ever since he opened
page one of the comic.
Rodriguez: “At the comic book store the SIN CITY books just jumped off the
shelves because they are so visually bold and don’t look like anything else there. The
minute I read them, the stories grabbed me, I loved the idea of all these linked morality
tales and love stories revolving around this one dark city, which becomes a character
itself.”
The filmmaker loved the books so much he wanted to literally translate a raw,
unaltered vision of Miller’s SIN CITY to the screen - translate, not adapt. With everything
he had learned about digital cinema, he was certain he could take each frame of Miller’s
books – with every fat, black line, crisp silhouette and desperate character fully
represented – and turn them into moving pictures.
“When I read the books, I felt that they were fantastic exactly as they were. I
loved that the dialogue didn’t sound like movie dialogue, that the visuals didn’t look like
anything you usually see in movies. It was so much more unpredictable than any
screenplay. So I wanted to bring Frank’s vision on the screen as it was. I didn’t want to
make Robert Rodriguez’s SIN CITY. I wanted to make Frank Miller’s SIN CITY. I knew
that with the technology I already knew how to use – lighting, photography, visual effects
– we could make it look and feel exactly like the books.”
A Test of Filmmaking Mettle
But nothing is ever quite that simple. Rodriguez expected Miller to be skeptical...
and he was. Miller: “I was intrigued but very protective because SIN CITY is my baby
and my home. It’s where I always go when I’m not doing something else. I always
return to SIN CITY.”
Undeterred, Rodriguez decided on a different approach. He decided to prove to
Miller he could turn his comic book into cinema without losing its heart and soul. Or the
beauty of its black-and-white universe.
Rodriguez: “I knew what it would take to convince Frank because I knew what it
would take to convince me if someone wanted to take something I had written, one of
my babies. I had to show him that the concept was going to work.”
At his own risk and expense, Rodriguez shot some early tests to show Miller
what he had in mind. The two met in a Manhattan bar where Rodriguez flipped open his
lap-top and revealed the world of Sin City in kinetic form. Rodriguez: “Frank was
floored. He said, ‘wow, that’s pretty powerful stuff, mister’ and I said, ‘Frank, that comes
right out of your book.’”
Even with Miller coming around, Rodriguez had already planned to take one
more step to convince the artist his comic-book world was going to be safe. He sent
Miller the script that he had typed up. Rodriguez: “That’s why I’m not taking a
screenwriting credit. All I did was type what I saw in Frank’s books, and then edited them
down to pace. I transcribed three of Frank’s books into one script: “The Hard Goodbye,
“The Big Fat Kill”, and “That Yellow Bastard.” “I knew he’d been burned before. So I was
turning the process around for him, because usually it’s the artist who has to risk
everything when someone’s making a movie of his work, and I felt like I should take all
the risk.”
Rodriguez continues: “So I told him, ‘hey, let’s not even make a deal yet. Why
don’t we shoot the opening scene on a Saturday with my crew and some actor friends,
(Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton), my effects company will add the effects, and I’ll
score it and complete it up through the opening titles. Within a week you’ll be able to see
the finished opening and decide if we should make a deal and continue.” I figured if
Frank liked what he saw, we could keep going with the rest of the movie, and if not, he’d
have a nice short film to show his friends.
They shot the opening in just ten hours time. A blip in the movie world, but one
that paid off with big dividends.
Hartnett: “Robert basically said he needed help convincing Frank Miller he could
translate his comic book and I offered to be at his disposal. We understood it was kind of
a mission and if it worked, there would be a film. I hadn’t read the books before that, but
when I looked at them, and I saw how cool the world of Sin City was, I knew it was
exactly the kind of wild world Robert can relay so well. It’s all so intense. The guys are
all thuggish and hunched-over; the women are all in whips and leather. It’s like the old
school noir tale taken to a new extreme. There’s been nothing else like it on the screen.”
When the footage was finally revealed, Miller was taken aback. And won over. “I
realized that creatively, Robert is a locomotive. On top of that, he made it clear that he
is unusually true with his word. And most importantly, I saw that he gets it, he really gets
the material.”
Three Stories, Two Directors, One vision
Once Miller was hooked by the project, Rodriguez wanted him to be at the center
of it. “Frank’s presence on the set was invaluable to insure an authentic translation of
his books. But I didn’t just want him there as a producer or a comic creator. I wanted him
there as a co-director, so that actors and crew would listen to what he had to say and
treat him with respect.” Rodriguez decided they would share directing duties – although
this, too, would demand sacrifices. In order to avoid violating union rules that say there
can only be one director per picture, Rodriguez had no choice but to drop out of the
Director’s Guild of America to assure Miller his credit.
Rodriguez: “I didn’t realize at the time that it was against Director Guild rules to
have 2 directors, but I was already convinced that this was the way to go to insure the
best movie. Frank’s the only person who’s ever really been to Sin City. He knows
everything about the characters and this world. I also felt he’d already been directing all
these years. It’s only that he’s been using a pen and paper instead of a camera, actors
and lighting. Frank is a natural visual storyteller – and he jumped in at the highest
possible technological level and picked it up so fast it was remarkable.”
“As for quitting the DGA, it was just what had to be done. They didn’t want me,
an established director, teaming up with a first time director. That isn’t allowed according
to their rule book (which is as thick as the phone book, by the way.) We were moving
forward in such a positive way, and everyone involved could feel this was a special
project, that when the Guild came knocking on our door to shut us down a week before
production, I couldn’t let anything stop us. This project just felt too right. Frank was not a
first time director in my mind. If you read his books, you see that they are the best
written, photographed, acted, edited and directed movies never seen on the big screen.
To me he’s been directing all along, he’s just been doing it on paper. Like a movie, a
comic is visual storytelling, and Frank has proven himself in that arena. The Guild still
said no. So I resigned in order for us to make the movie the right way. Sometimes you
have to break the rules to do something different.”
With that decided, Miller was pleased to still be in control of his creative baby.
And now he believes SIN CITY may well change the way comic book stories are
approached by filmmakers in the future.
Miller: “The whole production has been astounding to me. SIN CITY is going to
be far and away the most faithful translation of a comic to film ever seen. What we
found is that all those things filmmakers always said couldn’t translate from comics – the
particular kind of dialogue, the fast jump cuts from image to image – well, we could make
them all happen in a new way. I think comic fans and movies fans are going to be quite
surprised by how different SIN CITY is from what has come before. There’s no trumpedup realism here – it’s more like a pure fever dream.”
SIN CITY: Meet The Locals
The population of Sin City is made up of those who must live, whether by choice
or through circumstance, on the darker side of urban existence. Some have utterly
succumbed to corruption, filth and evil. Others are still trying to survive with some part of
their souls intact.
The casting for the film unfolded with unusual speed. Robert Rodriguez: “I had
told Frank early on that we could get a great cast for this, because I knew that when
actors saw what we were doing, making the movie faithfully from the books, they would
came running towards it. When you have material this solid and fresh and exciting –it’s
very easy to attract a tremendous cast. On day one we met with Mickey Rourke, on day
two we met Bruce Willis, and it went on like that from there. It was one of those blessed
projects from the beginning. The best part of it was that I had the opening scene that I
used to convince Frank to show to the actors. So we’d meet with an actor, show them
the books, show them the opening scene with Josh and Marley, so they could see
exactly how it would translate to the screen, and that was it. There was nothing more we
had to say. The pictures and the opening movie did all the talking.”
Those that audiences will encounter in SIN CITY include:
MARV: (Picture here)
Marv was just born in the wrong century. He belongs on some ancient battlefield,
swinging an ax into somebody's face. But here he is, here and now.
And whoever killed the woman of his dreams is going to pay. In blood.
– Frank Miller
At the center of the first story in SIN CITY is Marv, a hulking, down-on-his-luck
bruiser. Marv gets lucky one night with a beautiful woman who shows him tenderness.
By dawn, she is dead -- and Marv is determined to find her killer no matter the cost.
Playing Marv is Mickey Rourke, who previously worked with Robert Rodriguez on
“Once Upon a Time in Mexico.” Rodriguez: “I told Frank I knew only one person who
could play Marv, but that he’d have to meet him in person to get it, because he wouldn’t
find evidence of it in any of his previous work. When I mentioned Mickey Rourke, Frank
said, “The guy from 9 1/2 weeks?” I said, “You definitely have to meet Mickey.”
Miller: “When I met Mickey, he lumbered into the room practically taking out the
door jamb and I wrote down a note: ‘Met Mickey Rourke. He IS Marv.’ He completely
integrated and absorbed the characters. Add to that the amazing job by Greg Nicotero
with prosthetics, and he looks just like the drawings. I was stunned at how completely
my drawing became reality. Mickey was so believable and right as Marv that when I saw
him at the end of production without the prosthetics he looked all wrong.”
Rourke became enamored with the town of SIN CITY: “I went out and bought
the book at a comic store after talking to Robert. I’d never been to a comic book store in
my entire life and I certainly wasn’t used to reading comic books. But when I read the
story of Marv I was excited because here was this far-out looking cat who had lots of
interesting things to say and do, and I thought, wow, this is going to be really different
and fun.”
Rourke felt his mission was to stay out of the way of the character’s larger-thanlife personality – and just let loose with as much of Miller’s vision as possible. “What’s
great about trying to accurately bring a comic book to life is that you are in the realm of
complete fantasy. So I didn’t try to complicate it. I tried to just roll with it and have a
good time. The whole key to this movie has been in keeping with the integrity of Frank
Miller’s work.”
The combo of Miller with Rodriguez on the set was another big draw for Rourke.
“They both really earned my respect and impressed me, and together they make a great
team. Robert is someone whose incredible energy just filters down through the whole
production. And when you get a suggestion from Frank Miller, you know it’s not just
coming out of nowhere but that it really means something because these characters are
his. The two of them made us all want to do the best job possible.”
GOLDIE: (Picture Here)
Damn it, Goldie. Who were you and who wanted you dead?
-- Marv
Marv’s one-night stand and one true love, Goldie, is played by Jaime King
(“White Chicks,” “Bulletproof Monk”). King explains the kind of dangerous dames one
finds in Sin City:
“Most of the women in a section of Sin City called OLD TOWN are prostitutes
because it’s something that has been passed down from generation to generation. They
have an incredible amount of power in the town, but they are also targets. In the
beginning of our story, Goldie finds out that her life is threatened so she has to look for a
man to protect her and she meets Marv. He is someone who has a real sense of
strength and power to him, but at the same time gentleness and sweetness. He can’t
protect Goldie, as it turns out, but he can avenge her death.”
On a personal level, King found entering Sin City a mind-opening experience. “I
had never seen anything like this comic book, or this production, before. Making this
movie required a lot of focus but it also was something a lot like play. It was all about
creativity, imagination and being present in the moment to make this whole other reality
come alive. Pretty cool stuff.”
KEVIN: (Picture Here)
He was a tortured soul, tormented by guilt.
-- Cardinal Roark on Kevin
As Marv seeks vengeance for Goldie’s death, he faces down a nightmare of a
villain: the chillingly placid, cannibalistic Kevin. In a complete change of pace, Elijah
Wood of “The Lord of The Rings” and Frodo Baggins fame takes on the darkest of
criminal roles. Wood: “It’s fun to deviate from what you’ve done before. The most
exciting roles always go down paths you’ve never taken before and that’s certainly true
of this one. It’s also been a tremendous challenge. I’ve been wearing a harness and
doing all kinds of kick-jumps.”
A brutal character, Wood nevertheless found Kevin had his own form of soul.
“He’s an intriguing guy, really. There’s something incredibly calm about Kevin. In fact,
Frank was always telling me to be more calm. He is definitely a psychotic murderer but
he finds a weird peace in hunting down and eating people, which makes him pretty
unique in the world of crazed killers. In his own way, he’s looking for a kind of love.”
On the set in Texas, Wood was further seduced: “You have Robert Rodriguez
who is passionate about these stories and then you have Frank Miller who is watching
his work come to life before his eyes . . . you can say it was a very exciting atmosphere.”
Most of all, Wood was glad for a chance to enter a fantasy world unlike any thing
he had seen; despite having been to Mordor and Mt. Doom. “I think audiences are going
to love going on this ride through SIN CITY. There are so many elements at play. It’s a
world where men are men, women are women, and good and evil are always at war. It’s
an incredible place to visit -- but you might not want to stay there!”
DWIGHT: (Picture Here)
You’ve got to prove to your friends you’re worth a damn. Sometimes it means dying.
Sometimes it means killing a whole lotta people.
-- Dwight
At the heart of another SIN CITY tale is Dwight, hard-nosed ex-photo-journalist
and the one man the working girls of Sin City’s Old Town can trust. He’s tried to change
his life. But when Old Town’s ladies come up against The Mob, and a cop winds up
dead, Dwight is drawn right back into the fray to protect his friends.
Rodriguez and Miller cast Golden Globe Award-winning actor Clive Owen in the
role. Rodriguez: “I didn’t know where we would find someone as rugged as Dwight in
the acting world until I remembered Clive from these BMW commercials I’d seen a while
back on the internet. He had a mystery and ruggedness that matched Frank’s books. He
was the one character we were originally worried about getting right but Clive owns the
role.”
Miller: “Clive Owen is a terrific actor. He provided just the note we needed.
Dwight is a man in a maze: things just keep happening to him but he tries to keep his
head up and protect his people. His story is about friendship and survival. Clive brings
such smoothness to it -- he’s able to maneuver his way through incredible events and
never wink at the audience. There’s no self-mockery in his performance at all.”
Owen found himself drawn to the surreal contours of SIN CITY: “There’s
something very strong and very clear about all of Frank Miller’s characters which was
extremely attractive to me. The books are vibrant, witty and surprisingly full of humor.
Yes, they are violent, but not in a nasty way. The violence becomes a part of the wit and
the style and part of this kind of fantastical background.”
He was also enamored of Dwight, flaws and all. “Dwight is a man, like a lot of
men, with a soft spot for the ladies – but this makes him very fallible. He’s very much in
keeping with the whole picture of SIN CITY.
Uncertain of what playing a comic book character might be like, Owen found it a
lot more thrilling of an experience than expected. “As an actor, I found it surprisingly
liberating to try to be faithful to something that has already been created on the page. It
felt completely different from anything else I’ve ever done, which is always exciting.”
Rodriguez: “I had a feeling that these actors were really going to enjoy bringing the
pages to life. Frank drew and directed his paper characters so wonderfully, we could use
them as a benchmark for not just attitude but emotion. For the actors to get to that same
place in their performances was what it was all about. Filling in the blanks that exist
between the panels was also a wonderful challenge for everyone. The actors were also
free to truly become someone else.”
GAIL: (Picture Here)
She's the boss. Beautiful. Merciless. Any of the Old Town girls are hair-trigger ready to die - or to
kill - for her. And they wind up doing both. Plenty of both.
-- Frank Miller
As Dwight’s story unfolds, he must team up with the heavenly and fierce Gail, the
leader of Sin City’s prostitutes, who once saved Dwight’s life and helped him gain a new
identity. Gail, a vision in thigh-high, leather-strapped stilettos and an Uzi, is played by
Rosario Dawson (“Alexander”).
Miller: “Gail is a very demanding role because she has to be so many different
things. Obviously, she has to be very sexy. But she’s also angry, fiery and quite funny.
Rosario seems to do all this in a walk. She was able to personify everything I know
about Gail.”
From the start, Dawson was inspired by Miller’s drawings of SIN CITY – and
Robert Rodriguez’s audacious dream to transfer the drawings to the screen.
Dawson: “Once I started reading the books, I was blown away. Then, when I got
to the set and I was able to see how it was being photographed, how committed
everyone was to bringing it to life, and how all these actors were just being transformed
with prosthetics, I couldn’t believe how stylized and cool it all was. The great thing is
that Frank has a complete understanding of the world of SIN CITY and Robert has a
complete understanding of how to make it all happen on screen. There’s this really cool
vibe between the two of them as together, they cover all of the angles.”
Dawson also developed a soft spot for Gail as Miller had drawn her: “Gail is an
amazing character. She’s sort of ‘the law’ in Old Town and she walks around kind of like
the Sheriff. She’s very strong, very intense, and very comfortable in this crazy world.
She’s definitely someone who lives on the edge and what makes the love story between
her and Dwight so interesting is that he’s someone who would like to get out of Sin City
and she just accepts it for what it is.”
The actress had a blast with her portrayal. “For me, every time I would get in her
costume and do the hair and the makeup, I would feel like I was becoming this wild,
insane, crazy woman but at the same time, I love Gail because she’s someone who at
every second is willing to go the nth degree and she’s having a good time. You have to
respect that.”
SHELLIE: (Picture Here)
I ain’t playing hard to get. I’m impossible to get.
-- Shellie
One of Frank Miller’s favorite characters in SIN CITY is local waitress Shellie,
who traverses all three stories in the film, but is key to Dwight’s tale. When Shellie’s
attention to Dwight triggers Jackie Boy’s anger, a rampage results. To play Shellie,
Miller and Rodriguez cast Brittany Murphy, who has been seen in such films as “8 Mile”
and “Little Black Book.”
Rodriguez: “I came very close to casting Brittany in THE FACULTY, and had
always wanted to work with her. When I saw the character of Shellie, I knew there was
only one gal that could bring her to life. So I had her come in and meet Frank.”
Miller found Murphy had an almost mysterious connection to his vision of Shellie:
“When I was drawing the book, I just loved Shellie: her sassy attitude, the way she
talked. As I was lettering the balloons I always thought her voice should crack, but there
was no way to do that in a cartoon. So then several years later comes along this lady
who looks like my character to begin with, and then she starts reading my lines, and her
voice is cracking all over the place. What can I say? I was smitten.”
Murphy was also taken by the character: “I thought it was cool to be the one
character who drifts through all the stories. I only got to be Shellie for two days, but she
left a big imprint on me. She’s not one of the ass-kicking Old Town girls -- yet she has
adapted very well to that environment. She’s sort of a throwback to the 30s or 40s era,”
which I love.”
Like her cast mates, Murphy soon got into the groove of inhabiting this town just
past the edge of reality. Murphy: “What I loved most about SIN CITY is that it became
an experience of immense creative freedom. We were creating an alternate universe, a
smart, funny, amazing looking alternate universe. There were times when I thought,
wow, I can’t believe this is my job because I’m having such an incredible time.”
JACKIE BOY: (Picture Here)
I may be dead, but you are screwed!
-- Jackie Boy
Jackie Boy, the once noble, now corrupted cop who stirs up a whole lot of trouble
in Sin City’s Old Town, is played by Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro. For Frank
Miller, watching Del Toro transform into a raging beast of a man – who plays a portion of
his scenes dead with a gun muzzle seared through his head -- was one of the highlights
of the picture.
Miller: “Benicio brought an awful lot to the enterprise. He didn’t come in trying to
change things but to bring them to fruition – yet he did it in unpredictable ways. He is an
unusually gifted physical actor who uses his formidable presence to great advantage.
There were many times I would look at how he was moving and realize that was exactly
how I had drawn Jackie Boy.”
Del Toro was intrigued by the challenge of somehow turning frames on a page
into visceral flesh and blood. “The book SIN CITY is a template but it’s more like looking
at stills. As actors, we had to figure out how you get something dynamic out of that.
You have to fill in the gaps between the frames and really use your imagination, which is
a great thing to do. I think SIN CITY is a new kind of film noir. It’s a slick, dark, makebelieve world in which the heroes are snappy but the villains are snappier, and there’s
always another bad guy waiting around the next corner.”
To go deeper, Del Toro chatted with Frank Miller about Jackie’s back-story.
“Jackie is someone who was a hero but got lost in the glory of it all. He’s turned into a
bully, into a guy who believes he can get away with anything. He’s a selfish mad man
with a license to kill. He’s sort of the perfect villain . . . and he gets his due. You could
say he gets a wound or two.”
Del Toro also worked closely with Greg Nicotero and the KNB team to make sure
the look of Jackie Boy went every bit as far as Miller had in the comic.
Del Toro: “I just thought this was the right film to really go to town with the look. I
loved working with these genius guys and throwing curveballs at them, asking them
things like ‘how can I have smoke coming out of my throat?’ In the end, they were
terrific. We all share a love of the old classic monster movies and I think there’s a
creativity there that we try to match in SIN CITY.”
MIHO: (PICTURE HERE)
Another of Frank Miller’s favorite characters is Miho, the silent yet deadliest of
the Old Town girls, played by Devon Aoki (“2 Fast 2 Furious,” “DEBS”). A kind of urban,
female samurai, Aoki cuts up the screen with the same swords Uma Thurman used in
Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” films.
Aoki adored her character’s purity of emotion: “Miho is very fierce and a
wonderful character. What’s great too is that Frank Miller is so passionate about her.
He really helped me to understand where she is coming from and how to embody her.
She can be a challenge because she doesn’t speak – so her actions have to speak loud
and clear. I also loved being a part of Sin City’s Old Town, because it’s the place where
women call all the shots. There’s a lot of girl power in SIN CITY.”
The actress trained with three different karate instructors to gain Miho’s physical
prowess and sword-fighting skills. “Mentally I tried to get as close to this tough assassin
of a character as a could, which also meant intense physical training. It was incredible
to learn how to use her whole arsenal: the Kitano sword, the bows and arrows, the staff.
I think people are really going to enjoy all the details of this character that Frank and
Robert bring to life.”
Frank Miller has the same feeling.
Miller: “I loved Miho so much when I first started drawing her. She’s a character
who comes, in a way, from a different realm than the rest of Sin City. She has more
magic than the others. She’s also a character of great mystery. In Sin City, everybody
talks a lot, but Miho never says a word. She is silent but completely and utterly lethal.”
“It was hard for me to imagine finding somebody who could bring Miho to life, but
Devon with those eyes and the superb way she moves is remarkable. It was a real treat
working with her.”
MANUTE: (Picture Here)
Nobody knows where he came from, and nobody ever will.
He serves his masters ruthlessly. Efficiently. Brutally. Mercilessly.
Pray you never meet him. The moment you do will likely be your last.
- Frank Miller
A man so immense his punch is like a freight train, Manute is at once enigmatic
and lethal. He is played by Michael Clarke Duncan, who garnered an Academy Award
nomination as the gentle giant in “The Green Mile” and who previously starred as The
Kingpin in “Daredevil,” also based on Frank Miller’s comic. Duncan was thrilled to have
the chance to embody Miller’s work again . . . but in a whole new way.
Michael Clarke Duncan: “When I first heard they were going to do everything on
film exactly the way it is in the comic book, I thought they were crazy, but I’m here to tell
you they’re not. This is so unlike anything anyone has done before, I think audiences
will be blown away.”
Duncan sees his character as something like a modern-day myth. “Manute is the
ultimate bodyguard, the guy who will take any orders. This guy, he gets sliced up, he
gets shot, but he keeps coming back. He’s like a fabled creature that nobody quite
understands. He always rises from the ashes and you can’t defeat him.”
HARTIGAN: (Picture Here)
Honor bound. A knight in blood-caked, grimy armor. Cop John Hartigan will sacrifice everything – his
marriage, his job, his honor, his freedom, his dignity –
all for the sake of a skinny little 11 year old girl
Frank Miller
If there is one pure hero in Sin City, John Hartigan is it. The last honest cop in town,
he’s finally about to retire. But he has a final mission: to save the 11 year-old Nancy
Callahan from the clutches of the deranged Senator’s son, Roark Jr. To play Hartigan,
Robert Rodriguez immediately thought of Bruce Willis.
Rodriguez: “I knew right away Bruce Willis would have to be Hartigan. I’d seen an
old ‘Moonlighting’ episode that I’d kept forever on tape where he played a hard-boiled
detective. It was a comedic tone but he played it very straight, and he looks great in
black-and-white. So I showed him the opening scenes and before it was even over, he
said ‘I’m in.’”
Meanwhile, Frank Miller was surprised by Willis’ devotion: “I’m thinking as a firsttime director, Bruce Willis is going to mop up the floor with me. Instead, Bruce came in
with a love of the material and was an absolute dream to work with. He understood that
his character had a lot of Raymond Chandler in him. And he certainly understood
Raymond Chandler’s theory that this kind of character is a modern-day knight. He gave
a beautiful performance. If Mickey Rourke is the film’s Dionysus, Bruce is our Apollo.”
Willis, already a fan of Miller’s hard-boiled town, was recruited through Rodriguez’s
early footage. “It was the most visually startling piece of film I’d ever seen. It was just
riveting. I’d been a fan of Frank Miller’s Sin City for a long time – I’ve always been a fan
of dark, poetic, hard-bitten stories -- but I didn’t think anyone could come up with a way
to actually shoot them until Robert invented this new digital filmmaking style.”
Willis was also a fan of Hartigan. “When we first meet him, he’s a man who’s mostly
hoping to get home to his wife and away from this city of crime. But he can’t quite do it,
because there’s this one thing he hasn’t taken care of. Hartigan really stands out in Sin
City because he has this high moral code and a strong, driving set of ethics. Hartigan
traded away his life for the life of this young girl and that’s a powerful thing. In the war
between good and evil, Hartigan falls on the right side.”
NANCY: (Picture Here)
Imagine you find your way the sleaziest saloon on the planet. The place stinks, with all the usual stinks.
There's a stage. The lights come up. You expect the worst. Then out dances an Angel. Perfect. Graceful.
Beautiful. A dream come true. Nancy. Nancy Callahan. She amazes.
- Frank Miller
Now known as the sweetheart of Sin City, Nancy Callahan is seen in two
incarnations. First, she is an 11 year-old girl in the most dire danger. Then, she is an
alluring 19 year-old exotic dancer who shines a light in the dark of the city.
Frank Miller explains: “Nancy is really the symbol of Sin City, this angel who
suddenly appears in the most disturbing of places, and she is played beautifully by both
Makenzie Vega (as a little girl) and Jessica Alba.”
Jessica Alba (“Honey”) was immediately moved by Nancy’s story and demeanor.
“She’s drawn as this doe-eyed, sweet girl with a softer side and I wanted to do this
because it’s an area I haven’t really been able to explore a whole lot. As I read the
book, I cried because her story is so beautiful, it’s such a romantic love story, and I knew
I had to do it. Nancy is the one person in Sin City who is very hopeful.”
“Nancy wears her heart on her shoulder and I wish I could wear mine like that a
little more. It’s wonderful to play somebody who is so perfectly soft and vulnerable all
the time, but also confident and strong.”
Alba also was thrilled to play scenes opposite Bruce Willis. “He’s shockingly
generous for someone of his stature. He’s also incredibly good at playing the pain and
struggle of knowing that you’re never going to be everything that you want to be.
Hartigan’s looks are filled with love that hurts and it’s very cool.”
YELLOW BASTARD: (Picture here)
The little snot. He ought to be dead. But here he is. Back in action. And he smells awful...
- Frank Miller
At the heart of John Hartigan’s story lies his nemesis, Roark Jr. (AKA “That
Yellow Bastard”), a demented sociopath who is later physically transformed into a
creature as ugly, yellow and downright odorous as his personality.
Playing Roark Jr. and Yellow Bastard, under a veil of makeup, is Nick Stahl
(“Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,” “Carnivale”). Originally, Miller and Rodriguez
were going to cast two separate actors as Roark Jr. and Yellow Bastard, but Stahl
convinced Rodriguez to let him do both.
Rodriguez: “I wasn’t sure at first so I asked Nick to leave me some messages in
Yellow Bastard’s distinct voice on my answering machine. In the story, the voice is the
only thing that Hartigan can recognize after the transformation. I knew that if he could
get the voice right, that he’d nail it, cause Nick is a terrific actor. I had actually completely
forgotten about it when I started getting these really creepy messages and of course, I
gave him the role.”
Stahl: “What I loved is that because Frank Miller’s story has such a heightened
reality and such a larger-than-life story, there’s no real fear of going too far with
something. It’s fun to play this sort of fantasy character who is so obnoxious and out for
vengeance.”
Once fully transformed into Yellow Bastard, even Frank Miller was creeped out
by Nick Stahl’s performance. “Nick Stahl was genuinely terrifying. I don’t know how he
did everything that he did underneath all that makeup. The effects that KNB created
make him look just like a horrifying drawing. I think Yellow Bastard will remind people of
just how scary a comic book character can be.”
SIN CITY: How the Town Was Built
Like all towns, Sin City started with a singular blueprint: Frank Miller’s drawings
and stories. With these in hand, Rodriguez looked for ways to peel the pictures right off
the page and onto the screen. Rodriguez’s pioneering stance on the creative potential of
digital filmmaking led to a whole new way of approaching a comic-based film.
With painting effects, costumes, makeup prosthetics and a noir black-and-white
aesthetic layered over the performances, the world Miller’s forged in his Sin City
drawings did not so much change as become charged with cinematic life.
Ultimately, Miller’s books laid side-by-side with frames from the film would match
up in detail for detail:
[ EXAMPLE HERE]
As the cinematographer and visual effects supervisor, Rodriguez knew he would
have to journey to the edges of digital filmmaking to capture the rainy, gritty, roughedged sheen that sets apart the environs of Sin City. Rodriguez: “The trick was to
capture what’s visually startling about the books. It had to be shot entirely on green
screen because the visuals and lighting in Frank’s books are physically impossible.”
It was a trip Rodriguez was ready for, having pioneered similar techniques in the
cutting-edge family adventure “Spy Kids.” Rodriguez used the very latest high-definition
(HD) cameras to shoot actors in stylized makeup and costumes performing entirely
against green screens. Later, highly skilled effects teams would be able to manipulate
computer-generated backgrounds stripped right from the comic book designs to make
the whole look and feel match Miller’s work.
It was a kind of daring, risky, unconventional filmmaking that excited Miller,
despite being a neophyte. Miller: “What’s interesting is that the process Robert
explained to me, using the green screen and everything, greatly resembles drawing. It’s
really a matter of creating elements and moving them about, just as you would on a
piece of paper.”
Rodriguez, who also drew comics early in life, agrees: “With the green screen,
it’s as if you’re drawing the subject first, with the actor’s performance, and then you fill in
the background with the computer-generated city. This process was not only familiar; it
also allowed us to really focus foremost on the actors bringing the characters to life.
When you don’t have to spend a lot of time on set-ups, worrying about sets that aren’t
there, the performances don’t lose their momentum and stay very fresh.”
To Troublemaker
The high-tech equipment, skilled crew and creative atmosphere needed for SIN
CITY were already in place at Rodriguez’s Austin, Texas Troublemaker Studios. When
he and Elizabeth Avellan founded Troublemaker they planned to do just that: stir up lots
of trouble in the movie-making world by creating a studio that emphasized creative
freedom and wild sense of play – backed up by a talented, devoted family of craftspeople.
Rodriguez: “Having Troublemaker at our disposal really gave us a great
advantage in making SIN CITY. To have the ability to work outside the studio system
but to also have everything you need right there really made it possible. It’s a freeflowing place where you don’t have to ask permission to make art. At one point Francis
Ford Coppola came to visit, and he said this was his dream for Zoetrope – a place where
you could have different artists come together to work and experiment with different
kinds of projects.”
With the latest digital equipment at his disposal, Rodriguez sees Troublemaker
as a kind of real world fantasyland. Rodriguez: “The thing I always loved about being a
cartoonist was that anything you could imagine, you could create there on a piece of
paper in your studio apartment. Now I’m doing the same thing on this larger scale, but
it’s the same creative experience. Here at Troublemaker – we’re in the studio in this one
green screen room, but we can instantly make it seem like you are in the snow or in the
city or places right out of your dreams.”
Green Screen
For most of SIN CITY’s diverse, accomplished cast, working with the green
screen was an unusual, and eye-opening, experience. They all gathered at Rodriguez’s
pioneering Austin, Texas Troublemaker Studios, where the performances were pulled off
in the studio’s famously intimate playground-style setting. Here, the actors brought SIN
CITY to life primarily with props and minimal sets. Sometimes even their fellow actors in
the scene were only there on green screen. Their most direct line of inspiration
remained Miller’s drawings in the books.
Benicio Del Toro: “In the beginning, it was kind of strange, being in this
environment where everything is completely in your imagination and not really there.
What I did was just stop paying attention to the green and fill in all the gaps in my mind.
It turned out to be really interesting to work like that. It’s very different and refreshing.
And you know it is gong to look great. That’s why I call Robert and Frank wizards –
because they found ways between the drawings and the effects to turn water into wine.”
Clive Owen: “The first day was very unusual, because you feel as if you’re acting
in a bubble of nothing. But then you get used to it very quickly. It starts to feel natural,
and then you get a real sense of achievement when you realize that you’ve nailed the
impact of a particular image from the book. The possibilities of this kind of filmmaking
are very, very exciting.”
Jessica Alba: “The green screen can be quite liberating because it strips away
all the stuff that can be very distracting in the background. It breaks all that down and it
becomes just about performing. It’s almost like being on stage in the theatre. I think
Robert is able to get amazing performances from people in part because he’s torn all the
distractions away, and gets even closer to the character.”
Mickey Rourke: “I’ve never done a movie with a green screen before, but Robert
made me feel very comfortable. I have so much respect for him, that I didn’t care if it was
a green screen or a pink screen or whatever. He was so prepared and he’s such a
down-to-earth guy with that it all made sense to me.”
Bruce Willis: “To a large degree, you wind up relying on sense memory when
you’re working with the green screen. You just had to imagine all the cool stuff that was
going to be there. It could get very, very strange at times. It was particularly weird to
see myself in a scene with an actress who wasn’t even there that day. It also reminded
me of doing ‘Pulp Fiction’ in that you don’t really know how your part is going to
intertwine with everything else until the end.”
For Carla Gugino, who worked with Robert Rodriguez on “Spy Kids” and plays
Lucille in SIN CITY, the green-screen was old hat. But for her, the thrill was in watching
such a talented group of adult actors become initiated. “Watching the kids work with a
green screen on ‘Spy Kids’ was really interesting because kids have such vivid
imaginations. I thought even that it was such a freeing thing for them, it would be truly
incredible for adult actors. So on this movie, we get to see the tremendous moviemaking tool that digital has become.”
The rapid-fire pace and ample flexibility of shooting with HD cameras was also
welcomed by the cast. Brittany Murphy: “It’s just the greatest, most extraordinary thing
to be in the middle of a scene and never have to worry about how much film is left. The
camera just keeps rolling all the time which really allows for a lot of creativity. We all just
loved it.”
Almost everyone involved in the production had a sense of being part of some
kind of shift in the future of movie-making. Rosario Dawson: “I feel like Robert and
Frank were inventing a different kind of movie and they were completely in control of a
new vision. What I love is that there’s no confinement to this style of filmmaking. You’re
not confined by weather, by day or night, by reality, by anything. It’s just all about
making an imaginary world come to life!”
Producer Elizabeth Avellan sums up: “I think Robert is helping a lot of people
overcome their fear of this new filmmaking technology. They see that it’s about moving
very fast and having a lot of fun. He’s creating new converts and that’s a beautiful thing
to see because Robert has always loved technology. He’s always been on the cutting
edge in every way possible. For him, it’s not just about bigger and bolder – it’s about
streamlining the technology, and getting the most amazing results with the least money
and the maximum creativity.”
Visual EFX
After the actors filmed in front of blank backgrounds, the SIN CITY effects team
painstakingly brewed up the worlds they inhabit taken straight from Miller’s books.
It began with Robert Rodriguez morphing Frank Miller’s books – frame by frame,
entirely as is -- into animatic storyboards. He than started developing the film’s look in
the early experimental footage – a look he would continue to adjust throughout
production. The idea was always to blend the photo-realistic with the graphic, but the
trick was in finding the balance. By finessing the lighting and photography, Rodriguez
played with variations on silhouette, shadow and extreme contrasts throughout. He also
decided to add a few splashes of color to the otherwise high-contrast atmosphere.
Rodriguez: “I was just salivating to recreate these really tricky images that Frank
had drawn. Everything is so stripped down, that we would do as Frank did in drawing
his comics. We’d build a background, but when in doubt, we’d black it out. By stripping
the backgrounds to their essentials, you get an unnatural style that feels right. Since I
shot in color, we’d take the color out and make it a stark black and white, but at any time
in post I could bring a color back in. You could then use color as a weapon; a really
strong storytelling tool. So you have a character like Goldie who pops out with real flesh
tones and blonde hair or The Yellow Bastard with his mustard-colored skin. And when I
wanted to heighten a character’s pain I turned the blood red, which really brings it into
the foreground, almost like a color close-up. At the same time, we could temper some of
the more gruesome images, by making the blood that very cartoonish white you see in
the books, which keeps it from being overwhelming. It becomes very abstract.
The background environment of Sin City was forged early on by Rodriguez’s
trusted crew at Troublemaker. Then, when it came time to hire an effects house,
Rodriguez made an unconventional choice. Instead of one, he would hire three – one
effects house for each story. This would allow each story to subtly develop its own
strong, distinctive and consistent look.
Ultimately, Hybride Technologies, who were involved in Rodriguez’s SPYkids
series, worked on “The Hard Goodbye,” the tale of Marv and Goldie; Café FX, whose
credits include “Sky Captain” and “Blade: Trinity,” worked on “The Big Fat Kill” or
Dwight’s story; and The Orphanage, known for their innovation on “Sky Captain” and
“The Day After Tomorrow,” provided visual effects for “That Yellow Bastard,” featuring
the tale of Hartigan and Nancy Callahan. With more than 600 effects shots per story,
each house devoted itself completely to SIN CITY alone.
The film was shot with the brand new Sony HFC-950s cameras – which currently
represents the leading edge in high-caliber digital imaging. The camera, also famously
used by George Lucas for this summer’s “Star Wars: Episode III,” raises the bar for
cinematographic versatility.
Visual Effects producer Keefe Boerner explains the appeal of the camera.
“There’s simply no way you could make a movie like this on traditional film. Robert was
able to constantly make changes on-the-fly, evolving the look to match performances
and vice versa. You need that kind of flexibility to go this far out on the edge.”
Because he was shooting in digital hi def video, Rodriguez shot in color using HD
monitors – but tweaked one of his monitors so he could see the footage unreeling in
black and white. Boerner: “We had the best of both worlds. Robert was able to create
what is quite possibly the best-looking black and white film ever, but when we had need
for color, we had the ability for that, too.”
Each of the effects houses would have to dig deep to satisfy Rodriguez, notes
Boerner: “He kept pushing each of them go further and further – to get deeper darks
and bright whites. He wanted exciting effects but also for everything to remain very stark
and graphic.”
At various junctures, Rodriguez even subjected his footage to the ultimate
examination. He took early footage to comic book conferences and fearlessly showed it
to fans to get their reactions.
Makeup
To elicit performances right out of a pulp-comic-book universe where human
features are exaggerated primal emotions rule the faces and bodies of the characters
also required external inspiration. This came in the form of extensive prosthetics and
makeup – under the supervision of Greg Nicotero -- along with costumes – designed by
Nina Procter.
Greg Nicotero of KNB EFX has previously made seven movies with Robert
Rodriguez, but SIN CITY was nothing like anything that came before. Nicotero had read
the comic books on his own years before Rodriguez approached him. But he never
imagined recreating the look of it out of real human faces.
Nicotero: “I was determined to capture the spirit of Frank’s drawings. So we
used the books directly as our initial makeup designs for all the most stylized characters,
including Marv, Yellow Bastard, Hartigan and Jackie Boy – and then we began to
explore prosthetics.”
Miller and Rodriguez knew prosthetics would be necessary, but they wanted
Nicotero to keep the array of broken noses, raised scars and square chins that populate
SIN CITY as organic as possible. Rodriguez: “We wanted makeup that would be
believable, that would give the story a visceral physicality, and that would look like real
faces. We didn’t want the actors to appear lost behind masks.”
The first task to tackle was one of the toughest: turning Mickey Rourke into the
behemoth Marv. Nicotero: “We did a scan of Mickey’s head and, using that, we then
created five completely different facial prosthetics because we weren’t sure which one
would work. We wanted to be faithful to Frank, but at the same time, we also needed to
incorporate some of Mickey into it. After we had the prosthetics, we had to have poor
Mickey sit in a chair for hours so that Frank and Robert could see the different looks. It
was a trying process, but when we found the right one, it was unbelievable. Just to see
Frank Miller’s face when he saw it was worth it all, because he has lived with these
characters for 25 years, and he knows them so intimately, and to see him be moved by
the transformation was really satisfying.”
Ultimately, Rourke had to spend 2 1/2 hours a day being fitted with a wig, a
forehead-and-nose prosthetic, and a molded chin. Rourke: “The make-up artists were
really into it. Once they get going, they always wanted to add more scars, more blood,
more everything. I not only was sitting in the chair for up to 3 hours every day, but it took
as long as 45 minutes to take the makeup off.”
Another key makeup element was creating Hartigan’s trademark scars on Bruce
Willis’ familiar mug. Nicotero: “We used a unique technique involving fluorescentactivated make-up on top of Bruce’s scars so that when you see them on the screen
they aren’t red with blood, but white, like in a comic book panel. It’s a great effect.”
Nicotero also enjoyed turning Benicio Del Toro into Jackie Boy. “Benicio is the
first actor I can ever remember who came to me and said ‘I want to look even more like
the way the character was in the book.’ Benicio already looks a lot like the character, so
we built some very sophisticated prosthetics to make him even more Jackie Boy –
squaring off his chin, making his nose longer. With that accomplished, he just brought
the character completely to life.”
But the coup de grace for Nicotero was creating the decaying, devilish Yellow
Bastard. Nicotero: “We began by sculpting a few different busts of the face – using
Frank’s drawings – to work on getting the details right, from the wrinkles under his eyes
to the shape and positioning of his ears and nose. Then we created a full-head
prosthetic for Nick Stahl which was glued into place and covered with stubble.”
Nicotero didn’t stop with the head. His team then sculpted a whole chest and
belly out of foam for Yellow Bastard’s nude scene. “We made this sort of foam latex
appliance that Nick Stahl wears like a vest to recreate Yellow Bastard’s gross, distended
belly.”
Adding to the complexity of Yellow Bastard was the fact that he is the only
character whose very flesh appears in color. Nicotero: “His face, his hands, and
ultimately his blood, had to be yellow of course. So we did test after test of different
makeup to get the exact sickly, mustard color that is in Frank’s book.”
Ultimately Rodriguez decided to literally paint the Yellow Bastard blue, so that in
post they could get a better key off of him and do a hue shift that would turn him yellow.
For Stahl, the result was a five-hour procedure to transform into his character –
including getting his prosthetics glued on and being doused in blue goo from head to toe.
Nicotero: “When Nick put on the whole rig he looked so much like the drawings in the
book it was astounding.”
Sums up Frank Miller: “Somehow Greg Nicotero and his magicians were able to
turn each actor into something very close to my drawings. And they were also able to let
the actors somehow work right through these amazingly deformed faces so they could
give them an astonishing amount of life.”
Costumes
Nina Procter, in her fifth movie with Robert Rodriguez, was faced with bringing
SIN CITY further to life . . . in silk, cotton and leather. For the costume designer, Miller’s
comic book universe provided rich inspiration. “For me, the big challenge was in trying
to making the wardrobe every bit as big and bold as it is in Miller’s book. I wanted to do
right by the characters and get as close to the original drawings as we could while
keeping the actors happy and comfortable.”
Another challenge for Procter was using colors that would work in a largely black
and white universe. “With this film, it was all about the value of color rather than the
colors themselves. In order to make it look great once the effects were added, I had to
look at every single costume through a black and white viewfinder. We also did a lot of
high-contrast things to heighten the style -- like silver studs on black leather.”
Frank Miller was intrigued to see pen-and-ink ideas become actual fabric: “Nina
and her crew worked magic. They researched the costumes that I drew, but it’s one
thing to draw something with a brush on a flat piece of paper and another thing to take a
real flesh and blood woman or man and make them look like that. So the costumes
became a very key element in having my drawings come to life.”
Procter got a kick out of working with the trademark staples of noir – trench
coats, dusters, fishnet stockings and garters – and then some. Her thoughts on some of
the character’s costumes follow below.
On Marv: “Marv has three different trench coats that change throughout the
story. His first coat, which is his own coat, is a little more special. It had these massive
shoulders and this skirt that would fly up almost like a Superman cape. But then that
coat gets torn up and he takes another coat and then another. Mickey Rourke was a
real trooper, wearing all these heavy coats that were very difficult to move in, but he
really made them work.”
On Hartigan: “Bruce Willis was great to work with and he really loved his
wardrobe. He literally put his trench coat on and said ‘Can I have this to take home?’
His coats were designed to be lighter weight and lighter in color than Marv’s coats to set
them apart. They’re more dressy and suit his character.”
On Dwight: “We wanted to ‘cowboy’ him up a little, so he’s in brown tones and
wears this great duster that has an outlaw feel to it.”
On Gail: “Gail was a very fun character. She is literally all belts and fishnet, but
we were able to construct her very revealing outfits in such a way that Rosario felt
entirely comfortable. There’s really no nudity involved but we give the character a strong
sense of nudity – I mean she has shoes that come up to the top of her leg, literally.”
Then there came Nina Procter’s favorite re-creation: Nancy. “Nancy was my
biggest challenge. She is the one pure, angelic person in the whole movie and we
wanted her costume to be very sexy – yet without going too far. She has to wear chaps,
work ropes and spin guns in her routine and I wanted Jessica Alba to be completely
comfortable about her costume so she wouldn’t have to think about it. In the end, I think
she looks like as close to an angel as anything you’ll find in SIN CITY.”
SIN CITY: A Visit From Quentin Tarantino
In an unusual twist, the production of SIN CITY received a visit from another
director who is no stranger to pulp territory. Quentin Tarantino (“Kill Bill,” “Jackie Brown,”
“Pulp Fiction”) came to the set at Robert Rodriguez’s invitation – and was paid one dollar
to shoot an extended sequence in the story “The Big Fat Kill.”
Tarantino and Rodriguez have previously worked together on such films as
“Desperado,” “Four Rooms” and “From Dusk Til Dawn.” Most recently, Rodriguez
composed music for Tarantino’s “Kill Bill 2” – also for the price of a dollar. But there has
long been a difference of opinion between the two on whether the future of cinema lies in
film or digital video. To score a point on his side, Rodriguez showed Quentin some of
the experiments he had shot early on for SIN CITY.
Tarantino: “It was my first view of what this world was like and I thought ‘oh my
God’ they’re actually doing the cityscapes and the silhouettes which I just love and all
the lighting, and the camera angles – everything. I was interested.”
With Tarantino awed, Rodriguez made his pitch for Quentin to spend a day as
“guest director.” “I knew Quentin would respond to the material and I thought it would be
a great chance for him to come down to Troublemaker Studios and see how it is to work
with actors in a digital realm. Plus I shoot very fast, so having him there a day was really
like having him there a week. We got so much done.”
Frank Miller also thought it would be cool. Miller: “It was fascinating working with
Quentin because he has such a different style from Robert. All three of us share a pop
culture sensibility and a macabre sense of humor so it was a good match. We were like
three kids in a tree fort having a ball.”
Ultimately, Tarantino directed the sequence from “Big Fat Kill” in which Dwight
and Jackie Boy drive through the rain with Dwight convinced that the dead Jackie Boy is
talking to him. Tarantino was given free reign. Rodriguez: “We really wanted Quentin’s
stamp on the scene. I knew he would deliver something distinct, and he came so
prepared, it made Frank and I look like bums. He had his whole shot list plotted out, an
idea for a unique look, and even had Clive Owen say his voice over out loud during the
scene. (Clive had to step off set for 5 minutes to memorize his monologue, something he
wasn’t expecting to record until much later. He impressed Quentin by stepping back on
set and saying, “I think I got it.” Clive nailed it.”)
For the actors, the sudden directorial switchover was intriguing. Benicio Del
Toro: “I think Robert and Quentin are two of the most interesting filmmakers on the
planet right now and for Clive and I suddenly to be sitting there in front of both of them
was pretty amazing. It could have been a recipe for chaos but it worked extremely well.”
Clive Owen: “To be told that another director was coming in just to do one scene
was very unusual. But then when I saw Quentin, Robert and Frank together it all made
sense. They were all trying to achieve the same thing in their own way and it felt very
organic and natural.”
Meanwhile, Tarantino admits he can see the merits of digital. “Robert couldn’t
have picked a scene that better illustrated the uses of digital filmmaking. You have this
rain pouring down on the car, you have a ton of water hitting the car, and you want to
have every water drop illuminated, just the way it’s drawn. I realized if I was shooting this
on film, it would take forever to get that going, and the sounds would have been ruined.
But instead of being stuck with capturing everything perfectly, it became entirely about
the delivery and the performance. That was a lot of fun.”
But despite the success of their collaboration on SIN CITY, Rodriguez is setting
his sights higher for their next meeting. “The next thing we do together, the price
doubles,” he proclaims. “It’ll be a two dollar bill after this.”
CAST
Jessica Alba (Nancy) will be seen in three of 2005’s most anticipated films. In addition to SIN CITY,
she will next be seen as Sue Storm/The Invisiible Girl in Marvel Comics’ action-franchise “The
Fantastic Four,” directed by Tim Story; and in “Into the Blue,” this summer’s underwater actionadventure co-starring Paul Walker, Josh Brolin and Scott Caan. Alba also has a deal with Universal
Pictures and Strike Entertainment to produce and star in a film derived from the limited-series comic
book “Beautiful Killer,” from Black Bull Comics.
Alba made her major studio film debut starring as the title character the 2003 release, “Honey,” which
grossed over $60-million worldwide. Earlier, Alba achieved worldwide recognition as the lead character
in James Cameron’s television series “Dark Angel,” Cameron’s first project after “Titanic.” Playing
Max, a genetically-enhanced human prototype in 21st Century Seattle, she was nominated for a
Golden Globe and a People’s Choice Award. Alba was also voted the TV Guide Award as Breakout
Star of the Year by readers, and won Favorite TV Actress at the 2001 Teen Choice Awards.
Alba fell in love with acting at a very early age, becoming active professionally at the age of 12. She
began studying with acting coaches in Los Angeles and, shortly thereafter, landed at the Atlantic
Theatre Company, where she studied with founders William H. Macy and David Mamet.
Alba’s first feature film credits include “Never Been Kissed,” “Idle Hands” and “The Sleeping
Dictionary.” In recent years, Alba has appeared in a select handful of iconic campaigns including L’
Oreal cosmetics, the famous “milk mustache” Got Milk? campaign and the 30 th Anniversary Fall ‘04
campaign for The Gap. An exotic beauty, Alba was raised in a traditional American family in
California. Her mother’s family has a French-Danish heritage, while her father is from Mexican-Indian
and Spanish lineage.
Benicio Del Toro (Jackie Boy) recently garnered his second Academy Award nomination for Best
Supporting Actor for his performance in “21 Grams.” He also won the Audience Award for Best Actor
(in a tie) at the 2003 Venice International Film Festival, in addition to other critical accolades for the
role of born-again ex-con Jack Jordon. Earlier, Del Toro earned the Academy Award for his
performance as Javier Rodriguez in Steven Soderbergh's “Traffic” as well as Golden Globe, Screen
Actors Guild, BAFTA, New York Film Critics Circle, National Society of Film Critics, Chicago Film
Critics Association, and Silver Bear [Berlin International Film Festival] Awards. He has also received
two Independent Spirit Awards for Best Supporting Actor: first as Fred Fenster in Bryan Singer's “The
Usual Suspects, and then as Benny Dalmau in Julian Schnabel's “Basquiat.” Del Toro is currently
directing his first feature-length film, based on Hunter S. Thompson’s “Rum Diary.”
Del Toro made his motion picture debut in John Glen's “License to Kill,” opposite Timothy Dalton as
James Bond. His subsequent films include Peter Weir's “Fearless,” George Huang's “Swimming with
Sharks,” Abel Ferrara's “The Funeral,” Marco Brambilla's “Excess Baggage,” Terry Gilliam's “Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas,” Christopher McQuarrie's “The Way of the Gun,” Guy Ritchie's “Snatch,”
William Friedkin's “The Hunted” and “The Indian Runner” and “The Pledge,” both directed by Sean
Penn.
His television credits include the NBC Emmy-winning miniseries “Drug Wars: The Camarena Story.”
directed by Brian Gibson. Born in Puerto Rico, Del Toro grew up in Pennsylvania. He later attended
the University of California at San Diego, where he divided his time between painting and acting
classes. He appeared in numerous student productions, one of which led to his performing at a drama
festival at the Lafayette Theatre in New York.
Brittany Murphy (Shellie) continues to reign as one of Hollywood’s most sought after and engaging
young actresses. She is currently in production for Kingsgate Films’ “Never Was,” starring opposite
Alan Cumming, Aaron Eckhart, Ian McKellen and Nick Nolte.
Murphy was most recently seen in the hit romantic comedy “Little Black Book,” starring alongside Ron
Livingston, Holly Hunter and Kathy Bates. Other recent roles include “Uptown Girls” with Dakota
Fanning; the family film “Good Boy,” for which she lent her voice; the blockbuster hit “Just Married,”
starring opposite Ashton Kutcher; and the acclaimed “8 Mile” opposite Eminem.
Murphy’s other film credits include Ed Burns’ ensemble drama “Sidewalks of New York,” Penny
Marshall’s “Riding in Cars with Boys” opposite Drew Barrymore and Gary Fleder’s “Don’t Say A Word”
opposite Michael Douglas. She starred alongside Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie in “Girl,
Interrupted” and in Alan Rudolph’s “Trixie” opposite Emily Watson. She gained national attention from
her breakthrough role as “Tai Frasier” in the box office smash “Clueless.” Other film credits include
“Summer Catch,” “Drop Dead Gorgeous” and “Cherry Falls.”
On television, Murphy starred opposite Lukas Haas and Sidney Poitier in “David and Lisa,” in
Showtime’s critically acclaimed “Devil’s Arithmetic” opposite Kirsten Dunst and in Showtime’s
“Common Ground.” Her talent for voices and accents can be heard on Fox-TV’s animated comedy
‘King of the Hill,” as she gives life to “LuAnn” and “Joseph” on the hit series. Murphy also performed
on Broadway with Allison Janney in Arthur Miller’s Tony Award-winning “A View From the Bridge,”
directed by Michael Mayer.
Clive Owen’s (Dwight) performance in the title role of Mike Hodges’ sleeper hit “Croupier” had critics
comparing him to the likes of Bogart, Mitchum, and Connery. More recently, he won the Golden Globe
Award and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Mike
Nichols’ “Closer.” He will next be seen in the thriller “Derailed” with Jennifer Aniston.
His recent film credits also include “Beyond Borders,” a romantic war drama co-starring Angelina Jolie,
the Mike Hodges thriller, “I’ll Sleep When I Am Dead” and “King Arthur.”
Owen first came to the U.K. public’s attention as the star of the television series “Chancer.” U.S.
audiences later saw him starring opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones in Jack Gold’s telefilm adaptation of
“The Return of the Native,” which aired on CBS. More recently, he starred in the BBC’s “Second Sight”
police dramas, which aired on PBS’s “Mystery!”
Owen’s feature films also include Beeban Kidron’s “Vroom,” Stephen Poliakoff’s “Close My Eyes” and
“Century,” Sean Mathias’ “Bent,” Joel Hershman’s “Greenfingers” and Robert Altman’s star-studded
“Gosford Park.” His acclaimed stage work includes portraying Romeo at the Young Vic, starring in
Sean Mathias’ staging of Noel Coward’s “Design for Living” and playing the lead role in Patrick
Marber’s original production of “Closer” at the Royal National Theater.
His U.K. telefilm credits also include Andrew Grieve’s “Lorna Doone,” Andy Wilson’s “An Evening with
Gary Lineker,” Diarmuid Lawrence’s “The Echo” and David Blair’s “Split Second.” In the fall of 2001,
he starred in London in Lawrence Boswell’s staging of Peter Nichols’ “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg”
and in “The Hire,” series of BMW Internet short features, in which he was directed by (respectively)
John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai, Guy Ritchie, and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
Mickey Rourke (Marv), one of the few true method actors of today and a graduate of New York’s
Actor’s Studio, is this generations’ classic working actor. Rourke launched his acting career with roles
in “1941,” “Heaven’s Gate” and “Body Heat.” His career has been defined by his performances In “9
1/2 Weeks,” “Barfly,” “Angel Heart,” “Year Of The Dragon,” “Pope Of Greenwich Village,” “Rumble
Fish” and “Diner.”
Other notable appearances include Sean Penn’s “The Pledge,” Steve Buscemi’s “Animal Factory,”
Wong Kar Wai’s BMW short film “The Follow,” Francis Ford Coppola’s “Rain Maker” opposite Matt
Damon, Jonas Akerlund’s cult hit “Spun” and Robert Rodriguez’ “Once Upon a Time in Mexico.”
Mickey most recently co-starred in Tony Scott’s blistering hardboiled revenge film “Man on Fire,”
opposite Denzel Washington. He currently is in production on Tony Scott’s “Domino” opposite Keira
Knightley.
Bruce Willis (Hartigan) has demonstrated incredible versatility in his career. From playing the
ultimate action hero in the popular “Die Hard” films to his critically-acclaimed performances in recent
movies like “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable,” Willis has carved a niche for himself as one of the
world's most talented and bankable box office superstars.
Raised in a working-class family in New Jersey, Willis attended Montclair State College and eventually
moved to Hell's Kitchen to pursue an acting career. Soon he was cast in off-Broadway plays and
television commercials, while occasionally playing his harmonica and sitting in rhythm and blues
bands. His acting breakthrough came in 1984 when he replaced the lead in Sam Shepard's hit play
“Fool for Love,” a run which lasted for 100 performances off-Broadway. Later that year while on a trip
to Los Angeles, Willis was selected from 3,000 contenders to star as David Addison in the
phenomenally popular television series "Moonlighting," for which he would win an Emmy and Golden
Globe Award and ultimately become an international star.
In 1986, his continued pursuit of the love of music resulted in the release of an album for Motown
Records entitle Bruce Willis: The Return of Bruce, which eventually went platinum, hanging on the
charts for over 29 weeks. His remake of the single "Respect Yourself" landed at an impressive number
five on the charts. In 1989, he released his second album, If It Don't Kill You, It Just Makes you
Stronger, also for Motown.
Willis made his feature film debut opposite Kim Basinger in the Blake Edward's comedy “Blind Date.”
He then reunited with the director to play Tom Mix in the murder mystery “Sunset” before going on to
star in “Die Hard,” one of the highest-grossing films of 1988. He then a dramatic turn by portraying a
haunted Vietnam War veteran in Norman Jewison's “In Country.” Returning to comedy, Willis proved
the voice of Mikey, the wisecracking baby in the highly successful “Look Who's Talking” and “Look
Who's Talking, Too.” Next Willis starred in “Die Hard 2: Die Harder,” and Brian De Palma's “Bonfire of
the Vanities” opposite Tom Hanks. He went on to star opposite Demi Moore in “Mortal Thoughts”; as a
cat burglar in “Hudson Hawk”; and as gangster Bo Weinberg in “Billy Bathgate.” Willis followed these
roles with The Last Boy Scout,” the number one box-office hit “Striking Distance” and the erotic thriller
“Color of Night.”
He then costarred to great acclaim in the Quentin Tarantino drama “Pulp Fiction” which was the 1994
Grand Prize winner of the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. He was also lauded for his turn in
“Nobody's Fool” co-starring Paul Newman, starred in the box office hit “Die Hard 3” and was seen in
“Four Rooms.” He starred in “Twelve Monkeys” for director Terry Gilliam, in “Last Man Standing” for
director Walter Hill, and in “The Fifth Element” for director Luc Besson. He also starred in “The Jackal”
and “Mercury Rising.” Willis starred in the action-adventure blockbuster “Armageddon” produced by
Jerry Bruckheimer. He also made “Breakfast of Champions” for director Alan Rudolph, based on the
best-selling novel by Kurt Vonnegut, and served as executive producer on the film.
More recently, Willis starred in the critically acclaimed feature film drama “The Sixth Sense,” which
was nominated for six Academy Awards. Willis won Best Actor from the People's Choice Awards for
the film. He costarred with Michelle Pfeiffer in “The Story of Us” directed by Rob Reiner; produced and
starred in the dark comedy “The Whole Nine Yards,” and was seen in the hit film “The Kid.” Willis
reunited with M. Night Shyamalan to star with Robin Wright-Penn and Samuel L. Jackson in
“Unbreakable.” He also recently starred opposite Billy Bob Thornton and Cate Blanchett in Barry
Levinson's “Bandits,” opposite Colin Farrell in “Hart's War” and is currently starring in the police drama
“Hostage.”
In 1997 Bruce Willis co-founded A Company of Fools, a nonprofit theater company committed to
developing and sustain a company of theater artists that stage productions in the Wood River Valley,
in greater Idaho and throughout the U.S. During the summer of 2001 he starred in and directed Sam
Shepard's “True West” which was aired on Showtime. This special served as a tribute to Robert Willis,
the younger brother of Bruce, who passed away of pancreatic cancer.
Elijah Wood (Kevin), widely regarded as one of the most talented actors of his generation, continues
to challenge himself with roles in films spanning the spectrums of style and genre. Wood was last
seen in Michel Gondry’s "Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind" with Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet.
He recently completed production on "Hooligans" directed by Lexi Alexander and Liev Schreiber's
adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's bestselling novel Everything Is Illuminated. Wood has also lent
his voice to the forthcoming animated film "Happy Feet".
Wood was also recently seen in the final trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkein's "The Lord of the Rings: "Return of
The King" in the lead role of Frodo Baggins. "Return of the King" won 11 Academy Awards, tying
"Titanic" for the record. Earlier, he received critical acclaim for his performance opposite Christina Ricci
in Ang Lee’s film “The Ice Storm.”
His films include Jeffrey Porter's "Try Seventeen", a romantic comedy starring Franka Potente and
Mandy Moore, the drama "Ash Wednesday" starring opposite Ed Burns, James Toback's "Black and
White," "The Faculty" written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Mimi Leder's
"Deep Impact." He also has appeared in Alan Shapiro's "Flipper" with Paul Hogan; Pontus
Lowenhielm and Patrik Von Krusenstjerna's "Chain of Fools" opposite Salma Hayek; Jon Avnet's "The
War" opposite Kevin Costner; Rob Reiner's "North" with Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss;
Joe Ruben's "The Good Son" opposite Macauley Culkin; Stephen Sommers' "Huck Finn”; Steve
Miner's "Forever Young" with Mel Gibson; Mary Agnes Donohue's "Paradise”; Richard Donner's
"Radio Flyer" with Lorraine Bracco; Barry Levinson's "Avalon" opposite Armin Mueller-Stahl and Aidan
Quinn; and Mike Figgis' "Internal Affairs" with Richard Gere. He also starred in Martin Duffy's
independent film "The Bumblebee Flies Anyway."
On television, Wood recently appeared on ABC in Tony Bill's "Oliver Twist” starring as the 'Artful
Dodger' opposite Richard Dreyfuss' 'Fagin.' Other television credits include the NBC telefilm, "Dayo,"
and the CBS movie, "Child in the Night." Wood was named 1994's Young Star of the Year by
NATO/ShowEast following his performance in "The War."
Rosario Dawson (Gail) is emerging as one of Hollywood’s hottest leading ladies. She was most
recently seen in the Oliver Stone epic “Alexander,” joining an all-star cast including Colin Farrell,
Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, and Jared Leto. Dawson was also seen co-starring with The Rock,
Seann William Scott and Christopher Walken in the action/comedy “The Rundown”; in the acclaimed
drama “Shattered Glass” with Hayden Christensen; and in the indie film “This Girls Life.”
Dawson shone on-screen starring in the critically acclaimed Spike Lee film, “The 25th Hour,” opposite
Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper. This followed roles in “Men in Black 2”
with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones and “The Adventures of Pluto Nash” opposite Eddie Murphy.
She also starred in “Chelsea Walls” for director Ethan Hawke, which was based on the play of the
same name. Dawson’s additional credits include Ed Burns’ “Sidewalks of New York: and “Ash
Wednesday”; Jon Favreau’s “The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest”; and “Love in the Time of
Money.” Her current projects include the political thriller “This Revolution” and the big screen
adaptation of the Broadway musical sensation “Rent.”
Dawson made her film debut in the highly acclaimed and controversial hit film “Kids,” directed by
photographer Larry Clark. With a surprise midnight screening at the Sundance and a spot in the main
competition at the Cannes Film Festival, her film career was well underway. Dawson’s other film
credits include: Spike Lee’s “He Got Game” opposite Denzel Washington; “Light It Up” opposite
Forrest Whitaker and Vanessa Williams; “Down To You” with Freddie Prinze Jr.; and “Josie and The
Pussycats” with Rachel Leigh Cook and Tara Reid. Dawson also produced a 15-minute short film
entitled “Bliss Virus,” written and directed by Talia Lugacy.
Michael Clarke Duncan’s (Manute) performance as the gentle giant in “The Green Mile” received
widespread critical-acclaim and has led to a career of diversified roles. Duncan most recently starred
in the indie film “D.E.B.S” and will next be seen in Michael Bay’s “The Island” and “American Crude”
alongside Jennifer Esposito, Ron Livingston and Rob Schneider.
Duncan portrayed the evil Kingpin in the mega-hit “Daredevil,” based on Frank Miller’s comic, opposite
Ben Affleck. Prior to that, Duncan starred in several blockbuster films including “The Scorpion King”
opposite The Rock, “Planet of the Apes” opposite Mark Wahlberg, “See Spot Run” opposite David
Arquette and “The Whole Nine Yards” opposite Bruce Willis. Duncan also worked with Bruce Willis on
the mega-hit film “Armageddon.” It was Willis who placed the call to director, Frank Darabont to
suggest Duncan for the critical role of John Coffey in “The Green Mile.” Portraying John Coffey won
Duncan numerous accolades including an Academy Award nomination, Golden Globe nomination,
SAG nomination, Broadcast Film Critics Award, Saturn Award and Black Reel Award, to name a few.
In addition, Duncan was recognized as the ShoWest Male Star of Tomorrow. Duncan’s previous film
credits include “Bulworth,” “The Player’s Club” and “A Night At The Roxbury.” He has had guest roles
on the hit television shows “The Jamie Foxx Show,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” “Weird Science,”
“Married…With Children” and “The Wayans Brothers.”
With an unmistakable deep voice, Duncan has thrived as a voiceover actor as well. His most recent
voiceover film credits include “Racing Stripes,” “Delgo” and “Dinotopia: Curse of the Ruby Sunstone.”
Previously he voiced characters in “Brother Bear,” “George Of The Jungle 2” and “Cats & Dogs.”
Michael Madsen (Bob) has run the gamut from the hippest of cult films to the biggest studio
blockbusters in his career. He is probably best known for his hard-edged roles in genre films,
including: the ear-slicing Mr. Blonde in Quentin Tarantino's “Reservoir Dogs,” a Mafia family capo in
“Donnie Brasco,” a hard-core Special Ops officer in “Species” and, most recently, the deadly
Sidewinder in Tarantino’s “Kill Bill Vol. 2.” Yet, displaying his versatility, Madsen has also portrayed a
lovable and caring father in “Free Willy”; starred as Susan Sarandon's supportive, understanding
boyfriend in “Thelma and Louise”; and brought the gentle Virgil Earp to life opposite Kevin Costner in
Lawrence Kasdan's “Wyatt Earp.” He also recently joined Parker Posey and Adam Goldberg in the
USA series “Frankenstein” with producer Martin Scorsese, author Dean Koontz and director Marcus
Nispel. He currently can be seen as the lead in ESPN’s poker-themed dramatic series “Tilt.”
Forthcoming films include the horror thriller “Bloodrayne,” the action adventure “The Last Drop” and
the crime drama “Chasing Ghosts.” Madsen will also star in Larry Bishop’s biker film “Hell Ride” with
Quentin Tarantino.
Born in Chicago, Madsen and his two siblings, including actress Virginia Madsen, were reared in a
close-knit family environment. He entered the world of acting after seeing “Of Mice and Men” at
Chicago's fabled Steppenwolf Theater. Following stints painting houses, repairing cars, working as an
orderly in a hospital, and pumping gas, Madsen moved to Los Angeles and began landing guest spots
on “Miami Vice,” “Cagney and Lacey,” “St. Elsewhere” and other TV series.
Madsen made his feature debut in the thriller hit “War Games” in 1983, and went on to appear in “The
Natural,” “War and Remembrance” and “The Doors,” while coming to national prominence with his
roles in “Thelma and Louise” and the highly influential “Reservoir Dogs.” He has played a deviant killer
in “The Getaway” with Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin; the psycho killer in John Dahl’s “Kill Me Again”;
the over-the-top cop in David Lynch’s “Mulholland Falls” and Halle Berry’s CIA boss in “Die Another
Day.”
In 2002 Madsen starred in the series “Big Apple,” as Miller the Killer in the TV remake of “High Noon”
in FX's controversial “44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shootout,” opposite Ashton Kutcher in “My
Boss's Daughter” and in the epic Euro-Western “Muraya,” a film adaptation of Jean “Mobius” Giraud's
classic French comic strip “Blueberry.”
Madsen has published three books of poetry and short stories: Beer, Blood, and Ashes, Eat the Worm
and Burning in Paradise, which won the Independent Book Publisher's Firecracker Poetry Book of the
Year Award in 2001. His most recent book, Blessing of the Hounds, was published by 12 Gage Press
in 2002. He is currently at work on his third book of prose, 46 Down.
Josh Hartnett (The Man) first came to audiences' attention as "Michael 'Fitz' Fitzgerald" in the
television series "Cracker.” He made his feature film debut in 1998, co-starring with Jamie Lee Curtis
in “Halloween: H20,” receiving an MTV Movie award nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance.
Also in 1998, Josh starred in “The Faculty” directed by Robert Rodriguez. In 1999 he starred in Sofia
Coppola’s acclaimed black comedy “The Virgin Suicides” opposite Kirsten Dunst.
In 2001 Hartnett hit his stride starring in three diverse features: “O,” a modern day version of Othello,
which earned him widespread praise; the Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster “Pearl Harbor” which earned
over $1 billion dollars worldwide for Disney; and the powerful “Black Hawk Down” for director Ridley
Scott. In 2002 the National Theater Owners awarded him with the ShoWest 2002 Male Star of
Tomorrow Award.
More recently, Josh starred in “Wicker Park” for director Paul McGuigan. He recently wrapped “Mozart
and the Whale,” written by Ron Bass, a love story between two people with Asperger's Syndrome, a
form of autism. Additional film credits include “Hollywood Homicide,” “40 Days and 40 Nights,” “Blow
Dry,” “Town and Country” and “Here on Earth.”
Carla Gugino (Lucille) was most recently seen reprising her role as Ingrid Cortez in Robert
Rodriguez’s “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over.” She also starred in Keith Gordon’s acclaimed adaptation of
Dennis Potter’s “The Singing Detective” joining a cast that included Robert Downey, Jr, Robin Wright
Penn and Mel Gibson. Her additional film credits include the original blockbuster hit “Spy Kids,”
“Snake Eyes,” “The Jimmy Show,” “Miami Rhapsody” and “This Boy’s Life.” She will next be seen in
Mark Rydell’s “Jump Shot” with Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito and Kelsey Grammer.
Gugino also recently starred on television in the title role of hard-working federal marshal “Karen
Sisco.” Her television credits also include roles on “Spin City,” a neurosurgeon on “Chicago Hope,” and
“A Season for Miracles.”
Jaime King (Goldie) was scouted by a top New York model manager when she was 14 and relocated
to NYC to pursue a career in fashion. She soon emerged as a top professional in her field gracing the
covers of international fashion magazines and landing such sought after campaigns as Armani,
Tommy Hilfiger and Victoria’s Secret. She was then selected to be a spokes-model for the cosmetics
giant Revlon along with such Hollywood power players as Halle Barry and Julianne Moore.
Jaime was soon selected to host MTV’s “House of Style” solidifying her status in popular culture.
King’s talents became sought after in Hollywood and she landed prominent roles in such films as
“Pearl Harbor,” “Blow” and “Slackers.” Her most recent films are the Wayans Brothers’ “White Chicks”
and “Bullet-Proof Monk” with Chow Yun-Fat. She is soon to be seen in the upcoming films “The Alibi”
and “Pretty Persuasion” with James Woods. Jaime has just completed shooting on “Two For the
Money” starring Al Pacino, Rene Russo and Matthew McConaughey.
Nick Stahl (Roarke Jr/Yellow Bastard) made his film debut at twelve and has continued to display a
broad range of talent. Stahl was most recently seen in the critically acclaimed HBO series “Carnivale,”
in which he stars as Ben Hawkins. He also played the role of ‘John Connor’ in “Terminator 3: Rise of
the Machines,” opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger and Claire Danes, was seen in the indie film “Twist”
and the Sundance feature “Bookies.”
Over the years, Stahl has maintained his presence with a number of memorable films, most notably
the critically acclaimed, Academy Award nominated film, “In the Bedroom.” He also gave a chilling
performance in director Larry Clark’s “Bully,” opposite Brad Renfro and Bijou Phillips. His other film
credits include “The Thin Red Line,” directed by Terrence Malick and co-staring Sean Penn and
George Clooney; and “Safe Passage,” opposite Susan Sarandon and Sam Shepard.
Born in Harlington, Texas and raised in Dallas, Stahl started to perform in children’s plays at the age of
four. His first professional role was at the age of ten in the television movie “Stranger at My Door”
with Robert Urich. He followed with another movie of the week, “A Woman with a Past,” opposite
Pamela Reed. Shortly thereafter, he received the coveted role of the young boy in “The Man Without
a Face,” who brings out the love in a physically and emotionally scarred man (played by Mel Gibson).
Gibson gave him the role over thousands of others after being impressed by his screen test. The
following year he completed another movie for television, “Incident in a Small Town,” with Walter
Matthau and the Disney feature “Tall Tale,” in which he co-starred opposite Patrick Swayze. Stahl
also co-starred with Martha Plimpton in Tim Blake Nelson’s directorial debut, “Eye of God,” which
premiered at the Sundance Film festival.
Devon Aoki (Miho) made her engaging screen debut in the summer hit, “2 Fast 2 Furious” for director
John Singleton. Most recently, Devon starred in “D.E.B.S.” for director Angela Robinson. Devon is
also currently one of the international faces of Lancôme, the leading cosmetics company in the world.
Devon began her career as a top model at age fourteen. While living in London, she quickly ascended
to become one of the most sought after models. Her cross-cultural international appeal has
established Devon as a public figure all over the world, including her family’s homeland of Japan,
where she has endorsed companies such as Shishedo, Loreal, Sunsystems, Toyota and Peachtree
Juices. Devon’s extensive work in the fashion industry includes editorial pictorals for numerous major
magazines.
A favorite with photographers as well as designers, she has been featured in numerous campaigns
including Chanel by Karl Lagerfeld, Versace by Steven Meisel, Wella by Ella von Unwerth, Cerrutti by
Annette Aurell and Moschino. In addition, Devon has made numerous runway appearances, which
include Thierry Mugler, Fendi, Gaultier, Givenchy, Ferretti, Ralph Lauren, Yves St. Laurent, Bella
Freud, Anna Molinari, Versace and Chanel. She served as Karl Lagerfeld’s muse and was the bride of
Chanel five seasons in a row.
Alexis Bledel (Becky) is quickly emerging as one of Hollywood’s brightest talents in both film and
television. She made her television debut in the WB’s critically acclaimed series “Gilmore Girls”
starring as Rory Gilmore, a role that earned her the 2002 Family Friendly Forum Award for Best
Actress in a Drama, as well as nominations for Choice Actress in a Drama at the 2002 and 2003 Teen
Choice Awards. She most recently starred in Gurinder Chadha’s “Bride and Prejudice,” a Bollywood
musical version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Next, Alexis will star in the independent film
“Orphan King” for writer/director Andrew Wilder.
In the fall of 2002, Alexis made her feature film debut in Disney’s “Tuck Everlasting,” which is based on
the acclaimed novel by Natalie Babbitt and also starring Ben Kingsley, William Hurt, Sissy Spacek,
and Jonathan Jackson. Alexis began her acting career appearing in community theater in her
hometown of Houston, Texas. She also modeled in New York during her school breaks. Before
winning the role of Rory Gilmore, Alexis attended NYU Film School to study writing and directing.
FILMMAKERS
Robert Rodriguez (Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor, Composer) was a student at
the University of Texas at Austin in 1991 when wrote the script to his first feature film -- while
sequestered at a drug research facility as a paid subject in a clinical experiment. That paycheck
covered the cost of shooting his film. He planned to make the money back by selling the film to the
Mexican home video market.
The film was “El Mariachi” (1993), which Rodriguez wrote, directed, photographed, edited and soundrecorded – for $7,000. While shopping it to the video market, Rodriguez signed with a powerful agent at
ICM. Columbia Pictures then bought the rights and signed Rodriguez to a two-year writing and directing
deal. “El Mariachi” went on to win the coveted Audience Award for best dramatic film at the Sundance
Film Festival, and was honored at the Berlin, Munich, Edinburgh, Deauville and Yubari (Japan)
festivals. “El Mariachi” became the lowest budget movie ever released by a major studio and the first
American film released in Spanish. Rodriguez wrote about these experiences in Rebel Without a Crew ,
a book published by Dutton Press.
Although it was an astonishing debut for a 23-year-old, Rodriguez was already a seasoned filmmaker.
The third of ten children born to Cecilio and Rebecca Rodriguez in San Antonio, Texas, he had
prepared for film production classes at UT by making a series of his own home movies. Family
members were recruited as cast and crew. His three youngest siblings starred in “Bedhead” (1991), a
16 mm short film which was honored at many national and international festivals. Rodriguez also
blossomed as a cartoonist at UT with “Los Hooligans,” a comic strip in the Daily Texan featuring
characters based on his brothers and sisters.
Rodriguez went on to write, produce, direct and edit “Desperado” (1995), a sequel to “El Mariachi,” for
Columbia. The film introduced American audiences to Antonio Banderas as a leading man, opposite
Salma Hayek. Rodriguez also wrote, directed and edited “The Misbehavers” again starring Antonio
Banderas in 1995, one of the four segments of Miramax Films' “Four Rooms.” He then teamed up with
Quentin Tarantino on the outrageous “From Dusk Till Dawn” (1996) for Dimension Films. Rodriguez
directed a cast including Tarantino, who wrote the script. He also edited the film and served as
executive producer. Rodriguez's next directorial project was Dimension Films' “The Faculty”(1998)
starring Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood and Jordana Brewster.
In 2001, Robert fulfilled a lifelong dream and created the family adventure film. “Spy Kids,” a critically
acclaimed and box office success, went on to break 100 million domestically. He followed that with “Spy
Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams,” which won rave reviews and “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over,” which hit
theaters July 25, 2003.
The third installment to the “El Mariachi” trilogy, “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” was released on
September 12, 2003, which Robert shot, chopped and scored himself. He also served as writer of this
film.
His upcoming movie, “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D” will be released June 10, 2005.
He wrote it with his 7-year-old son, Racer Max.
Frank Miller (Director, Writer, Producer) makes his feature film directorial debut with SIN CITY.
The film is based on Miller’s ongoing comic book series, which draws upon his love of film noir and pulp
detective stories to create a dark gritty cityscape of clashing good and evil like no other.
Miller, creator of some of the world’s most popular comics, became a professional comics artist while
still a teenager. Working on a variety of assignments for major publishers, including Gold Key, DC and
Marvel, he first drew attention to his work on two issues of Marvel's Spectacular Spider-Man, in a story
that teamed the ever-popular arachnid with another popular character, Daredevil. As a result of this
assignment, a year later Frank was offered the regular penciling slot on Daredevil's own book. Soon
after, Miller took over the writing chores on the title, and during a run of several years, in collaboration
with inker Klaus Janson, they attracted a steadily- growing number of fans. It was during this period that
Frank created the ninja assassin-for-hire Elektra, one of the characters with whom he is most strongly
associated and to whom, along with Daredevil, he still periodically returns.
During the early 1980s, Frank Miller attracted further attention as one of the first comics freelancers
who braved the field outside the comfortable world of company-owned characters with the creation of
Ronin, a futuristic high-tech samurai pop adventure. It was the first of many collaborations with his
painter Lynn Varley. Since then, Miller has worked, either alone or with other collaborators, on a
number of notable projects, including Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (which many credit with
generating the popular momentum that character enjoys to this day), Batman: Year One (illustrated by
David Mazzuchelli), Elektra: Assassin (illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz), Elektra Lives Again and the
award-winning Martha Washington miniseries Give Me Liberty (illustrated by Dave Gibbons) and Hard
Boiled (illustrated by Geof Darrow).
The Sin City books, his first solo venture, have garnered numerous awards, including two Harvey
awards for Best Graphic Album of Original Work (1998) and Best Continuing Series (1996), and six
Eisner Awards, including those for Best Writer/Artist, Best Graphic Novel Reprint, Best Cartoonist, Best
Cover Artist, Best Limited Series, and Best Short Story.
In addition, Frank wrote the original story and screenplay for the feature film “Robocop 2,” as well as the
third film in the series, now in post-production.
Elizabeth Avellan (Producer) co-founded Los Hooligans Production with Robert Rodriguez when the
two began their first feature film project, “El Mariachi,” together in 1991. That film, which won the
Audience Award at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, launched her production career.
Since then, Elizabeth has produced numerous films and as Vice President of Troublemaker Studios,
has played a primary role in developing Austin, Texas as a thriving film community. Avellan coproduced “Desperado,” written and directed by Rodriguez and starring Antonio Banderas and Salma
Hayek. She also co-produced “From Dusk Til Dawn,” written by Quentin Tarantino, directed by
Rodriguez and starring George Clooney, Harvey Keitel and Juliette Lewis. In 1997, Avellan along with
Pamela Cederquist and Rana Joy Glickman produced “Real Stories of the Donut Men,” a dark comedy,
written and directed by Beeje Quick, which won the 1998 Best Comedy Feature at the Long Island Film
Festival.
Avellan’s producing credits continued with “The Faculty,” written by Kevin Williamson and directed by
Rodriguez, and the hit “Spy Kids” trilogy of popular family adventures. She also executive produced “In
and Out of Focus,” a documentary about balancing motherhood and career in the film business. Most
recently, Avellan produced Rodriguez’s “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” starring Antonio Banderas,
Salma Hayek, Johnny Depp and Mickey Rourke; and executive produced the Venezuelan thriller
“Secuestro Express” directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz
Avellan was born in Caracas, Venezuela where her grandfather, Gonzalo Veloz, was the pioneer of
commercial television. At the age of thirteen, she moved to Houston, Texas and later graduated from
Rice University.
QUENTIN TARANTINO (Special Guest Director) was born in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1963 and
named, fittingly enough, after a character on a TV show, the half-breed blacksmith Quint played by Burt
Reynolds on Gunsmoke. When he was two, the future filmmaker's single mom moved with him to
Orange County, California which was his home for the next two decades.
His neighborhood was a mixture of black and white, and he was exposed to a wide range of film and
pop culture influences, including martial arts movies. Tarantino quit school at 17 to take acting classes
and support himself with odd jobs. At 22 he found a second home of sorts at Video Archives in
Manhattan Beach, where his voluminous knowledge of old movies finally began to come in handy. With
co-workers Roger Avery and Jerry Martinez, Tarantino turned Video Archives into an impromptu film
school. He began writing as a way to supply himself with practice scenes for his acting classes.
Partly out of frustration at the difficulty of setting up a “real movie” with an unknown writer attached to
direct, Tarantino wrote “Reservoir Dogs” in 1991. Shot in less than a month on LA locations, with a
standout cast that came to include Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Laurence Tierney, Chris
Penn, and Tarantino himself in addition to Keitel, the film was a phenomenal success. Following that,
both of the scripts he had been working on before “Dogs” quickly sold. They became “True Romance”
(directed by Tony Scott) and ‘Natural Born Killers” (heavily re-written and directed by Oliver Stone).
1994's “Pulp Fiction” was a multi-layered, time-bending, crime fiction collage that wove the stories of
several characters together with world-class narrative gusto. A 3-D chess game of a movie, “Pulp
Fiction” restored the career of ‘70s icon John Travolta to its proper eminence, cemented the A-List
movie-star status of actor Samuel L. Jackson, and launched Tarantino's working relationship with the
performer he has since described as “my actress,” Uma Thurman.
After a three-year lay-off, Tarantino wrote and directed “Jackie Brown” in 1997, a crime caper movie
based on Elmore Leonard's best-selling novel Rum Punch. Pam Grier garnered both Golden Globe
and SAG Award nominations for her performance in the title role, and co-star Robert Forster was
nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his performance as a world-weary bail
bondsmen.
Tarantino's first career goal was to become an actor, and he has continued to play roles in his own films
and in the work of others. He was the thief known only as Mr. Brown in “Reservoir Dogs,” and the jittery
Jimmie Dimmick, saddled with an unwanted fresh corpse, in “Pulp Fiction.” In his “Man From
Hollywood” section of the anthology picture “Four Rooms,” Tarantino cast himself as a blow-hard movie
director. He also played bandit George Clooney's loony brother, Richard Gecko, in Robert Rodriguez's
“From Dusk Till Dawn,” the title role in Jack Baren's “Destiny Turns on the Radio” and appeared in
Spike Lee's “Girl 6.”
With his production partner, Lawrence Bender, through their company A Band Apart Productions,
Tarantino served as executive producer on October Film's “Killing Zoe” directed by Roger Avary. He
also presented the 2001 domestic release of Master Yuen Wo Ping's 1993 martial arts classic “Iron
Monkey” and served as executive producer of Reb Braddock's black comedy “Curdled” and of Julia
Sweeny's concert film “God Said, 'HA!’”
During the four years that elapsed between the release of “Jackie Brown” and the production of “Kill
Bill,” Tarantino was hard at work on a script for the forthcoming war movie, “Inglorious Bastards.”
K.N.B. EFX GROUP (Special Make-Up Effects)
The K.N.B. EFX Group previously handled the Special Effects Make-Up assignment on Quentin
Tarantino's “Pulp Fiction,” Robert Rodriguez’s “From Dusk Till Dawn” and Tarantino’s recent “Kill Bill
Volumes 1 and 2.”
Formed in 1988 by ROBERT KURTZMAN, GREG NICOTERO, and HOWARD BERGER, when they
were working together on Sam Raimi's “Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn,” the Kurtzman, Nicotero and
Berger EFX Group (K.N.B.) has become the effects house of choice for astute genre directors such as
George A. Romero (“Monkey Shines”), John Woo (“Hard Target”), John Carpenter (“Ghosts of Mars”)
and Wes Craven (“Scream”).
Their most demanding assignments were providing alien creatures for Tim Burton's “Mars Attacks” and
Barry Sonnenfeld's “Men in Black” and creating both the superhero and the super villain appliances for
“Spawn,” an ambitious adaptation of Todd McFarlane's best selling comic book. They have also worked
on James Cameron's “Aliens,” Steven Spielberg's “Amistad,” Rob Reiner's “Misery,” Don Coscarelli's
“Bubba Ho-Tep” and Ang Lee's “The Hulk,” to name only a few. Most recently, they worked with
George Romero on the forthcoming “Land of the Dead.”
Although most of their work is in features, KNB has also entered the television market, lending their
talents to “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys ,” “Xena: Warrior Princess” and “The X-Files.”