Robert Rodriguez en la premiere deMachete, Festival Internacional de Venecia 2010.Photo: Foto cortesía de: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images.
Robert Rodriguezfound inspiration at home for his work on theSpy Kidsfilms.
Ahead of the release of the newestSpy Kidsfilm, theSpy Kids: Armageddondirector, 55, chatted with PEOPLE exclusively about making the reboot and how his own kids influenced his project.
For the fifth film, Rodriguez was able to collaborate with his 26-year-old son Racer on the script.
“Racer and my other kids were the original audience for the early films, so they had very strong opinions on what needed to be included in this film to make it the ultimate Spy Kids movie,” he tells PEOPLE of writing theSpy Kids: Armageddonscript.
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“Racer came up with a lot, the new family, the whole Nemesis being a game designer, that the game would lock people out of their technology. He and my kids even fully created a working game within the movie called Hyskor on their own.”
“Racer is my most valued collaborator, he knows what I like having worked together since he could crawl, so our ideas mesh well,” Rodriguez sweetly adds. “And he’s so hard-working, he runs circles around me just like he did as a kid. I named him appropriately.”
Although he’s a lot older now, Racer was just a kid when the originalSpy Kidsmovies were being made. His father chatted about working with the two main child actors —Daryl SabaraandAlexa PenaVega— and how it helped him parent his own kids.
Speaking of working on the films, he says it “really taught me to be a more effective parent.”
Rodriguez is dad to Racer, Rocket, 27, Rebel, 24, Rogue, 19 and Rhiannon, 18, who he shares with ex-wife Elizabeth Avellán.
“I saw how Daryl and Alexa were stepping up to all the incredible challenges I’d throw at them every day making those complex action films, and it made me realize that I needed to challenge my own children that much,” he tells PEOPLE.
Since the final film premiered in 2011, Rodriguez and the rest of the cast have managed to keep in contact. “We’ve all gotten to work together more over the years and stay in touch, it boggles my mind that Daryl and Alexa are parents,” he says.
source: people.com
