Weaving together two of Frank Miller's classic stories and two new, the 'Sin City' graphic novels are coming to life for the second time with 'Sin City: A Dame To Kill For'.
This time around the town's most hard boiled citizens cross paths with some more notorious neighbours for an action packed and strikingly visual escapade enhanced with stylistic violence. Co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, they bring together a new and returning cast of Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke, Eva Green, Bruce Willis, Michael Madsen, Marton Csokas and even Lady Gaga.
How come the sequel took almost a decade?
RR: There were a lot of different reasons. You know, the studio we were working for, they had opened a new studio. They needed to get more money first of all, and make some other projects, then come back. We were ready to do it I think in 2007 but really the timing worked out just perfect this time, I mean we wouldn’t have had this cast back then. Everything kind of fell into place, in terms of the extra stories. I mean Frank [Miller] had to write new stories that we were happy with because we wanted it not all to be from the books, we wanted to surprise people, so two stories from the book, two stories are new, and then just getting the right cast and the right combination of cast, and this time we got it, we nailed it with this cast and it’s awesome.
What made you choose ‘A Dame to Kill For’ and ‘Another Saturday Night’ to be the stories to adapt for Sin City 2?
RR: Well when I originally put together the first film’s script to show Frank I chose the other stories, because ‘Dame’ was the longest of them and it would’ve had to have been truncated too much to fit into the first 'Sin City' even though it was the second book, so we did the Marv one for the first. ‘Dame’, I thought, “oh that’s going to take up the rest of the movie, let me skip that,” and Frank and I had said from the beginning that it would be a sequel and that it would be a great sequel because it answers questions.
There were bits of it in the first one...
RR: Bits of it were in there, hints. Clive Owen talks about having this ‘new face’ and you don’t know what he’s talking about, so this film answers a lot of questions.
So you have two new stories, what was it like coming up with new Sin City content?
FM: Oh it was like the firing of a lock really, 'Sin City' stories occur to me pretty naturally.
RR: They just flow out and this is the thing, one time Frank came to us and said, “well let’s talk about this new story,” and I had my tape recorder there because I know a lot of times as a writer you’ll just start telling someone this story and you end up filling in blanks and then they disappear and you forget, so I taped it and he started telling me “oh I’ve got this character named Johnny and he’s just got this coin, and he’s going to get it all back” and I was like, “keep going...” He talked a lot of it out there, and I played it to him later and he would embellish it and it was really fun to be in on the process and see how he creates. A lot of it had to be drawn on the set because there weren’t books to go off so that was a thrill; asking Frank Miller for an original Frank Miller 'Sin City' drawing out on the set. And he would just start sketching it out, that was the biggest thrill.
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After so many years and movies in between are there new challenges that you encountered? Was easier to make than the first movie?
RR: Well, we shot this one in 3D and some things were easier. I had shot the first digital 3D movie just before I did 'Sin City', it was called 'Spy Kids' 3D and that’s what really started 3D digital and the technology. There were these big buckets of camera moving around. This time we had the very latest cameras, they’re like Ferraris, you can shoot several cameras at once. They also didn’t get in the way so for some things, the technology made it easier. The technology was really more advanced. And all the actors just knew what they were doing. The first time, no one had done green screen really, this was only ten years ago but people were like, “what are we doing? Where are the props?” and now they understand.
FM: Also, the first one established a tone and the world that the actors were at first unfamiliar with and now Mickey Rourke shows up and he is Marv!
RR: He’s even better than in the first one and Jessica is better also.
FM: Jessica is a dozen times better because she’s got a much more dramatic role and she is much less a piece of eye candy than she is a fully fledged character.
RR: But also they understood the process and came to the set knowing, “Okay, we are in this sea of green but we know what this is going to be like.” They really delivered, and what really surprised me the most is how much they had learned in ten years. Jessica especially. She almost starts to look like Marv before the end of it, from what we see from the trailer with the cuts on her face, I don’t want to spoil anything, but from what we see from the trailer, it’s all about her getting vengeance for what happened in the first movie.
FM: I’m not going to tell anyone my story but it really was across the board, a thrill to work with talent. There was one point where I had written a line for Rosario Dawson which was unexpectedly soft for her, speaking of her love of Dwight, and what Rosario did was soften her voice just to the right degree and then bring it right back to the hard edged character that we’re used to so the characters gain dimension. The visuals in 'Sin City: A Dame To Kill For' are almost a character in itself.
Did you enjoy trying to figure out what should be in colour and what should be in black and white?
RR: Yeah – and that started in the first film. I remember we had a guide from Frank's books of what should be in colour but then as I was editing I would be spot colouring some other pieces and I would send them to Frank to make sure he thought that was cool because I was starting to take some liberty and he said, “you’re using colour as a weapon.. I like that.” So we kind of mapped out where it would be and I would show him ideas and he would be, “they’re a no, but that one’s good, let’s make Goldie actually have colour.”
FM: That was one of the most wonderful touches he made and it’s almost unnoticeable but when Wendy steps into the light it’s the climax of the Marv story. She enters with the white hair she has throughout the story and she emerges from the light with gold hair.
RR: And he knows who it is. He thinks it’s somebody else but when she comes forward the colour helps him realise. Things like that that you can play with later. That was a huge thing, what was going to be in colour, it wasn’t in the book but it helped make it more cinematic.
'Sin City: A Dame To Kill For' is in cinemas from 18th September.
