Frank Miller interview

[Missy]

Frank Miller Interview

The Sin City creator and co-director discusses the deluxe DVD, sequels, 300, Batman Begins and creative control.

by Todd Gilchrist

August 19, 2005 - Long before the days of Sin City Frank Miller's name was synonymous with edgy, challenging and engaging stories. His work with Batman in particular - on the now-immortal series Year One and The Dark Knight Returns added him to the pantheon of comics' greatest all-time writers, but his consistency as a creator of fantastic new worlds has elevated him beyond the pages of mere funny books. But now that he director Robert Rodriguez (Desperado) have rendered his stories in three dimensions for the silver screen, the onetime writer and artist adds yet another hyphen to his growing list of credits: director.

Miller recently spoke to IGN DVD about the current and future status of his Sin City film series, which was proposed as a trilogy but potentially seems poised for an expansive, multi-volume set ("if you're asking me 'is there going to be a third,' my question is 'is there going to be a fifth'?"). Additionally, he discussed the forthcoming deluxe DVD, which he and Rodriguez are preparing for release in the months ahead; his participation in 300, another adaptation of his work to be written and directed by Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead); and his evolving position as a contributor to these and a number of other projects developing now and in the near future (he even weighs in on the new Batman pic).

IGN DVD: When we spoke with Robert Rodriguez, he said that you were very interested in participating in making the film. How interested were you in participating in putting together the DVD bonus materials and extras?

Frank Miller: When it comes to extras and stuff, I recognize that I'm working with P.T. Barnum, so I let him guide that stuff and I show up wherever he wants me to and do my best. But he is much more of a showman than I am, and I mean that in the best possible way; he's able to completely put together a situation, and when it comes to the DVD, he's in his element, so I'll show up and he and I will do our give and take and back and forth and all that, but the DVD is essentially his issue - he puts it together.

IGN: Robert said there would be another, more elaborate DVD released to follow the bare-bones disc that just came out.

Miller: Oh yeah - we're going to town on that. It's going to include a lot of scenes that nobody has any idea we ever shot, I mean, not the least of which is you get to meet Marv's mom (laughs).

IGN: We understand that the new version will flesh out the individual stories. Are there other sequences that you are especially excited to see restored in the film?

Miller: Yes. My eyes can't get enough of Carla Gugino.

IGN: She's not bad looking.

Miller: Yeah, she gets by, doesn't she? There are a couple of scenes that were either harshly abbreviated or cut altogether that will be back in, and I just think that whenever I see that lovely face and hear that amazing voice, I just think 'that's production value.'

IGN: This film offered so many technical challenges for you and the rest of the crew. Are you apprehensive at all about 'drawing back the curtain' on the creative process?

Miller: No, no. it would be the apex of hypocrisy for me to have any problem with that, because I just got taught by the best, and he pulled the curtain back for me. George Lucas pulled the curtain back for everybody. [but] showing how it can be done takes none of the magic away from the work; if anything, I find it enhancing.

IGN: Was there any bonus material or background detail that will be on the DVD that surprised even you?

Miller: I haven't actually seen the physical DVD yet, but I know what's in it and it's cool, and the one that's coming out a few months later is even cooler. We're still working on that - we're still shooting stuff for that.

IGN: Rumor has it that you potentially caught the directing bug while working on Sin City.

Miller: It's not potentially. It's absolutely.

IGN: Are you going to be taking a more active role in subsequent installments of the series?

Miller: Well, yeah, but that just happens organically. [On the first film] I was a first-time director, and now I'll be a second-time director, and organically there will just be more confidence, you know, more readiness to throw my weight around. But Robert and I have such a good partnership that there's no strain in that - nothing; he and I are not competing.

IGN: Does the fact that the movie images are often literal representations of your comic book panels make your job as a director easier?

Miller: I think what it does is makes it less complicated, because the decision of the framing of each shot is already made, and what that does is it liberates me to concentrate completely on the actor's performance. Because I've got Robert covering the camerawork; he doesn't have much to learn from me about lighting - the guy's kind of good at it. He works with the actors a lot too, and he probably does more of the very intimate, in-the-moment, while-we-are-shooting directing than I do, because I'm usually watching the monitor; but when I'm working with actors and when I'm on the set, what I'm most interested in is the macro part of the job with the actors, technically who they are and where they are. Because actors are a smart bunch and I love working with them.

IGN: So how will you be breaking down directing duties with Robert on the sequels? Will you be working with the actors while Robert addresses the technical challenges?

Miller: If I gave you that impression, I was unfair to Robert, because Robert works with the actors a lot; he is very much a director. My function with him anyway is just a guy who knows Sin City so well that I never had to [think twice] - whenever an actor had a question, I always had an answer. Robert and I just break things down very organically, and sometimes there will be an actor or character that becomes one of ours.

For instance, it didn't take me long to realize that Benicio del Toro was Robert's project because they had the whole Latin thing going. They were rattling off Spanish to each other and I don't speak Spanish, so I was just like, 'okay, go for it guys.' Meanwhile, Miho (Devon Aoki) was my project, and I think Robert would agree with that completely. She just became like my daughter on the set, and I was just utterly obsessed with that character, and working with lovely Devon was an awful lot like drawing because she has just an absolute natural grace, and her stamina is unbelievable. I was a very hard task master with the young lady - I worked her very hard - and one day Robert was joking, calling me a soccer dad. He would say, 'you drive her so hard, but then you're so proud!'

IGN: Other than Devon, are there actors who you would especially like to see come back for the sequel?

Miller: it's endless. I got to work with the best. I mean, I'd lay down in traffic for Bruce Willis or Mickey Rourke, and of course like any rational fellow, I'd jump out of a building for Jamie King or Brittany Murphy or Carla Gugino or Rosario Dawson. But if I try to get into, you know, 'who's Frank's favorites,' I can't go there because there are too many of them.

IGN: A Dame to Kill For is supposed to be the focus of the second film. Will you interpolate other stories into that narrative as you did with the first Sin City?

Miller: It's going to be A Dame to Kill For and I'm right now crafting a new story that's going to be weaved in through it, and what I have in mind involves Nancy Callahan after Yellow Bastard, and it's kind of a shocking new version of Nancy.

IGN: Are you concerned at all that Jessica Alba might not be willing to go in this new direction with Nancy, since she had some reservations about the role in the first film?

Miller: You can't do this job and think that way. You have to proceed assuming you're going to get everything you want, and so I write a story assuming I'll get Jessica. I know that when I do a story and it's good, actors love to know that the guy writing it knows what he's talking about, and I have no doubt that if we can get Jessica on board for this, she and I will work very well [together] again.

IGN: Is there a name for that segment yet?

Miller: Yeah, but I'm not telling you (laughs). I do, but I really don't want to talk about it; I'm kind of superstitious, and I'm always afraid I'll ruin something if I talk about it too much.

IGN: Have you and Robert assessed whether or not you have enough material to make a third film, if the opportunity arises?

Miller: Oh, we've got so much material that it's ridiculous. I mean, I would love to shoot Family Values, and that's a pretty rich piece of work. With the first Sin City, because Robert's a very good editor, he really wanted to make it jam-packed, and he was able to cut the stories down in size in ways that shocked me. Now that we've got success on our hands and we can breathe a little bit, I want to use it. So if you're asking me 'is there going to be a third,' my question is 'is there going to be a fifth?'

IGN: How does it feel to have a collaborator who is so committed to your work that they first shoot a sequence for free to convince you to make the movie, but then quit the Director's Guild to ensure that you are properly credited for co-directing the film?

Miller: With Robert, all I can say is that it's very rare to be a man in his 40s who discovers he has a long-lost brother, and that's how I feel about Robert. He's a good, honest man, he's taught me, he's turned me into a director, and he's a lot of fun to be around. My whole comment is like a love letter to him.

IGN: Simultaneously, Zack Snyder (the Dawn of the Dead remake) is working on an adaptation of your book The 300. How will that be different than Sin City, and how do you feel about another filmmaker adapting your work?

Miller: That all came together before I became a director. The whole deal for that came together when I was just networking movies, and then Robert Rodriguez entered my life and all of a sudden I'm a director, and meanwhile, one of my babies is out there and it's got a different director. So yeah, part of me would have loved to charge in there and rip it out of his hands and said, 'I'm doing this,' but on the other hand, Zack and the other people working on that had approached me with such good faith that I really don't mind just being one of the producers. [but] my main thing is not spending too much time on the set; I've been on other people's sets before and I start directing without realizing I'm doing it. As Robert said to you, once you get the bug, you get the bug.

IGN: Your contributions on past film projects, including the Batman films, have often been shaped and restructured to suit the vision of a filmmaker. Do you expect that 300 will be more or less accurate to the source material than previous projects?

Miller: The day that you and I walk under that marquee for 300, we will know what the movie is going to be. I know from making one that if someone asked me before I started with Sin City to predict anything, I would have made a fool of myself, and when it comes to 300, ultimately yes it's my book and it's a great story that can't be betrayed, but it's going to be in Zack's hands. I'm sure that not even he could answer that question, let alone me. The script is very faithful, and it's really a very nice script.

IGN: As one of its producers will you be able to exert much control over the design and production of the film?

Miller: No. The only way I can ever control it is to be the director. If I'm not the director, I'm not the director; otherwise, it's just an exercise in futility and I'm going to make a fool of myself. It's Zack's movie, [and] there won't be any competition over who the director is. It's his movie.

IGN: What else is on the horizon for you following the Sin City sequels and 300?

Miller: All I can say is yes, but if I start talking I'll curse it, and besides, you know what it's like when you're talking with a movie person and they talk about all of these things. They say, 'we got greenlit,' 'we got an option,' and most of the time, they don't happen and you end up really sounding like a wanker. My feeling is, about the time we get the poster out, I'll be happy to talk with you about my next movie.

IGN: Fair enough. Another project you contributed to in some form was the Batman series, which borrowed heavily from your Year One books. What did you think of Batman Begins?

Miller: I thought they did a really, really good job. I mean, I walked out of that movie with a smile on my face; I thought it was a really strong interpretation of the character, and they knew what to borrow from and how much. I got a major kick out of the fact that they used that bit where he calls on the bats to attack the cops and that sort of thing, and I loved Gary Oldman's interpretation of exactly the Kim Gordon that I'd written in Batman: Year One. But it was [Christopher] Nolan's movie and [Christian] Bale's movie, and I just simply absorbed it and enjoyed the hell out of it.

IGN: Is it easy to let go of your ideas and your properties after they are sold and sometimes re-imagined by others for films?

Miller: Imagine if you were madly in love with a woman and things went south and you see her with another guy. That's what it's like. No, it's not easy.

IGN: Has the success of Sin City meant more control for you on future projects?

Miller: Well, the big difference here is that I didn't make up Batman. I don't own an ounce of the work I've ever done on Batman, and I still work on Batman. I love the character, I think it's a lot of fun, and it's kind of fun to be in that ballpark every once in a while, where you're seeing a different crowd. But nobody can do anything with Sin City without me agreeing to it, so basically Sin City is me and I take full responsibility for it.

[James D.]

Suddenly, I feel quite stupid for buying the Sin City DVD yesterday...

[Missy]

Just give the bare-bones one to a buddy after you buy the deluxe edition down the road. Or scratch the one you just bought, return it claiming you bought it that way and wait for the deluxe edition.

[James D.]

Just give the bare-bones one to a buddy after you buy the deluxe edition down the road. Or scratch the one you just bought, return it claiming you bought it that way and wait for the deluxe edition.

I would do the scratch route except that any place like Best Buy has a return policy that states you can only return an opened video game or DVD for the same item. No refund. I think we all know why places like that have such policies.

[Missy]

I did it several months back, and they gave me a store credit. While not a refund, I was able to get something else.