Sin City: Welcome to Town

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 trumped-up 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-than-life 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, make-believe 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.”