Michelle Rodriguez Once Shared Why She Didn’t Do Indie Movies Anymore
Actor Michelle Rodriguez has starred in several box-office successes like the Fast and Furious franchise and Avatar. She’s also dabbled in a few indie films as well. To her, it seemed blockbusters became more worthwhile, even if the movie had little depth.
Why Michelle Rodriguez preferred blockbusters over indie dramas
Rodriguez isn’t a stranger to doing indies. The actor famously had her start with the small feature Girlfight. The indie focused on a female boxer trying to prove herself as a fighter. Her performance in the flick impressed Vin Diesel, who invited her to become a part of his Fast and the Furious franchise.
According to Girlfight director Karyn Kusama, Rodriguez knew early on that Fast and Furious would be a hit. Ironically, Rodriguez also saw herself starring in a series of Resident Evil movies before the video game’s film adaptations became realized.
“I remember really vividly after Sundance, after getting all this attention, she was telling me what she wanted to do,” Kusama recalled in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “She was like, ‘You know, there’s this video game I love called Resident Evil. I really want to see if there’s a movie of that. And if there is, I want to be in it. And I read this script that I really loved called Fast and Furious. And I think it’s going to be a like global franchise that will last decades.’ And I was like, ‘Really?’ She called it. She knew. To be honest, I didn’t see it — but she did, which is kind of amazing.”
Since her Girlfight days, Rodriguez has added a bunch of high-budget blockbusters under her belt. Which the actor preferred over doing a string of indie movies.
“I’d rather do a big massive movie with about maybe 20 minutes of depth within the whole film that reaches everyone or millions of people around the world. As opposed to a 2-hour film that is deep, and 5 people watch and are inspired. That’s why I don’t do indie movies anymore,” Rodriguez once told Cinemovie.
Michelle Rodriguez shared there were certain lines she wouldn’t cross when doing movies
Speaking with Collider not too long ago, Rodriguez confided she wanted to do movies due to her love for films. It was a passion she felt all the way from her childhood days.
“I decided I wanted to be in the movie industry because I’m fascinated by movies,” she said. “I used to go to my friend’s house all the time and watch her VCR tapes, and most of the VCR tapes that she had there were B-movies, but I just was in love with the idea of telling stories on the screen. And I fell in love with it so much so that I tried doing the school thing and it didn’t really work out for me, so I just took my GED and my brother told me about Backstage the newspaper. I started looking at Backstage, then I started doing background work.”
Her background work led to the kind of success she wanted to achieve. Rodriguez not only became an actor, but sort of an action star. She gravitated towards franchises like Fast and Furious for their portrayals of formidable women characters. This worked to Rodriguez’s benefit, as she refused to compromise herself for certain movie roles.
“My line in the sand is very clear,” she said. “There’s a line for self respect, there’s a line of this is what I wouldn’t do in front of millions of people around the world on purpose. You know what I mean? And if you try to cross that line with me, perhaps trying to get me to play a slut in front of millions of people around the world, won’t happen. Try to get me to be the loser girlfriend who has a cheating boyfriend and cries over him an entire film, not gonna happen. Be the girl who’s a stripper or a drug dealer because Latinos are thrown into that box all the time. I’m like, not gonna happen. Girl who uses her Cleopatra power or her sex to get everywhere that she’s gonna go, not gonna happen. So as long as you don’t break any of those rules with me, I’m easy to work with.”
