Michelle Rodriguez Dishes About Her Reputation and Returning as 'Rain' in Resident Evil: Retribution
Posted 07.16.12 by BrentJS
Actress Michelle Rodriguez first broke onto the scene as a troubled young woman who channels her anger and aggression into training to be a boxer in the 2000 indie drama Girlfight. The role won her several awards and nominations and launched her career as an actress, but it was also somewhat prophetic as Rodriguez would end up battling all through the '00s, continually dogged by legal troubles, relationship woes and invasive inquiries about her sexuality.
Now in her second decade as an actress, Rodriguez has emerged as one of the go-to actresses in the action movie genre, with a resume that includes such hits as Avatar, Machete, Fast Five and Battle: Los Angeles. Rodriguez will next appear in Resident Evil: Retribution, the lastest installment in the movie franchise based on the Capcom video game series that she helped to launch with Resident Evil in 2002. In a recent roundtable interview in support of the movie held during the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con, Rodriguez revealed that she is "really psyched" for the new movie, but that she was just as surprised as most fans that she was asked to return as Rain Ocampo, especially considering the character took a bullet to the head in the first movie. Rodriguez also dished about her reputation as a "c*nty bitch" and about how female actresses "can be sexy and be strong at the same time."
Here are some highlights from the interview:
0:04 — "I am really, really psyched about this one. It's like a 3D ride. That's how it was pitched to me."
0:22 — "I got shot in the head, dude. You know what I'm saying? I got that phone call and it was like something from another planet. 'Can you explain that one to me, please?'"
0:38 — "You know who has all the action sequences is this crazy girl [gesturing towards Milla Jovovich], man. Seriously, she just literally hit the ground running. I don't even know how she does all of that stuff. It's just being on rigs and all sorts of craziness. I just literally trained for two weeks for a fighting sequence which was pretty long, but when I looked at what she was doing I was like, ha!"
1:20 — "There's Good Rain and then there's Bad Rain — it's broken up. So, the personalities vary."
2:25 — "Raccoon City was interesting. It's like Stepford Wives, you know. All of the houses look alike. That was pretty damn cool. And then all of a sudden, 'Five seconds later, all hell breaks loose [mimics trailer voiceover and sound effects].'"
3:06 — "It's always easy for me to go mechanical. I mean, I pretty much made a 13-year career doing it. It's either that or try and be sexy and I didn't like the sexy thing too much so I chose c*nty bitch. It worked like a charm, you know, it kept me independent, it kept my clothes on. But, you know, it did give me this stigma of like a d*ke, you know, which I gotta get rid of eventually. [Machete director] Robert Rodriguez helps that, with the sex appeal. But, I still am pretty bitchy. ... It was my way of getting away with being strong and independent without making a big fuss about it. But, it's evolving now and I think people like Milla go and prove it, you know, a thousand times, that you can be sexy and be strong at the same time."
5:52 — "[Writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson] just gave me a ring while I was doing Machete. He gave me a ring and he's like, 'Hey, guess what? I'm gonna bring you back!' And I'm like, 'How the hell are you gonna do that? Would you please verify?'"
6:22 — "[Now] everybody's got kids, they're married. Everybody's all grown up, learned lessons. They don't drink anymore, they don't party anymore. They're all adults now. Boooo!"
Franchise star Milla Jovovich headlines Resident Evil: Retribution as Alice, joined by Sienna Guillory as Jill Valentine, Oded Fehr as Carlos Olivera, Colin Salmon as One, Boris Kodjoe as Luther West, Kevin Durand as Barry Burton, Johann Urb as Leon S. Kennedy, Oded Fehr as Carlos Olivera, Li Bingbing as Ada Wong, and Colin Salmon as One. It opens September 14th.