Alexa Vega

Robert Rodriguez Describes the Inspiration Behind Spy Kids 4

Writer-director-producer-editor Robert Rodriguez made his first Spy Kids in 2001, releasing two sequels over the next two years. Several years later, Rodriguez is back with a sequel and reboot, Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World, which stars Jessica Alba as Marissa Cortez Wilson, a former spy and stepmother to twins Rebecca (Rowan Blanchard) and Cecil (Mason Cook). She's forced back into service and to enlist her stepchildren when a villain calling himself The Timekeeper (Jeremy Piven) threatens the world. In an interview with MTV, Rodriguez revealed that he stopped making the movies after the original spy kids Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni (Daryl Sabara) started getting older, but found an inspiration that led him to feel that "10 years later, it felt right to do another one."

I got the idea when I was making Machete and Jessica came over to my house for lunch with the kids, and she was bringing her daughter out of the backseat. But her diaper had exploded and the kid had made a huge mess and just seeing Jessica dressed up, so beautiful and glamorous, but having to deal with this baby with an exploded diaper, I just thought, "I'd love to see her as a spy mom." I wrote it around her and figured she'd have two new stepkids who don't think their mom is cool, but she's really a spy and their dad plays a spy hunter on a TV show and doesn't know his wife is a spy.

• Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World
• Robert Rodriguez
• Jessica Alba
• Alexa Vega
• Daryl Sabara
• Mason Cook
• Rowan Blanchard