By Sean Chavel in Los Angeles

Robert Rodriguez (director of "Desperado", "Once Upon a Time in Mexico") convinced author Frank Miller against all odds to adapt his "Sin City" graphic comic book novels into a film. Then he convinced Miller to co-direct it. And they landed a big cast. At a recent press junket in Los Angeles, Rodriguez appeared first before Rosario Dawson, Brittany Murphy and Clive Owen joined him for a panel discussion on the film. (Press shy Bruce Willis was a no-show, Miller was reported sick and was unable to attend). Rodriguez is the head honcho; the cast seems indebted to his ‘genius.’ It’s true that it took some genius to adapt what seemed like an unadaptable comic book to the screen. Rodriguez is a master of technical explanation, as the recent interviews proved. And he is a master of dodging the more pernicious questions from journalists that seemed bothered by the violence. Rodriguez was a personification of cool.

PART 1

Q. HOW DID YOU MAKE THIS MOVIE?

RODRIGUEZ: Very carefully. It's probably the hardest I've worked on a movie. I thought it was going to be easy — hey, just copy what's out of the book, and there you go. It is a lot of work. I think somewhere near the end I realized — it's funny because it's sort of a trilogy all released the same day, so it was kind of like doing three movies in one.

Q. DID YOU HAVE TO CLEAN IT UP A BIT BECAUSE OF POLITICAL INCORRECTNESS?

RODRIGUEZ: Nah. Actually, we had no problems with MPAA or anything like that. I think it had to do with the stylization of it and also the comic — when you read the comic book, the stylized world and abstract nature of some of his ways of depicting violence or action translated directly to the screen, and we had no problems because it became so stylized and such it's own world. I mean you really go into Sin City when you watch the movie and then get transported to that world. That's why I felt it important to visually make it as much like the book as possible, because that was the effect of the book. I found it very easy to read and very powerful.

Q: SOMETHING ABOUT TAKING OUT REFERENCES TO "DICKS" . . .?

RODRIGUEZ: And that's what the beauty of the books were — that Frank never drew them with the intention that some day they would be on a movie screen, and that was what was so pure about them. That’s why it didn’t sound like screenplay dialogue — the shots were different. And there were some things where you'd go: Well, in a single panel this is fine, but with as much dialogue as we have we're going to be there for quite a while with this oratory… ‘Do you think we should really do it that way?’ Mmm… it would be distracting. Maybe we'll just continue the shot . . . some things you adapt to. Mostly I really wanted to keep it true to what was there in the book because it was that pure.

Q: HOW ABOUT FOR PORTRAYALS OF SEX?

RODRIGUEZ: Some of the things were decisions for keeping the sexiness of some things, but necessarily being it. It's like it is in the book. They're single panels but when you go to the movie, it just keeps going and going. After a certain point, it would look like — were just filming for our own pleasure rather than telling the story at that point.

Q: WHY TURN THIS PARTICULAR COMIC BOOK INTO A MOVIE?

RODRIGUEZ: I was a fan of this one. People thought such a great idea to make it into a movie. It took me years to figure it out. I've been buying it since 1992, and I always wanted to do a film noir, and I never put two and two together that this should be the thing until just a couple of years ago when, after doing the Spy Kids movies, and worrying so much about lighting and technology, that I realized I could make this movie now. The time was right to make it and look like the book, and the more I looked at the book to adapt it, I realize it didn't need adapting. It was visual storytelling and it worked so well on the page, I thought it would work exactly the same way on the screen so my idea was — seriously, what would have happened is that if you liked the Sin City book, you take it to a studio, they'd buy it, they would give it to a writer who would then change it, because he would have to earn his pay on it. Wouldn't do what I did, which was put the book up and transcribe it directly word for word and then edit it down to pace; we'd just get further and further away from what you like to begin with. So I said: let's not change anything. Let’s not develop it. Let’s start shooting right out of the book. There won't even be a screenplay, let's shoot right out of the book. And Frank was like — What? What planet is this? He was so thrilled and when it started working, he saw how the translation was working and yeah, I think it's the same visual storytelling mediums and that's what makes the movie so unique, because it doesn't feel like a movie. And I didn't want to make a movie out of Sin City. I wanted to make movies into the comic. I wanted to turn cinema into the comic. Not take it and suddenly turn it into a regular movie. It just wouldn't have been right.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the rest of Robert Rodriguez' interview, as well as more chats with Brittany Murphy, Rosario Dawson, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba, and Benecio del Toro all week.