Robert Rodriguez is always working. If you look at his expansive IMDb page, you’ll see his name attached to tons of different projects and he’s one of the few directors that has also worked as a composer, cinematographer, re-recording mixer, and even done the visual effects and production design. He’s one of those people that does whatever he needs to do to bring his vision to life.

With his latest project, the Billie Eilish cinematic concert experience Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles, arriving on Disney+ tomorrow, I recently landed an extended interview with Rodriguez to talk about co-directing the project with Patrick Osborne. During the wide-ranging conversation, he talked about how he got involved in the project, what it was like working with Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas, how filming the concert without an audience enabled them to get shots that would have been impossible otherwise, how quickly the music industry works, and how he worked with his daughter on the animation. In addition, Rodriguez talked about why he’s excited for people to see The Book of Boba Fett this December, the success of We Can Be Heroes and when he’ll be making the sequel for Netflix, his next film, Hypnotic, with Ben Affleck, and more.

If you haven’t seen the trailer for Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles, the concert experience features an intimate performance of every song in the album's sequential order from the stage of the legendary Hollywood Bowl. The special also includes animated elements, taking viewers on a dreamlike journey through Billie’s hometown of Los Angeles and its most iconic backdrops. The concert also features the Los Angeles Children's Chorus, the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, and world renowned Brazilian guitarist, Romero Lubambo, with Orchestra Arrangements by David Campbell.

Check out what Robert Rodriguez had to say in the player above or you can read the full transcript below.

COLLIDER: You definitely have the coolest name as your Zoom name.

ROBERT RODRIGUEZ: You know what happened is just a couple of days ago, I think it must've been an update. I had to do a call right away. And it said, "You have to sign." But it's been defaulting to that ever since. So I can't take it off.

Listen, you're not going to get better than that.

RODRIGUEZ: My favorite Kurt Russell story, real quick. I was hanging out with Kurt, and he goes ... I was going on and on about Snake Plissken , of course, and he goes, "Watch this." And he showed me his iPhone. "My son taught me how to do this." And he hits the Siri button and goes, "Who am I?" It says, "You're Snake Plissken, aren't you?" "I'm the only one who can do that." He was so proud of that.

That is amazing.

RODRIGUEZ: Isn't that a great story? But I'm a phony obviously, because I can't say I’m Snake Plissken.

Sometimes you're talking to someone that you're just such a huge fan of, and you're sitting across from them, and you just can't believe you're doing it.

RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, definitely. He's one of those guys. He's Jack Burton too. He talks a lot like Jack Burton. So it was funny to see him embrace the Snake Plissken that much. He had it as his identity on his phone. I thought that was hilarious.

I have a bunch of questions for you, but I wanted to start with congrats. It must've been our interview that led to the success of We Can Be Heroes. Clearly, it was the Collider conversation.

RODRIGUEZ: Totally.

Congrats on the success of that. Did Netflix sort of say to you after that opening weekend, "We love you? And when are we getting the next one?"

RODRIGUEZ: They've been shocked at how well it's kept doing. They call it unstoppable. They've never seen any movie behave like that. It just will not stop. Kids will just not stop watching it. And I think it happened with the Spy Kid movies, but you couldn't ever keep track of it, because you can’t tell how many times kids watch it on VCR or watch on Disney channel. But now with their metrics, they can tell how many times a household is watching something again and again, through completion. Which a lot of the times when it's been a big opening weekend, it didn't mean people actually watched the whole movie. It means they watched five minutes or more. And a lot of times people...

The completion rate was really high, but also the repeat rate was just off the charts, because kids just will watch it in the morning before school and after school every day. So yeah, they definitely want a sequel, which I'm working on, because it's a new franchise for them. That behaves very differently. But kids crave empowerment and those movies just hit those buttons.

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Do you see yourself, definitely filming a sequel next year? Are you going to direct it?

RODRIGUEZ: Oh, absolutely. I love making those films. They're so creative. The adults have a great time too. Most of the adults in the cast had kids too that couldn't watch any of their movies. So it's a great building of a world. My own children work on the films. So it's like a family affair. It's family time. You're making products for other families, and you're checking all the boxes, living the best life.

Jumping into why I actually get to talk to you today. For this project that you did for Disney Plus, how did this happen for you? Was this something that was presented to you? Can you sort of talk about the genesis?

RODRIGUEZ: The genesis is that I wanted to do more and more stuff like We Can Be Heroes where I'm working with my family, because that's mentoring them and working with my kids, being with my kids. My daughter did all the drawings and also draws in We Can Be Heroes on the set. And she was a huge Billie Eilish fan. She's sang in the movie We Can Be Heroes and whenever we jam songs together, I'd say "Who wrote this song?" She goes "That's another Billie Eilish song." "Wow she's amazing." Over the years and she's 15 now.

I had done the Lady Gaga video last year with Ariana Grande and the same person hooked me up with that called me about this Billie project and said, "We'd love for you to help Billie with this project. You've done so much, like Alita and motion capture and Volume things like The Mandalorian. She wants to do something with an animated character going to Hollywood and have a concert kind of interwoven with the concert."

Great. So, I asked my daughter "You want to do something with Billie Eilish with me?" Because she got to be animation. There's animated, my daughter animates. We can come up with animation ideas together. We can be listening to that album before anybody. Get to meet Billie, her idol.

So we took it on and Billie herself is just fantastic. So generous, so sweet, from a great family. Super talented, her and my brother Finneas. The album was amazing. It was going to be done in sequential order. We were going to have to shoot at the Bowl with no audience, which means we were able to move the camera for every song, all the cameras. Where usually when you shoot a concert film, the cameras have to kind of stay in their spot because you can't be moving a crane from one side of the arena to the next during the songs.

So we were able to shoot drones over places you never could get it. We were able to put a reflecting pool back in that was in originally when it was built that has never been there since. They use that for seats. It reflects the Bowl back into itself. So it becomes a circle. Just really graphically awesome.

And then motion capturing Billie and working with her to make this animated character go through LA. It was just a fun...I love doing different types of projects. It helps me with my main stuff that I do to learn from other artists in a completely different world. So I'm always playing hooky. It just gives you a more well-rounded education and working with such visionary young people just gives you ideas too. I always consider myself a student, so I can come in with things I know how to do, but I'm there really to have a front seat, my daughter and I, watching Billie and Finneas just rule. It's done in sequential order. So she doesn't use any old songs. Not many artists can just do one album from start to finish live and have that be a concert and have it be satisfying. So she's really just at the top of her game.

When did you actually film this?

RODRIGUEZ: The beginning of July. So it wasn't long ago, it was very fast. That's the other thing I love about the music world is I like to shoot really fast myself, because I think filmmaking can be tedious and slow. Music world would never stand for how slow, even my speed would be...they move so fast. I loved the energy of it. I got the call, I think maybe in April or May. Wwe didn't even start capturing until near the end of June. That means the animation had to be done in a week, not years. So everybody was flying. I think that just gives it a real energy. This came together very quickly.

So I'm curious because I've seen footage from the...It's not a movie. What would you call this? Is it a movie?

RODRIGUEZ: It's a concert film. It's a concert film special, because it's not just a concert film. And it doesn't even look like a concert film because of the way we were able to shoot it. But it's done live. She was definitely there singing at time. So it's the live concert experience, but with animated storyline interwoven throughout it.

What I'm curious about is, so you filmed this in early July and you're at the Hollywood Bowl, which is around a lot of people. What time of night were you filming? Was anyone nervous that the music was going to leak before the album came out?

RODRIGUEZ: No because it's only in headphones. Because you only blasted it out for an audience. Everyone who was privileged to hear it, like my daughter and I, were in headphones. Billie's got, any performer on stage always has, the ear wigs to hear. Because the monitors are not reliable. You need to have a good mix when you perform. Any performer performs with the full mix in their ears so that they can hear themselves. Or if they need their voice up higher, you can customize it for each performer. So everything's being recorded there. She's singing it, but you're not hearing it projected. That's pretty cool. Right. If we had an audience that would have blown it because people would've heard it.

I was wondering what time were you filming it at like 8:00 PM?

RODRIGUEZ: Right as the sun was setting, sometimes you wouldn't get the sunset shots. And we could split it up a few songs per night, so we can do the orchestras in there and move them in and out. Some of it's with the LA Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel conducting awesome stuff for that. Some stuff was just them more intimate with this huge, awesome space. The lighting that goes into it. Everything can be lit differently per song. Different coverage per song. It's really a cool show. It does not feel repetitive. Each song is like an experience. It's really great.

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How many cameras were you actually using at the Bowl in total to capture the event?

RODRIGUEZ: I don't remember how many cameras. That's a good question. Because we had a big drone flying too, which you couldn't get some of those shots if we had an audience underneath it. So, that was awesome because really when you see that reflecting pool and what the dome does in it, it is really cool. We were really shooting that heck out of it. We had several cranes, drone, Steadicams. There was probably a good 10 to 12 cameras I would say. If not more.

Billie also has directed in the past and obviously is very specific with her vision of things. I've heard her talk about it. Can you sort of talk about collaborating with her in terms of what she wanted versus what you wanted and the melting pot of how it came together?

RODRIGUEZ: I'm very much a facilitator when it comes to stuff like this. It's like I know I can help her do things that she's not going to have time to do. And if she's motion capturing, she can't see herself. She'll need somebody there who understands that, who can help direct her and get there faster. So, we built the trust really early on when I brought her some of the ideas that I thought could enhance some of the ideas that she had and give it a direction. Just something for her to play. She loved that. So we were just pretty much in lockstep going forward.

But I would always defer to any artist I'm working with. I would throw them an idea and if they like it, let's do it. If not, they might trigger an answer when they say, "Well, I wasn't thinking that. I was thinking maybe this." And that's the direction we go. I know to bring enough of a plan that if nobody has any ideas we got marching orders, but I'm always open to, and really want, her ideas more than mine. Because it's got to reflect her completely. Just like when I would work with Quentin or Jim or Frank Miller. I want to see Frank Miller's Sin City, not Robert Rodriguez's Sin City. I want to see Billie Eilish's version of this concert experience and I can help make it happen. That's mainly how I approached it.

Besides your daughter, who obviously is a very large fan, did you let anybody know that you were filming this? And did you all of a sudden find that a lot of friends and family wanted to visit you when you were filming the special?

RODRIGUEZ: I didn't tell anybody. We kept it very secret, but once it was announced that we were doing it, then I started getting emails. But we'd already shot it. "Can I come be a fly on the wall? Can I get in on the concert?" I was like, "We already shot it. Sorry." I suddenly had friends that I hadn't heard from in 20 years.

Before I run out of time with you, you know that I have loved your work on Star Wars.

RODRIGUEZ: I appreciate that.

You know I loved your Boba Fett episode. I am curious though, can you sort of talk about, because obviously you're an integral part of Book of Boba Fett. Can you sort of just talk about how you got involved in that series after working on The Mandalorian?

RODRIGUEZ: Can't say anything about it at all right now, but it's coming out in December. Wait until you see what's coming. It's going to blow your mind. That's all I can say. That's all I can say. I can talk it up all I want, because I know it over delivers. It way over delivers. So you're going to be, people are going to be so pumped up when they see it.

You have always tried to push technology with all of the things you've worked on. One of the things that the volume technology is in its infancy. Obviously John and Dave did amazing stuff with it on The Mandalorian. You've now worked with it a number of times. Can you sort of talk about what you think the volume technology can now bring to storytelling that maybe you couldn't do before? And how has working on it now multiple times allowed you to sort of see the technology in a new light?

RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, it's interesting. I'm trying to think about what I could ever use it for myself, I think it really does the most on something like a series where you could have... it just gets. But at first I thought maybe it made the most sense for a series because you could have loads that you could reuse and places you can come back to often that would be impossible to get to on a regular basis in a series. I don't know if I would use it very much in a movie where it's just one-off scenes that are done. They're only a couple minutes long and then you never go back to that location again. Like on a sequel to We Can Be Heroes even I was thinking "Would I even use the volume? Or would I shoot a traditional green screen again?" Because I got some pretty cool stuff.

What's different about volume is you still have to do the work of the visual effects. It's just am I going to do it before I shoot? Or am I going to do it after? On a TV series, you can pretty much figure out you're going to need these certain things. On a movie, I like green screen more. So I can punt it until later what that thing's going to look like. I can kind of start lining the foreground with the kids, 11 kids in the foreground. I can light that on a set and then really dial in the background later.

If I did that in the volume, I'd have to figure all that out in pre-production. That means that pushes your movie shoot date really far back. If you have little kids, those kids are going to be so old by the time you finish all your pre-productions. So it kind of depends on the movie and the show and the tool. John found the best way to use it for Mandalorian and now Boba Fett. I think that was a really great thing, but I don't think it's necessarily a tool that fits every project.

Do you see yourself directing Mandalorian season three? Any episodes?

RODRIGUEZ: I can't say that either.

As a fan...It's like I'm asking this as the Collider audience and as a fan.

RODRIGUEZ: I know. I wish I could tell them. But I can't say anything.

What's going on with Hypnotic and any other movies you might be working on?

RODRIGUEZ: Hypnotic we haven't even... it was supposed to shoot last April and COVID pushed it like six months, then it pushed again because of COVID came back strong. Now we're, fingers crossed, shooting in six weeks.

Oh, for real?

RODRIGUEZ: Fingers crossed. The crew's now on. So we're prepping. Hard prepping. I could be shooting that in the next six weeks.

For fans, can you sort of talk about what the project is about that maybe they don't know?

RODRIGUEZ: It's like a Hitchcock thriller on steroids. That's all I can say. As soon as you see the first trailer, you'll go "I got it. I'm there." It's that kind of a movie. It's just very, a lot of twists, a lot of terns. Very exciting. Not everything you see is real type show and it's got a great cast. It'll be very energetic. It's one of my favorite stories. I started writing it back in 2002. So it's one of the ones I've had the longest that I've been wanting to do. I'm very excited that we finally might be making it.

If I'm not mistaken, you have Ben Affleck and Alice Braga. Who else do you have? Or who else have you announced?

RODRIGUEZ: We're casting now, hard casting. It was hard to start casting until we knew for sure we were going because the delta variant showed up and we thought this thing's going to push again. Because it's an independently financed film. Like a Disney Plus could be like, "Oh, we need this product. We're filming no matter what." But you have an independent film, you have to get insurance. Insurance companies are very wary right now for this variant that could shut a movie down because then they're out of money. They'll be out a lot of money. So understandably it's risk. So, that we're going is really exciting because it's going to be fun to shoot and it's going to be a fun film.

I've been to your studio in Austin and you could almost create a self-contained environment depending on how many...

RODRIGUEZ: That's exactly what we're doing. Most of it is going to be on the lot.

How does it work if you don't mind me asking, are you asking like the crew or the talent that's going to be in the movie to sort of bunker down in the area?

RODRIGUEZ: You can't really decide what they do offset, but a hundred percent. Yeah. Everyone's going to be tested. If you're you're sick, you have to be sent away or replaced or something. We can't have it shut the movie down. As long as I don't get sick. I do a lot of jobs myself. Also just everyone's working right now. So it's hard to even get a crew. So I'm having to do a lot of the jobs myself again like the old days, which is fun. So it's a blast.

Well, you also have a family and you love working with them. So just be like, "Son you're doing this now."

RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, no, my son now is my full-time composer. My other son is my co-writer and producer. My daughter is doing storyboards. My other son's doing the animatics, because he's using his game engine stuff that he designed the sets for Heroes with. Then my other son edits with me. So, it's a family affair.

I just read that Antwan Fuqua shot the Jake Gyllenhaal movie in downtown LA. He'd been possibly exposed and he directed from a van down the street so he could be self-contained. He didn't end up getting COVID, but he was possibly exposed so he couldn't be on set. But he ended up directing with a video village in his truck. With walkies and...

RODRIGUEZ: I feel like that must be possible if you don't feel like totally horrible that you could definitely direct from... with the technology now. Like Coppola used to do it from a Silverfish, he can be in there with his editing facility, that's the way to do it.