Avoiding Overexposure

Producer Elizabeth Avellán Balances a Film Career with Motherhood

Published in the June 2005 issue of Austin Monthly magazine

A Private person in a traditionally public arena, Elizabeth Avellán provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at the many roles she plays: Wife of Robert Rodriguez, producer of blockbuster hits (including this summer's The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D), advocate for the Austin film community and mother of four.

While director Robert Rodriguez has become a household name, his movie producer, business partner and wife, Elizabeth Avellán, lives—by choice—in relative anonymity. With hits like Spy Kids, Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Sin City, the couple's films have grossed more than $532 million at the domestic box office. While running the business engine behind the Rodriguez machine, Avellán also nurtures the growing local film community and was a central force in building the studios that attract big-budget Hollywood film productions to Austin every year. As if that weren't enough to keep her busy, this full-time producer is also a mother of four. In a rare interview, Avellán talks with Austin Monthly about balancing work with her family life, as well as her new movie release this month, The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D.

A strong wind whips up dust at the entrance of Troublemaker Studios, a converted aircraft hangar at the former Robert Mueller Airport. Greeted by Avellán's assistant, I am led down a long, dark hall lined with photos of the crew and mega-sized movie posters. When we emerge into a large, bright conference room, a petite woman dressed in black pants and a red cotton no-nonsense blouse sits on a couch signing a pile of contracts as a small crowd of assistants and family members hovers around her.

Done with the work at hand, Avellán greets me with warm laughter and a handshake and leads me to her office. A combination of high-powered movie producer and mommy, the suite is complete with a desk, daybed, playpen and toys for her toddler. Over in the corner hangs a prized photo of jazz legend Billie Holiday signed by the photographer.

When we begin our conversation, Avellán is quick to point out that Rodriguez is the creative force behind their productions. She, on the other hand, is the practical side—the business professional that negotiates contracts with a host of A-list actors and an army-sized roster of cast and crew. She makes sure they all get paid and that the details promised in the contracts get met to the letter of the law. In addition to pushing paper, her responsibilities include managing the budget and making sure that wardrobe, set design and production assistants have everything ready for Rodriguez when the film starts rolling. Avellán has also taken it upon herself to make sure that the actors that come to Austin have a good time. "You know we really love to show them that it is a different place. Most of our actors that come here just love working with Robert, and they want to work over and over for him. I think it is because we do make sure that they come here and it's different."

She and Rodriguez have bolstered more than a few careers along the way, including Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek. "Antonio was already somebody very famous because he had been in several movies. By the time we [wrapped] Desperado, he had [been in] 80 films. Not that he had broken out yet—he had just done Philadelphia, and so he was already coming onto the scene—but he had never been a lead [in Hollywood]. So Robert was really interested and loved his energy. He is such a matador. The way he moves is very, very smooth, and his body is like a dancer. And Salma...Robert was looking for a girl, and we saw her on a TV show in Spanish television. She had moved to LA, and things weren't going so great. Her accent was a little thick, and it was a very weird time. They wanted Robert to put somebody in that had been in another movie. Salma didn't have a reel, so he helped her create one by doing Roadracers, which was really low budget. So that's how we could help her get more work and really create something."

In addition to her role as a mega-producer, Avellán is the vice president of Troublemaker Studios, where they film not only their own movies but other big productions that come to town. "We have several companies. We have a digital effects company…the stages that we made our movies in...we rent equipment to other movies. It's a whole business besides making movies."

Avellán also champions the efforts of other local filmmakers to shoot in Central Texas. Secondhand Lions is one example. "I was instrumental in trying to make sure that Tim McCanlies, the writer and director, could make the film here because they were talking about sending him somewhere else like Canada or Mexico to save money. And I was able to help him convince them that they would end up saving money here and get a better product. So I do try if a filmmaker like Tim gives me a call and says, 'Tell them how great it is. You know, show them what you have done.' And it's gotten to a point that we've done this plenty of times."

Working in conjunction with the other board members of the Austin Film Society, Avellán helped build Austin Studios out at the former site of the Robert Mueller Airport, leasing the property from the state and converting the aircraft hangars into makeshift stages. "That's one way that we brought a lot of films to Austin. We didn't have stages before. ... These empty dumb boxes are extremely useful for filmmakers, and they were going to tear these down. So we have brought hundreds of millions of dollars to Texas. And by the way, we have to get the Legislature to do something about these incentives that Louisiana is giving these movies. You just have to make sure that you are offering these movies some sort of rebate."

If you look at Avellán's childhood, it's easy to see how she became such a successful producer. Her grandfather, Gonzalo Veloz, was largely responsible for pioneering and establishing the commercial television industry in Venezuela. "You know my father hated showbiz, so he never let us be anywhere near it. But every once in a while we would go to the parties at New Year's and go up to [people that are very famous on Univisión today] and talk to them all the time. And they loved my grandfather because he started them in the business. … I end up meeting people and say my grandfather is Gonzalo Veloz, and they say, 'Oh my god, no wonder!'"

When she was 11, the family moved from Venezuela to Houston so that her father could attend graduate school at Rice University. Like the rest of her siblings, Avellán's father made her hold down a job of some sort from age 12. She later attended Rice University, where she got experience as a set designer, prop manager and wardrobe mistress for student productions. After college, she moved to Austin and became an assistant to the provost of the University of Texas, where she helped in the planning, budgeting, assessment and reporting required of a major public university. By the time she met her future husband and partner Rodriguez, she was already well prepared to produce films and run a movie studio.

Avellán strikes the balance between being a big-time movie producer and being a wife and mother of four. "My most important job is my wife job, it really is ... I feel that for the children's sake your relationship has to be solid. They have to see that there is love between us because that's where they came from. And to me, that's the first job. Then it's the mom job, because my legacy is going to be them. My movies? Who looks at who the producer was on most movies? The director, yeah, probably that can be a legacy for somebody or [being] the writer."

But motherhood comes with its own challenges—like losing lots of sleep. "I don't know the concept of a baby that sleeps through the night until the age of about 2. Women are like, 'My baby is sleeping through the night.' And I'm like, 'Boy, you are one lucky mother,' because it never happened to me at all. No, they don't and it's fine. You know it's a period of your life. Even though you are tired and you are kind of in a fog, it's also kind of precious."

Then there are the difficulties posed by fame itself. Unlike her husband, Avellán's preference is to stay out of the limelight in order to provide normal childhood for her four boys. "I tend to be very protective of my kids. I'm sitting there at Central Market with my kids playing in the playground, and two people over there say, 'Oh, that's one of Robert Rodriguez' kids.' That takes a little protection away from them. Not that Austin is a place that's scary like that, but I don't want people to treat them different. I want them to have normal Austin childhoods and run around like other kids and not think about, 'I'm the child of somebody that's famous.' So I think that's why we all live in Austin—all of us that are married and have kids [such as] Mike Judge and Rick Linklater. It's about the box office come Monday morning or top TV ratings—which is what happens on the playgrounds of first graders in LA by the way. They all look at that."

Having four children is a challenge for any mother, and Avellán's first three came back-to-back within two and a half years. The busy mother and career woman compensated by hiring two nannies who have since become like members of the family, but Mom still bathes the kids when she gets home and helps them with their homework. The couple put off raising a family until the post-production of From Dusk Till Dawn, when their careers were well established. "We waited because I knew that it would be too taxing to be pregnant and have a child when you are just starting out in the business. And I wanted us to have the best chances in the world. Robert had already done El Mariachi, Four Rooms, Road Racers and Desperado by the time I had the baby. So we had solidified our place—we could do movies together, and we work together really well."

Being the boss has its perks too, in that the producer and director get to take their kids with them on the set, sometimes eating lunch with them every day. "For Shark Boy and Lava Girl, [our children] were here with us because there were lots of kids. For Sin City, they came twice a week because it was more edgy, and I didn't want them exposed to edgy stuff and seeing things at their age that weren't worth seeing."

In the film industry, distribution executives pony up as much as $40 million to make movie prints and buy advertising, so they are considered the top of the food chain. Just the same, Avellán takes her infants to these meetings—spit-up, diapers, nursing and all. Unlike many women in the film industry, she never faced any prejudice after her children were born. "[Robert and I] showed up together at those meetings with the baby. ... If they wanted to do business with us...it came with a baby."

The story was different for her friend Jacqueline Liebman. "I had a friend who literally lost all of her jobs as soon as she got pregnant. She was producing music videos and independent films and working for studios doing different things, and she lost all work. They basically stopped hiring her. Because it's freelance, it's not like it's a job where you can say, 'Discrimination!' They just don't give you the job" Fortunately Liebman recouped from the prejudice and made a documentary about the experience In and Out of Focus.

Avellán's parenting skills come in handy, especially when it comes to handling kids on a movie set like Spy Kids, The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D. "As a parent, it's very important to me that there is a balance in their day. ... They are kids so they need to play, but there is also a job to be done. [The kids on the set] were playing flag football, and Lava Girl fell and twisted her hand. ... So this little girl was bawling her eyes out thinking that it was broken—not because it was hurt, but because she thought we were going to replace her with someone else. So it is a challenge to let kids be kids, and at the same time ... you are paying them to do a job and not get hurt."

Children aren't just actors in the couple's films; sometimes they play a role in script development, as in The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D. "Our 7-year-old is the one that came up with the story. The Max character is him very much—a dreamer, a kid that draws a lot and kind of sits at the back of the class thinking about other things. [Max] hung out with these two hip kids—Shark Boy and Lava Girl—and built the story of how they came to be, and none of the kids believed him. In the middle of the class, all the kids are laughing and making fun of him, and the teacher is trying to teach them about reality vs. fantasy and how fantasy is fantasy and kind of almost being mean in a weird sort of way to the kid. So Shark Boy and Lava Girl blow into the classroom ... and take Max away. From there, the adventure begins.

"Robert relates very much to this story because he really was that dreamer kid in the back of the class. Robert went to a really small school, sort of a junior seminary back in San Antonio called Saint Anthony's. And the teachers would sometimes let him do a movie instead of a paper. The movie is a beautiful story because there are always those dreamer kids—kids who start realizing that they can express themselves in other ways. And Robert figured it out and started shooting a movie."

Avellán found there were lots of other creative kids in town when she cast The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D. "We were really able to find an amazing amount of talented kids here in town to play the other characters. You know, the bad kids in the class. We cast five kids out of LA and the rest here, and they were amazing, and they were really sweet, sweet kids. Shark Boy and Lava Girl, this was the first movie they had ever been leads in. They had just gotten to LA. Max is originally from Texas."

In an uncertain business, Avellán and Rodriguez seem to have created a solid formula for success. "I knew that Robert had the talent to be this successful, absolutely. I didn't think it was going to come this soon, with El Mariachi and all that stuff. I didn't see that coming." While Avellán is content to give her husband all the kudos for their movies, her efforts are apparent both within the Austin film community and at the box office.