So bad it's good

Last seen as Ana Lucia Cortez in Lost and set to appear in desert horror The Breed, Rodriguez made her name in the 2000 indie hit Girlfight, when she starred as an inner-city teen who channels her frustrations in the boxing ring. Part Puerto-Rican, part-Dominican and raised in Texas and New Jersey, Rodriguez carries some of that same lip-curling street attitude; in the six years she has been in the spotlight, she has shown a penchant for trouble. Nothing horrendous, you understand, just the kind of scrapes that would keep things interesting if she bothered to look at you twice. In 2002, she was arrested for kicking the crap out of her roommate; in 2003, she smashed her car while drunk, fled the scene and ended up doing double time in rehab and community service; in 2005, she and Lost cost-star were busted weaving in and out of Honolulu  traffic in the small hours, and spent five days in jail. You know, typical bad boy stuff. Sorry, bad girl stuff. 

 

It’s a perception she likes. “Strong, rebellious, wild,” she says, talking about the parts she like to play. “I want roles that are about the girl who’s feminine and masculine; the girl who’s not the girlfriend, the girl who has the boyfriend. I like strong women.. I admire a person with their own voice and opinions.”

 

She describes herself, with only the faintest hint of self-deprecation, as free-spirited, as a little wild, and utterly lacking in self-discipline; “I’m not good at doing as I’m told. I could never be part of the military or anything where I was ordered around.” It’s hard to argue with the assessment. The daughter of Jehovah’s witnesses, there is a clear rebellious streak running through her, countering the strict religious suffocation with which she was surrounded. “Growing up was frustrating,” she says. “There are holes in the walls of my old apartment. And I got kicked out of every school I went to… I finally quit at 15 and did a lot of different jobs. I can remember working at UPS lifting boxes all day. I asked for a lunch break and the supervisor said, ‘You don’t get a lunch break’. I was like, ‘f**k you!’ I’m going to be famous one day!’ I knew I was going to be famous.”

 

Not that the thought of being in he own game doesn’t appeal. Asking what a game based on Michelle Rodriguez would look like, the answer is rapid enough to suggest she may have thought about this already. “It would have to be something incredibly kick-ass, I'll tell you that much,” she laughs. “Something with a mixture of Contra with The Dual... that ability to play two characters at one time where you get to fight together. Kind of like Double Dragon, but with Mortal Kombat graphics where you have actual real characters, motion characters with real faces and real bodies. They'd get to fight and kick butt.”

 

She likes to kick butt, clearly. She’s been doing it on and off screen all her life. And there’s more ass-kicking to come, that’s for sure. “And it's just something that I have to live with. People need labels to understand things.So I just ignore it, you know? Ignore the ignorance.”

 

for the full version of this article, see NOX03.