What made Robert pick Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara?
Elizabeth: Robert was looking for kids who had sassiness about them a spunk about them that wasn’t fake spunk. He also needed them to kind of look something like they would be a family. That was a big consideration. We hadn’t picked a mom yet and Robert kind of held out on having the mom for the reason that I’m stating. He wanted to make sure that these kids could be Antonio Banderas’s kids, and who else’s kids? I think it really worked out well because even though Darryl has red hair, the mother [Carla Gugino] has red hair, but his nose is similar to Antonio’s, and something in the eyes. You see them in a family picture and they look like a family. And Alexa has Carla Gugino’s chin a little bit, the face. It’s interesting how it all worked out, because it was really important to us. Robert specifically picked them. Every once in a while he’d show me one or another and get my opinion, and there was a screen test with Bob Weinstein, the head of Miramax. They decided between them who sho
