SXSW Panels

Photo By Gary Miller

A conversation with Elizabeth Avellán

Austin Convention Center, Monday, March 12

Anyone expecting an hour of tough talking, name-dropping, "let me tell you how it's done" swagger would have been disappointed. Troublemaker Studios' producer Elizabeth Avellán, the "quiet person" working behind the scenes (director Robert Rodriguez is the public of Troublemaker), came out of the shadows, both when she was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame as the first recipient of the Ann Richards Award on Friday, March 9, and Monday afternoon when she sat down with Grindhouse actor Jeff Fahey for a casual discussion about Avellán's career and how she does "things very different from the rest of Hollywood."

Avellán studied architecture at Rice University, where she dabbled in theatre. When she moved to Austin, she had an administrative position at the University of Texas at Austin. All of this, and other odd jobs, she counts as journeyman hours toward her role "producing and running an army," as Fahey described her role at Troublemaker Studios.

"I come from a family of 13 kids; that's a small army! Every job I've had has attributed to this work," she said. "Whatever you find yourself doing, even if it's not your dream job, find the skills in that job that will help you. All the jobs I've had had something that I use today to run a movie."

Avellán runs a family-friendly house. "For a while there was a joke that we were baby-maker studios because of all the kids and pregnant women," she said. As the mother of six kids, and understanding the demands that a film makes on its employees, her family-friendly approach is not just good employee relations but makes good business sense.

"[The movie set] becomes your home … when you're shooting 14 or 15 hours a day. Life intersects with the moviemaking process every day. Some studio execs don't remember that," she said, relaying a time she decided to help a production assistant leave a shoot to see a sick family member. "When the crew sees you do that for one person, everyone else feels safe."

Avellán has no illusions about how rough the film business is. Even as she moves into producing her own projects, she realizes "there's a lot more to success than being famous and making a lot of money. Were you a good daughter, a good mother?" She may be out of step with Hollywood, but success is her best defense. – Belinda Acosta