Candid Photos That Reveal A Different Side To The 90s

These two stars may seem like an unlikely pair, but the similarities surrounding their rise to fame are uncanny. Both child stars who went onto fame as an adult, both stars uniquely understood the cost of becoming a sensation at a young age. After meeting in 1978 the two young celebrities immediately became close. Shields explained:

We had a bond... both of us needed to be adults very early. It was the most natural and easiest of friendships... Michael always knew he could count on me to support him or be his date and that we would have fun no matter where we were.

In 1993 rumors circulated that the two were dating, and Shields later said that Jackson had asked her to marry him multiple times but she always turned him down. In 2001 Jackson explained the magical circumstances under which he met Brooke Shields:

She was one of the loves of my life... her pictures were all over my wall, my mirror, everything. and I went to the Academy Awards and this girl walks up to me and says ‘Hi, I'm Brooke Shields.' Then she goes, ‘Are you going to the after-party?' I go, 'yeah.' ‘Good, I'll see you at the party.' I'm going, 'oh my god, does she know she's all over my room?' so we go to the after-party. She comes up to me she goes, 'will you dance with me?' I went, 'yes. I will dance with you.' man, we exchanged numbers and I was up all night, singing, spinning around my room, just so happy. It was great.

Whether you were a sports fan or not, life in the ‘90s was dominated by one team - the Chicago Bulls. With six championship wins between 1991 and 1998 there was no way anyone walked through this era without knowing that Michael Jordan and his teammates were giants among men in the NBA.

As the defacto team leader Michael Jordan was the person that everyone on the team looked to for guidance, but that didn’t mean that they were best friends. Rodman was the best rebounder in the game in the ‘90s, but even though he was on the team with easily the best player in the league he says that the two men never spoke outside of practice. In 2019 Rodman explained:

We never talked to each other. The only time we talked to each other was probably on the court. Off the court, we never talked to each other.

The Kardashians have been in the public eye for what feels like eternity but in the ‘90s they were just another family living in Los Angeles. Sure, their father was a hot shot attorney and their then step-father was an Olympian but they were about as regular as could be in Los Angeles.

Kim and Kourtney have always loved the camera and this photo shows it. If you look at the family’s photos from the ‘90s it’s clear that they totally nail the fashion of the era from dark lipstick to thin eyebrows and even Jncos.

Many people have commented that Kim and Kourtney looked like twins growing up and that’s because they were born only a year and a half apart. No wonder they’re so close.

Hands down there was no bigger star in the ‘90s that Julia Roberts. Maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger but that’s arguable. Her big break came in 1990’s Pretty Woman where she played a sex worker who teaches Richard Gere about love and life but she almost didn’t star in the picture.

Three days after she was cast in Pretty Woman (originally titled 3,000) the production company backing the film folded. After Disney picked the film up and brought on Garry Marshall he agreed to meet with her as a courtesy, although he planned to cast a Hollywood A-lister in the role. Roberts explains the rest:

This small movie company folded over the weekend, and by Monday, I didn’t have a job. Garry Marshall came on, and because he’s a great human being, he felt it would only be fair to meet me, since I had this job for three days and lost it. They changed the whole thing and it became more something that is in my wheelhouse.

Joaquin Phoenix has never been someone who feels comfortable with his fame. Following the death of his brother River in 1993 he retreated from the spotlight and essentially gave up acting for a while. He didn’t step in front of a camera for another two years when he appeared in Gus Van Zan’t’s To Die For.

Interviews with Phoenix are notoriously strange. He’ll either go inside himself or become combative with the interviewer, and every once in a while he’ll do something completely off the wall… like doing the dishes at a local restaurant. Photographer George Holz explained how he got this fascinating shot:

We were shooting at the funky Bell Café in Soho. Joaquin had this nervous energy — I had a lot of set ups in mind, but realized right away he wasn’t the kind to sit still for a photograph, so I threw all my ideas to the wind and totally shifted gears. I abandoned all my pre-lit set-ups and we wandered around the Café. We talked a lot—the conversation ranged from vegan cuisine to the paparazzi and his late brother River. He went into the kitchen and there were all these dirty dishes stacked up. He said: ‘Man, these need a wash!’ and put on an apron and just started scrubbing. 

‘90s kids were absolutely terrified at the start of the decade when Tim Curry put on the face paint to play Pennywise the Clown in ABC’s miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s It. The two-part, four hour miniseries wasn’t just freaky, it also introduced an entire generation of young people to the devilish delights of Curry.

There were a lot of great actors and off the wall performers considered to play Pennywise (Roddy McDowall, Alice Cooper and Malcolm McDowell were just some of the names tossed around) but it was Curry who was chosen thanks to his horrifying take on a clown. He explained:

I just let it happen. Clowns are your worst fear realized. I think I scared a lot of children.

Audiences have been welcoming Reese Witherspoon into their homes since 1991 when she played Dani Trans in The Man in the Moon, but she wouldn’t become a breakout star until 1996 with the thriller Fear.

Following the release of what was meant to be a Mark Wahlberg vehicle Witherspoon starred in some of the most beloved films of the late ‘90s. But at the time this photo was taken she was just a young woman enjoying a night at a seriously ‘90s concert - the Counting Crows were jamming the on “Recovering the Satellites,” which meant Witherspoon definitely sang along to “Long December.” Photographer Randall Slavin explained how he snapped this adorable pic:

We were backstage at the Wiltern after a Counting Crows concert when I took this picture of Reese Witherspoon and another young actor, Eddie Mills. They were hanging out a bit, and Eddie and I were friends. This was right after Fear came out — 1996 was sort of her breakout year.

At the naive age of 19 Alicia Silverstone stepped into the spotlight as Cher Horowitz in Clueless, a film that unwittingly set the template for teen movies throughout the ‘90s. From the look, to the dialogue, and even the fact that it’s a loose adaptation of a Victorian era novel (Jane Austen’s Emma), Clueless created a template for everything that followed.

Even though the film is considered a ‘90s classic, during production the studio heads were unsure if the film was going to be a hit or if it was going to Audi 5000 out of the theaters.

The film was a success, but Silverstone says that the way she was spoken about in the media made her feel “extremely isolated” from her peers, but that she learned from the toxic landscape around her and came out better for having lived through it.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Cox began her career with a burst of rock ’n roll lightning when she appeared in Bruce Springsteen’s video for “Dancing In The Dark.” Two years later she took on the role of Alex P. Keaton’s girlfriend on Family Ties.

This was great and all, but throughout the late ‘80s and early ‘90s she was floundering in Hollywood with roles as girlfriends, but her big break came when she was cast in the NBC sitcom Friends as… Rachel? Cox was brought in to audition for the role of Rachel Green but realized she was wrong for the part. She convinced the producers to let her audition for Monica and the rest is history. She later explained:

For some reason, I thought I related more to Monica, which maybe it’s because I do. I’m very similar to her…I’m not as clean as Monica, but I am neat. And I’m not as competitive, even though some people, my partner Johnny McDaid, would say I am.

After Dennis Rodman joined the Chicago Bulls at the start of the 95 - 96 season he was no longer just the bad boy from the Pistons but a member of a full blown championship team.

Rodman started appearing on Letterman’s show in video segments whenever the smarmy host was in town. In 1996 Rodman appeared as a guest on the actual show and brought along some spray on hair dye that he used to color Letterman’s fairly boring hair-do.

This was one of the many segments during the ‘90s on Letterman’s show that would become polarizing, along with Drew Barrymore’s birthday dance and Madonna’s many many f-bombs. 

One of the most memorable faces of the late ‘90s is Ashton Kutcher, and while most of us know him as Kelso from That ‘70s Show he began his career as a male model. When he was discovered at The Airliner bar in Iowa City, Iowa he was selling plasma to pay his college tuition and readily accepted the call to use his face to make some cash.

After winning the "Fresh Faces of Iowa" modeling competition Kutcher dropped out of school and moved to New York City where he snared commercials for Calvin Klein and modeled in Paris and Milan.

He went on to appear in a series of Abercrombie & Fitch campaigns before popping back over to Iowa and moving to Los Angeles - all in a span of two years.

In the early ‘90s no show ignited the fervor of the fan boys quite like The X-Files. Every Sunday night on Fox from 1993 to 2002 Mulder and Sculley solved some of the weirdest cases involving aliens, bigfoots, and the government… that is until Mulder mysteriously disappeared and left Scully with a new agent in the final season.

During the show’s initial run no one was hotter than Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, a by the books scientist thrust into the world of the unknown. Even when she was in scrubs or power suits there was something about her that drove fans gaga.

She was a legit sex symbol throughout the decade (and frankly still is), but this semi-gothic photo shoot with Anderson baring more than usual must have made her fans freak out when they saw it.

In 1996 Johnny Depp was at a strange place in his career. Both revered for his off-beat acting choices and looked at as a heart throb, he was trying to figure out the next stage of his career all the while under the focus of the public eye.

While speaking with Playboy that year Depp discussed the strangest things that his fans sent him in the mail to the way he feels about his famous looks. When asked how he felt about being so handsome that women send him strange gifts he responded:

I have no control over that. It's demeaning when people talk about my looks. I think I usually look terrible, and most people would probably agree.

Amy Winehouse is one of those stars who shined brightly before burning out only a few years after becoming one of the biggest stars in music. Her whisky and cigarette soaked vocals brought danger back to pop radio.

As a teenager in the 1990s Winehouse attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School in London where she worked out of her vocals and her songwriting skills. At the same time she was also getting into trouble, acting out in ways that were only a preview for what was to come. Her mother wrote of the young woman:

Amy came into my life like a whirlwind and changed it forever. Although I lived through it with her, sometimes her story does not feel real. I am a proud mother who watched her daughter achieve the success and recognition she desperately wanted… She, herself, walked an endlessly unsteady tightrope between withdrawing from the limelight and needing to be noticed.

During the filming of Batman Returns Danny DeVito had to deal with some seriously demanding co-stars. Much of his time on set was spent with literal penguins and not actors like Michelle Pfeiffer or Michael Keaton.

Aside from having to sit in makeup for hours and deliver psychotic dialogue he was stuck on a frozen wasteland of a set. Decades after the film’s release he explained the predicament to the Hollywood Reporter:

I'm the kind of guy that loves being on set, but it was icy because we had real penguins and they had to keep the water really cold. They had these massive air conditioners. I was the only one really comfortable, because I had pounds and pounds of face prosthetics and the body padding, not to mention the heavy coat.

Sarah Jessica Parker has been on our screens and in our homes since the ‘80s, but it was in the last decade of the millennium that we really got to know her. Sure, she was great in LA Story and Sex and the City, but her outfits were really one of her greatest contributions to society.

Parker was known just as well for her drop dead sexy looks on the red carpet as well as the simple and cool outfits that she wore on the streets of New York City.

Just look at the way that she makes this workout gear look like haute couture. If only we looked this good while we were working out…

Every kid growing up in the ‘90s remembers watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will Smith’s first foray into acting. It was fun, cool, and dare we say… fresh. The show made Smith a household name but according to the star the only reason he accepted the role was because he was in trouble with the IRS.

Following the breakout hit “Parents Just Don’t Understand" Smith ended up blowing through all of his money and with a huge IRS bill. When the duo’s second album flopped he was in deep trouble.

After hanging out around the Arsenio Hall Show for a while he bumped into none other than Quincy Jones. The two started hanging out and they spitballed the entire concept of Fresh Prince. They pitched the series to Brandon Tartikoff of NBC in Jones’ driveway and the show ran from 1990 to 1996.

Born in Petah Tikva, Israel, Gal Gadot had her yes set on studying law and international relations, although the modeling world was calling to her from a young age.

After visiting New York City in the ‘90s and before serving in the Israeli Army for two years she took part in the Miss Israel contest and at age 18 she did what no one expected - she won. Gadot explains that she was totally shocked when her name was announced:

I was 18, I just graduated high school and I had some time in between going to the army. My mom figured, 'Hey, why don't I send your photo, you finished school and this like a proper pageant,' whatever. I got in and I never thought I would win and then I won and then it scared me. I was like, 'What? Miss Israel? All the responsibility of being Miss Israel?'

She have sang that she was “just a girl” but in the ‘90s Gwen Stefani was a fashion inspiration to an entire generation of fans. 

Stefani didn’t shy away from her sex appeal but she definitely kept things weird and when it came to putting together a look for the red carpet. The first thing you’re drawn to in this shot from the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards (the best place to see a truly out there outfit) is the blue hair, how could it be anything else? 

But what about that baby-blue furry bikini top, the platform sandals or the hovering futuristic skirt over pants? If you don’t have a look for Halloween you do now.

Born in Worcestershire, England in 1994, Styles grew up in a village of about 5,000 people that’s been described as “picturesque” but “quite boring.” Much of his early home life was easy, he hung out with his big sister and played on the empty hills surrounding his town but when his parents divorced when he was seven he was dealt an unexpected emotional blow.

Even with the emotional weight of his parents splitting up sitting on his young shoulders he still found time to be creative. He performed in school plays and listened to classic rock like Elvis and the Beatles. He even got into recording at a young age by using a karaoke machine that was given to him by his grandfather as a makeshift two track.

It’s clear that even as a boy Harry Styles was preparing himself for super stardom.

After meeting at the premiere of Great Balls of Fire! in 1989 Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder quickly became an item even though she was only 17 years old and he was 26 at the time. Ryder and Depp were a 90s power couple for all the goths and weirdoes out there.

The couple was so in love that they tried to get married in 1990 following Depp’s starring role in Cry-Baby. They even asked director John Waters to serve as their minister.

Waters nearly went through with the marriage, Depp’s people even had him ordained as a minister, but the director managed to talk the couple out of it at the last minute. He says that Ryder’s parents thanked him after the fact.

Kate Moss is easily one of the most recognizable names and bodies of the ‘90s. Discovered when she was only 14 years old and signed to Storm Model Management, Moss forged a career that changed the way people looked at fashion and turned models into rock stars.

As one of the most photographed women of the ‘90s she was rarely seen in public, but rather in the pages of Vogue or on the red carpet of high profile events where she rubbed elbows with bestie Naomi Campbell and stars like Johnny Depp.

Her slim looks brought “heroin chic” into fashion, giving millions of her fans an excuse to cake on the black eye shadow and draw out their sullen cheeks.

After starring together in Gus Van Zant’s My Own Private Idaho Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix became two of the closest friends that ever were. The two shared an artistic sensibility that’s rarely found in Hollywood. Together, they formed the basis of a kind of anti-brat pack along with Keany’s co-star in Bill & Ted, Alex Winter.

In order to get Phoenix to sign onto My Own Private Idaho Reeves rode across the United States from Canada to Florida to personally hand deliver the script. They were both nervous about the content of the story - gay hustlers living without any money, but Phoenix says that they jumped in feet first together, “We were excited. We just forced ourselves into it.”

Canted angles, American accents, gun, and a soundtrack that was straight out of 120 Minutes, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet ushered in a new guard of over the top filmmakers and actors, dead set of turning blockbuster cinema and the tropes of the theater on their head.

It’s impossible to think of Romeo + Juliet as starring anyone but Leonardo DiCaprio, but at the time he said he was unsure about Luhrmann. However, once the two locked into each other’s rhythms DiCaprio knew he was working with the right person. He told Entertainment Weekly:

At first I thought [Luhrmann] was on the pretentious side. But then you start to get to know him and he’s exactly what you want a director to be. Because actors are, you know, completely insecure. They need attention all the time.

Prior to the ‘90s the music world was extremely segmented. Rock artists hung with rock artists, pop artists weren’t thought of as cool, and rappers were in their own world.

By the last decade of the millennium pop culture was a place where everyone mixed and enjoyed one another’s company. How else do you explain Sting hanging out with Madonna and gangster rapper Tupac?

Madonna and Tupac dated briefly in the early ‘90s, maintaining a friendship until he was gunned down one year after this photo was taken. The two were together in 1994 when Madonna appeared on David Letterman’s show and said “f*ck” 13 times on air. She claimed that Shakur had riled her up before the interview, thus her colorful language.

In the early ‘90s Sean “Puffy” Combs and the Notorious B.I.G. went from living in the projects and working on get rich quick schemes to selling millions of records within a few years.

Combs says that he tried to sell drugs to make ends meet but he was an awful dealer so he got into the entertainment industry. He established Bad Boy Entertainment in 1993 and worked his connections until he was able to convince Arista Records head Clive Davis to distribute his fledging artists.

Within a year Craig Mack had a Top 10 hit and the Notorious B.I.G.’s debut album “Ready To Die” went quadruple platinum… and that was before the label started feuding with the West Coast’s Death Row Records. This musical rivalry would make them into absolutely superstars.

It feels like we’ve always had Keanu Reeves in our lives, but it was really in the ‘90s when he took on Mount Rushmore of the heart throbs status. Starring in films like Point Break and Speed will definitely do that to an actor, it also helps if they’re inherently lovable.

Following some super serious roles in films like River’s Edge and My Own Private Idaho Reeves took on films that allowed the audience to see him as someone with whom they have a genuine affection, not so much a movie star. When The Guardian asked Reeves how he chooses his roles - especially his bipolar filmography of the ‘90s - he explained:

Honestly, I try not to do anything I don’t want to do. But I guess those movies were in reaction to each other. It wasn’t as thought out as, OK, I finished Point Break, so now I’d better play a street prostitute. It was more like, OK, I finished this, now I want to do that.

In 1996 while coming off an injury that caused him to take a break from basketball Michael Jordan was also starring in Space Jam for Warner Bros. Jordan filmed in Burbank and while he wasn’t on set he was in the “Jordan Dome,” a giant tent erected so he could work out, train, and relax while not filming.

To help him get back into competition shape he had basketball players from UCLA brought in to play against him. At the time 19 year old Kris Johnson was in heaven, but he didn’t realize how much hard work he’d have to do after earning his spot in the tent. He told the LA Times:

Michael was not playing any differently than he would play with Scottie Pippen. Michael is very hard on you, and if you don’t have the mental fortitude to deal with that, you will break, as a player and as a person. It takes a strong person to deal with Mike. He got in my [expletive]. It wasn’t, ‘Oh, you’re Marques’ kid. Oh, you’re only a sophomore at UCLA…'

As Dylan McKay, Luke Perry was more than a teen idol. He was a rugged heartthrob who provided a James Dean-esque quality to the world of Beverly Hills 90210 with his pensive line deliveries that rarely rose above a whisper.

Perry grew up in a poor, violent household with an alcoholic father as well as a brother and a sister. As soon as he graduated high school (barely) he got out of his small Ohio town at the age of 17. In 1992 he told Vanity Fair:

I felt like another. It was never about escape. It was aoout wanting to feel like I belonged. I felt like I belonged on a screen. I don’t know why. I guess because I related to the people up on that screen much more than the people around me. I always felt like I was one of them and in a matter of time I’d get there.

Anyone watching professional wrestling in the ‘90s remembers the Rock N Sock Connection, a completely off the wall collaboration between Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Man Kind AKA Mick Foley.

The duo didn’t make much sense on paper but they were absolute magic whenever the camera was pointed in their direction. Foley says that while the two wrestlers had fun they didn’t realize that they would make such an impact on the lives of their fans. He told Rolling Stone:

We didn’t realize this collaboration would be something that people would talk about with such reverence 17 years later. People can’t name any of our matches, but they think of the way we made them feel. We really had amazing chemistry, not just as opponents but as partners. Neither one of us appreciated it until years down the line.

A reluctant ‘90s queen and style icon, Winona Ryder was a touchstone for theater kids everywhere with her roles in films like Heathers and Edward Scissorhands. Directors styled her in a variety of outfits, but whenever she was photographed off the set she could be found in a leather jacket and a pair of high-waisted Levi's 501s.

Even though Ryder looks cool in whatever she’s wearing she admits that not every look of the era was great. She told Harper’s Bazaar:

It's hard to talk about the influence of the 90s' because I lived through it, so I see it differently than the younger generation. People are obviously carefully cherry picking the better trends - there were a lot of bad looks in the 90s.

In 1990 the question on every television viewer’s lips was “Who killed Laura Palmer?” Twin Peaks was a surreal mystery program that turned America into David Lynch fans and made Sheryl Lee a household name.

Lee was only 22 when she worked on the series and she says that even then she emphatically trusted Lynch and his vision. That’s why she was so disappointed that viewers weren’t able to handle the strange ride the director wanted to take them on.

The actress was so deep inter her character that she still says that it’s hard to separate the timeline of the series from her own life. She told Entertainment Weekly:

When I experience the character of Laura, it’s as one long story. It’s as one life. It’s not broken into first season, second season, Fire Walk With Me, like it is for the viewers. So in my mind, it sort of all runs together.

There’s no doubt that Jawbreaker exists because of the popularity of teen movies in the late ‘90s, but this sexy, thrilling film is an entirely different beast than films like Can’t Hardly Wait or 10 Things I Hate About You.

With a small budget (only $3 million) the cast and crew operated with no oversight from the studio which allowed the filmmakers to create a decadent, nasty little film. McGowan said of the production:

There was nobody telling us we went too far. We had a feeling back then that it was kind of the Wild West; Darren created this environment in which we could just be our wicked, delicious selves, and what came out of it was something that can’t be replicated.

Promoting a film must be awful. You’ve got to go around and answer the same ten questions and try to make your answers sound like they’re totally off the cuff. Unless you have the right co-star then you’re going to be bored by the time you’re half way through the tour cycle.

Thankfully for Ben Affleck he was promoting Forces of Nature with Sandra Bullock. Something about her just seems fun and like she’s down for anything. She clearly doesn’t mind a little PDA on set. Even though it looks like it’s all fun and games with these two in 1999 Bullock told Entertainment Weekly that there’s one thing she can’t stand about him:

Ben can never show up anywhere on time. When he’s with you he gives you so much attention you feel like a queen, so when he says ‘I’ll call you for dinner’ and you don’t hear from him, you feel like, ‘What did I do wrong?’ Since he does it to everyone, you can’t take it personally. But then if you don’t call him back right away when he calls, he goes nuts, leaving messages like, ‘Why didn’t you call me back, I called you an hour ago, why don’t you call me BACK?’

With My Own Private Idaho River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves proved themselves to be more than just a couple of pretty faces. In order to get the roles they had to prove to director Gus Van Zant that they could play guys who really lived on the streets of Portland.

Van Zant was either going to use the two Hollywood actors or actual street hustlers. In order to prove that they could hang the two actors actually hung out with the hustlers they were portraying. Phoenix told Interview Magazine:

It’s a brotherhood on the street, man. You all watch for each other’s backs. Because no one wants to see anyone get stabbed… It was very sensational for us. I thought our main problem was to find out if we could be the real guys. Gus’ choice was to use real street guys or us, so Keanu and I felt a great burden. We wanted to believe in this script and work out the problems.

Taken one year before her tragic murder at the hands of her fan club president at the Days Inn motel in Corpus Christi, Selena was quickly becoming the queen of Tejano. After all, it’s not every performer who gets to appear in an ad for Coca Cola.

The same year that Selena was tapped as a spokesperson for Coca Cola she was nominated for a Grammy Award. She told an interviewer in San Antonio that she couldn’t believe that she was even invited to the awards, let alone up for an award:

When they first told us that we were nominated we all freaked out, we couldn't believe it. The first thing, I promise, the first thing that came to mind is that I need to take a camera to take pictures with all of these stars. It didn't hit me till later when I thought, 'Oh my God. What if we win?’ They didn't let me take my camera in, that's one of the things. I didn't get to take pictures until afterward.

Without a doubt, Terminator 2: Judgement Day is one of the greatest and most important movies of the ‘90s. Even if you’re the kind of person who prefers independent cinema it’s hard to argue against the behemoth that was James Cameron blown out sequel to his small science fiction fiction from a decade earlier.

According to people who were on set at the time of filming the film’s star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, had a thing for walking around in his make up - especially after he started suffering dino damage. Realistically what was he supposed to do, take it off every time he took a break? Chief make-up artist Jeff Dawn told Empire Magazine:

For the original film, he was in 'ripped-apart face' make-up for maybe three days. On this film he's in it for maybe 30 days and it takes about five hours to put it on every day and another hour to take it off. And one thing Arnold says he doesn't like about himself is that he isn't patient enough, but I found him to be extremely patient in the chair. He signed the contract to do this movie and read the script and knew he'd be in the chair for hundreds of hours and I've heard no complaints.

In the early ‘90s Robert Rodriguez made a name for himself with his down and dirty indie movies that focused on telling stories from a Latinx point of view. Even when he was working stars like Antonio Banderas into his pictures he was also casting unknowns like his cousin Danny Trejo.

1995’s Desperado was a followup to ’91’s El Mariachi - a movie made for less than $10,000 - although it’s not as simple as that. The film is more of a spiritual successor to its predecessor. Kind of. Let’s let Rodriguez explain:

This is what The Road Warrior was to Mad Max. It’s like, the same character in a different movie. If you didn’t see the first movie, it doesn’t matter. You can still have a good time with this one.

In 1994 Robin Williams was coming off a stellar couple of years. Following the success of Mrs. Doubtfire and Aladdin he was laying low and dealing with a bitter feud between himself and Disney. Once Aladdin proved to be a massive hit he believed that his voice was being used for marketing purposes and that he wasn’t being paid.

Initially Disney said that there was no wrong doing, but in a shocking move studio chief Joe Roth admitted that Disney had been uncouth in their dealings with Williams:

Robin complained that we took advantage of his performance as the Genie in the film, exploiting him to promote some other businesses inside the company. We had a specific understanding with Robin that we wouldn’t do that. [Nevertheless] we did that. We apologize for it.

Williams accepted the apology and likened it to “a country re-establishing diplomatic relations.”