ITH SUCH AN AMAZING LIST OF ACTORS making up the cast it was a pleasure to get a chance to sit down and talk with five of them along with Robert Rodriguez to get a better idea of how they ended up involved with Sin City, what they thought of their characters and how they approached their roles and the seedy material.

I am sure you have all seen the trailer for Sin City with Jessica Alba twirling that rope and grinding on stage, well she plays the sexy Nancy Callahan, a barroom stripper who in the books leaves very little to the imagination, and Jessica is quick to correct when Nancy is referred to as a "topless" dancer, "She was bottomless too..."

So here we have a topless, and bottomless, stripper and a director in Robert Rodriguez who is looking to make every scene as close to the book as possible, but is Alba willing to bare all for the big screen?

Alba tells us, "You know nudity was an option, we could have done it if we wanted to."

AN OPTION!?!?! She says it was an option, but was it really an option? "It absolutely was an option and Robert said we could do it if we wanted to and obviously it would have been more authentic, but I felt like dancing around with a lasso and chaps was going to be sexy enough and I think being nude for me would have been distracting and I couldn't really be bottomless because of my dad... I couldn't really, I don't know, he may disown me or something."

Willing or not, it seems Rodriguez felt it may have soon looked to simply be a ploy to appeal to the audience's and filmmaker's prurient interests. "There were decisions for keeping the sexiness of something not necessarily like the book. Because in the book, and in the movie it just keeps going and going, so there comes a point where it is just like we are doing this for our own pleasure than telling the story." Rodriguez continued, "The way the Nancy character was built not really many women are built like that so it probably would have turned into a special effect anyway. It was important that we retain the sexiness of it, and in the world of comics they just think Nancy is the sexiest person in the world and [Jessica] did that, that's all we needed [her] to do."

Moving on to the fellas, Clive Owen and Benicio del Toro rival one another in the segment of the story titled 'The Big Fat Kill,' and as the trip takes a stroll into an area of Old Town, a part of Sin City populated by scantily clad prostitutes overseen by the fishnet wearing Gail played by Rosario Dawson, Clive and Benicio certainly hold their own.

So how does an Oscar-winner and a recent Oscar-nominee feel about playing such seedy roles?

Owen tells us, "Oh, I was just thrilled to be asked to be involved. Robert sent me the graphic novel and this ten-minute thing that he had already filmed and it looked hugely exciting. I wasn't familiar with Frank's work at all and I read 'The Big Fat Kill' and I thought it was the wildest most imaginative thing I had come across in ages, so I was just thrilled to be asked to be involved.

"The thing about these graphic novels is that you tend to underestimate them. Frank Miller is a fantastic artist and the language he uses, the dialogue we lifted straight from the book is really fantastic dialogue and it has great rhythms. It is very smart, very witty and the whole thing was just very easy because you have got such strong guidelines and the rhythm of the dialogue is depicted by what's on the page. You read it and you know how to speak it because it has got a very classic noir rhythm to it."

As far as casting Clive it seems Rodriguez had quite the odd inspiration, "Frank draws the character of Dwight with so much character in his face and you couldn't go with like a really young actor that would have that kind of weight and presence that still had some vitality in him. And I looked at the BMW commercials again because that is the only place I had known [Clive] from and I always wanted to work with him from those and he just had a very mysterious presence."

As for Benicio, if you already read our Making Of feature then you know that Johnny Depp was Rodriguez's first option for the character, but by a strange coincidence Benicio just seemed to be right for the role.

Del Toro explains how he came to be Frankie Boy, "I was approached by Robert, I think we met at the Vanity Fair thing and he said something really strange, like 'Don't cut your hair.' And my hair was pretty long; I go, 'OK.' Then he showed me a trailer of the opening sequence of the movie and it just looked amazing. I wasn't familiar with the books; I was familiar with Frank's work in 'Batman' and stuff and since then, my preparation was really talking to the Wizard - he got that nickname, I gave (Robert) that nickname. We just walked in and everything was green and I had seen how it looked already because he had shown me the beginning of the movie, the opening sequence. It was like being in the office of the Wizard of Oz."

So what did the man behind the curtain have to say about Benicio's performance?

"It was interesting to watch his process... we hired Benicio, but somehow we got Jackie Boy. He was already in the character, it is the best thing in the world to see an actor transform and we shoot very fast."

Benicio adds, "Yes, he is very fast, the Wizard shoots very fast, and he makes it very easy and cheap."

"That's the Latin way: Faster, cheaper, better." Robert finishes the sentiment and the two begin laughing hysterically.

So, in a film where the men are tough and the women may even be tougher how exactly is this going to be perceived by audiences, is it misogynistic due to the violence against women and the portrayal of women selling their bodies for survival? Rosario Dawson and Brittany Murphy are quick to dispel any negative thoughts in this matter.

Rosario tells us, "People wonder if women are going to want to see this film for specifically that reason, and I think absolutely. [Gail] is standing there and yeah [Dwight] punches her across the face but then she threatens to chop his pecker off. All the women who are working in Old Town, we take care of ourselves, we all know what our assets are and we make money off of it, we call the shots, which I think is very powerful.

"I think it is a very even keel sort of strength between the men and the women, I think it is a pretty tough town on both sides."

Brittany agrees and simply says, "I'm proud to be a woman and femininity is part of one of my greatest strengths and assets."

Assets indeed, as Brittany's and Rosario's "assets" are prominently featured throughout their scenes and I must concede, it is quite powerful stuff.