Rodriguez's nieces come to the ‘Grindhouse’

Director's twin relatives play babysitters who take up arms

	Robert Rodriguez cast his twin nieces, Elise and Elektra Avellan, as twin babysitters in the new film, "Grindhouse."
AP file

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updated 7:46 p.m. ET April 10, 2007

NEW YORK - Elise and Electra Avellan, twin nieces of director Robert Rodriguez, never thought acting in “Grindhouse” would bring them instant fame.

“We had no idea so many people were going to be calling us,” Elise, joined by her sister, told The Associated Press. “It was like a bomb fell in our apartment one day.”

The 20-year-old Venezuelans appear in the April edition of Maxim En Espanol magazine and have received several requests to act together, as well as separately, in films.

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They also caused a commotion last week when they showed up wearing red dresses at the film’s premiere after leading actress Rose McGowan sent a message to publicists asking that no one else wear that color but her.

“We still didn’t have a publicist, so we did not know,” said Electra. “We did not understand what was happening. And the truth is Rose did not even care .... It was an exaggeration by the media.”

In “Grindhouse,” which opened Friday in the United States, the sisters play a pair of baby sitters in the story “Planet Terror,” directed by their uncle. The movie was produced by Rodriguez’s wife, Elizabeth Avellan.

The twins said they had a lot fun playing with the guns and cars on the film, but also recalled some bittersweet moments. The New York Post reported last week that Rodriguez and his producer wife, who have been married 16 years and have five children, are separating because Rodriguez was having an affair with the lady in red, McGowan.

“We were in the middle of a very crazy situation during the filming and we had to keep our objectivity,” she said, referring to a weeks-long interruption in the filming last year that was reportedly caused by Rodriguez’s personal problems.