Rodríguez initially became an avid film fan in his childhood days, as he often explained that Orson Welles' classic Citizen Kane (1941) made an especially strong impression on him as a young man.

[1] In a career that spanned more than 40 years, Rodríguez was able to play the most dissimilar of characters, from royalist caudillo José Tomás Boves, tango singer Carlos Gardel, philosopher Karl Marx, and Venezuelan president Rómulo Betancourt, to the lead role in William Shakespeare's Hamlet and King Lear, while appearing in over more than 50 playwrights, 40 telenovelas and 18 films.

[2] Following college graduation, Rodríguez moved to Caracas to attend Central University of Venezuela, where he acted in school plays before obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Chalbaud later cast him in his 1974 production Boves, el urogallo,[3] a Radio Caracas Television drama starring Rodríguez and based on the novel of the same name by Francisco Herrera Luque.

While at RCTV, Rodríguez was often cast in romantic dramas with characters in conflict while dealing with moral dilemmas, painful resolutions, and strained familial situations.