John Fusco
John Fusco
John Fusco is an American screenwriter, producer, and TV series creator born in Prospect, Connecticut. His screenplays include Crossroads, Young Guns, Young Guns II, Thunderheart, Hidalgo, and the Oscar-nominated Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
ancient china spent time
When I was growing up I spent a lot of time reading about ancient China and was really fascinated.
compelling exciting few map people tend
When people hear the name 'Marco Polo,' they tend to think of a map or explorer. Very few people know the true story of Marco Polo, and it's so much more compelling and exciting than the mythology.
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I started looking into horse history books and came across the actual story of this half-breed endurance horseman and his painted mustang Hidalgo. I wasn't really sure if I was going to do the movie at that point.
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We've won some close games this year, and we're gaining confidence. It would be great to win a game by 20 points, but we'll take the wins any way we can get them. This was a great win for us, and the offense really stepped up. Some of the kids hit some big free throws and grabbed some big defensive rebounds tonight.
art research war
With the Mongolian horse warfare, I did a lot of research into the Mongol art of war.
basketball chance quite win
They never folded. They never quite out there and we did have a chance at the end to win this basketball game, and that is all you can really ask for as a coach.
age captured dramatic fascinated learned mythology reported survived travels
At a young age, when I was fascinated with China, I read 'The Travels of Marco Polo' and learned about this exciting, dramatic world he captured and reported on. He's so little known, but yet this mythology has survived that's so misrepresentative of his story.
books both creatively hard life novels remains rewarding vastly whether writer
As a writer of both novels and screenplays, I can say that screenwriting is a vastly rewarding creative life - if you fight hard enough to do it on your own terms. Whether I write books or not, my screenwriting life has been creatively rewarding and remains so.
ceremonial chief frank history information
I was interviewing an elder, Chief Fool's Crow, who was the ceremonial chief. He was 103 years old. I was getting his information on the history of Lakota horses. He told me the story of Hidalgo and Frank Hopkins.
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I wrote 'Young Guns' on spec because I really believed that the young age of these guys historically, the whole legend of Billy dying at 21, would attract a young staple of stars, and that would be the game-changer.
few people
It always circled back around to Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. That always fascinated me because so few people make the connection between the two.
decent felt italian kid traveling travels
He was an Italian kid traveling in China, and I'm of Italian decent with a fascination for China. So, I always felt this connection to him and lived vicariously through the travels of Marco Polo.
horseback sleep trip
My son, Gio, wanted to do a horseback trip in Mongolia, but he didn't want to do an Abercrombie & Fitch-type tour, where they show you around while you sleep in B&Bs.
both brought chinese fighting ground master pick sides sleeping strategies sure traveling work
Being on the ground in Mongolia and traveling with the horse culture and sleeping in yurts, I was able to pick up a lot of detail. But I brought in advisors to work with our horse master to make sure the fighting strategies both on the Chinese and Mongolian sides were very accurate.