John Fusco Enters The Forbidden Kingdom

by Kyle Rupprecht | Published September 12, 2008

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MM: How has the screenwriting industry changed since Crossroads in 1986?

JF: It all felt so cutting edge back then. It was very rare for a film school student to break into the business and I was one of only a handful. The New York Times did an article about me selling a script out of my Screenwriting 101 class. Now, that’s not so unusual; there are more opportunities out there with new media and indie films and screenwriters doing their own graphic novels to control their destinies. But it still always comes down to the power and integrity of the story. I think there are more opportunities available, but less inspired and original material.

On a workshop level, computer technology has changed the game in a mind-blowing way since I started. I might be the last of the screenwriters who wrote on an electric Royal and became masterful with a White Out brush. Then Waldo Salt showed me his computer. It was a thing the size of an industrial generator that made crunching sounds when it saved onto a floppy. Having sold my first screenplay, I bought one. But to do research I had to go to the library. A few years later, after moving to Vermont, I’d have to fly to the New York Public to do certain research. Now it’s all right there. The resources and the links to personal contacts are incredible. With that access, screenwriting software and the wonder of e-mail, I think writers have a gigantic advantage compared to when I was starting out. It has certainly made my living and writing out of town easier and I’m surprised that more screenwriters don’t do that now.

As far as trends in the kinds of material, that seems to change monthly, so I can’t point out any overarching transformation. Just when I think a character-driven 1930s Western is dead, I submit a spec script and suddenly there’s as much excitement as I remember when I turned in my first thing 20 years ago. It simply comes down to writing from the heart and that will win over trends and technology every time. It will find its way up the river and nothing will stop it.        

 MM: According to IMDb, you dropped out of high school at 16 to travel the American south as a blues musician and factory worker. How did that experience influence you as a screenwriter?

JF: It was the best prep school for film school that I could’ve had. When I got into NYU (by some miracle or mistake in paperwork), my first class was Basic Screenwriting. The assignment for the semester was to complete a 10-page screenplay. I was shocked that these students began groaning about the task. I didn’t have the vocabulary or the French cinema terms down like they did, but I turned in a 120-page screenplay in a month. Most of the students never did complete their 10 pages.

Hoboing, working in saw mills and living on the streets in New Orleans had given me a backpack of material. I had the 120 pages already worked out in my head, almost line-by-line, because I’d been gathering it and shaping it and taking notes on trains. The road also made me hungry and insanely determined to go back for that first dream, which was telling film stories.

 MM: Do you have any advice for aspiring screenwriters wishing to break into the industry?

JF: Try to tap into content that you truly love and stop reading the online trades to see what’s selling. Even if you have to stop going to the movies for a while, break the cycle of influence and try to reach back to what it was that made you want to write in the first place. Pull out of the pack.

If I look back at the stuff I’ve gotten made, it all comes from some place of passion or interest. Even if you think there might not be something there on the surface, keep digging. Some people are surprised that I just wrote a kung fu movie with Jackie Chan and Jet Li. But that one has been brewing for more than 30 years, steeping back there in the pool of the stuff that I lived for as a kid. That’s where the juice is, I think—way back in that childhood magic. Ray Bradbury wrote a little book called Zen in the Art of Writing. He speaks to this process more eloquently than I can. I recommend reading that book even over Aristotle’s Poetics.

More importantly, go blue collar. Work harder than every other aspiring screenwriter you know. If the other guy is writing for three hours before he goes to his day job, get up an hour earlier than him. Give up your weekend and put a sleeping bag beside your desk—go on a marathon writing bender and barricade yourself. Especially from all of those people who want you to give up. Twenty-three years later, I still do that.

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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT

Comment by Essay on 10/08/08 at 9:44 am: Thanks a ton for sharing this interview. Much appreciated!
Comment by Driving Jobs on 10/15/08 at 5:13 am: Good post. John Fusco has always been one of my favourite moviemakers and this interview just cements his position.
Comment by Tony on 12/17/08 at 6:33 pm: Mr Fusco used to do what Charlize Theron did in her childhood. Well, almost. She also used to practice her acting with other neighborhood children.
Comment by riding lawn mower on 12/22/08 at 11:47 am: I loved film forbidden kingdom, it was great fantasy movie