When I was in Thailand, I went into the up-country because Marco Polo didn't get down into the flesh pots of Bangkok because they didn't exist in those days.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'm a little like Marco Polo, going around and mixing cultures.
I grew up with a fascination with Marco Polo. I had this unlikely interest in the East as a young man, and you can't really read about Chinese history and philosophy without encountering him at every turn.
Everybody has done something about Marco Polo. It's the tiredest, most trite and worked-over subject in the world, and that was why it appealed to me, because I wanted to do something really new and different about something that had been worked over all these centuries, and I think I did.
It all goes back to 'Wow, I never knew this about Marco Polo.' This is an incredible story and an incredible character, and such a rich world of Mongolian and Chinese culture.
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.
The journey of Marco Polo is the hero's journey, one that all cultures across the globe can relate to.
In 2007, I did a horseback trip across part of central Mongolia with my 13-year-old son - we encountered Marco Polo at all these historical places where Mongolian nomads would reference his accounts and his relationship with Kublai Khan.
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.
I arrived in Bangkok in 1980: I was 23 years old, and it changed my life.
We're not just making 'Marco Polo,' we're living it. Because we traveled to Venice... Kazakhstan... into the jungles of Malaysia.