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.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
What is compelling with 'War Horse' is the jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring craftsmanship in this movie.
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.
I knew the story of 'War Horse' very well. I had read the book even before I did the auditions. I'm a big fan of Michael Morpurgo.
The first 'Half-Life' movie treatment pitched to us climaxed with a tearful reunion between enslaved Vortigaunts and their Vortiwives and children. The last one I saw had Black Mesa invaded by a cavalry unit, just so as to feature a scene of bullsquids tearing into armored horses.
I've been reading about Crazy Horse and Custer for a long, long time, and I thought that if I was going to write a story that took place in the Black Hills, I should find a way to include this history in it.
The bones of the story of 'War Horse' is a love story. That's what makes it universal.
I figured somebody wrote a story who had a typewriter and I thought that movies were made by the cowboys and that they just said, 'Okay, you fall off the horse this time.'
I do want to direct a movie from horseback one day.
I spent my girlhood as a Clydesdale among thoroughbreds.
'Mustanging' was like trout fishing. It is always the big ones that get away. When you did get a bunch of them into a corral, you found they did not look half so large and handsome as when they were first sighted on the prairie.