Practically any Western has a homesteader in trouble, and a mysterious rider shows up off the range, solves the problem over two or three days, and then rides off into the sunset.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My first western was 'Death Hunt' with Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin; that was where I learned to ride. The movie was based on a true story about a guy that eluded the Mounties in Canada. We were in Canada for six weeks riding horses.
We drove for 10 hours on rocky trails out into the central part of Mongolia in a Russian utility vehicle with no shock absorbers. Then we arrived at a remote area where we stayed in a yurt and waited to meet a horse wrangler who was scheduled to bring our rides.
I only knew basic western trail riding. Nothing fancy.
Your landscape in a western is one of the most important characters the film has. The best westerns are about man against his own landscape.
The kind of pace that you want to use in a Western - just to acknowledge the land in the distance that everyone has to travel, and the way things develop sort of slowly - it's almost the antithetical of what's currently going on in the movies, you know.
Westerns are fun. I wish more of them would be made. When you're out there on a set, carrying a gun, riding a horse, you kind of get lost in that make believe world.
Westerns are simple stories where there's good and there's evil and where people had a sense of space and freedom. Growing up in the city, as a kid, you've never really seen that before. It's a beautiful dream to go from concrete to big skies, dirt and horses.
I felt pretty comfortable with Westerns, apart from the fact I couldn't ride.
I want to do a western. Nobody does westerns anymore.
The Western, when I do one, will be one long, continuous story.