Horner Inspires Fuqua – One Magnificent Gift
It was a breezy Wednesday morning in the middle of June. Old and new alumni of the Youth Jury and Critics Programme met in the lobby of the ArtScience Museum, decked out in our smart casuals. The press conference was due to start, and we had a photo op with the director Antoine Fuqua – of Training Day (2001) and Southpaw (2015) fame! Butterflies replaced the nasi lemak I had for breakfast.
We met Fuqua in the holding room. He was a large man, confident, charming with a friendly smile and very personable. With a firm handshake, Fuqua possessed an aura of authority, a man with an impressive list of action films and thrillers under his belt. “Introduce yourselves to the director,” the usher had said. When it was my turn – “Chun Li?” I am no streetfighter; I had to correct him. “Choon Ling.” Fuqua tried a few times, politely, but soon chuckled in resignation. This exchange reminded him of South Korean actor Lee Byung-hun, who stars in The Magnificent Seven as Billy Rocks. Fuqua could not get his name right either. “It’s too hard. I call him BH or Mr. Lee.” Everyone laughed.
We were ushered to the press conference, seated behind the rest of the media. Shortly after, we screened a trailer for the film, which delivered Fuqua’s trademark action and humour with a star-studded cast. The room was abuzz with exhilaration when Fuqua entered, and he was greeted with eager applause. The question and answer session had begun.
The short dialogue was littered with personal anecdotes that showcased Fuqua’s affable charm once again. Many were curious about his relationship with the rest of the cast, their relationship with each other, and what it took to make this blockbuster a reality. Fuqua replied with ease, validating the cast’s natural chemistry on-set and off. Ethan Hawke and Byung-hun Lee even went go-kart racing in their downtime! “And they never once invited me,” Fuqua jokingly muses. Putting together actors of this magnitude was surprisingly easy, but scheduling, on the other hand, was the tougher nut to crack. After Fuqua and star Chris Pratt shared a phone call regarding the project – a call in which Pratt “didn’t say anything but sang” an old Western song — Pratt was in, even when the latter was fielding offers left and right.
As the esteemed director of this mega-remake, Fuqua had a strong vision — to keep the film relevant whilst preserving the spirit of the original Akira Kurosawa film Seven Samurai (1954). “Tyranny needs to be fought by the good people.” The idea of Denzel Washington playing the lead quelled Fuqua’s initial hesitance in helming the film, and the latter was assured enough to develop his thoughts for the film: Fuqua’s Magnificent Seven would be a contemporary take on the classic, exploring the age-old question ‘when does one sacrifice themselves for good?’
Ultimately, it was the late James Horner whom pushed Fuqua to seal the deal. They were at Horner’s home in Calabasas working on Fuqua’s last film Southpaw, when Horner persuaded him with a story about the riding trails and ranches where they used to make Westerns. “You have to do it.” said Horner. And even after he passed, Horner’s will lives on – through seven songs gifted to Fuqua for the movie. It was a surprise for the director. “[It] blew me away,” Fuqua discloses. “It was magnificent.”