Interview:
John Lee Hancock,
director,
John Fusco,
screenwriter,
"The Highwaymen"
Directed by John Lee Hancock (pictured), and written by John Fusco, the Netflix drama The Highwaymen chronicles the efforts by Texas Rangers Frank Hamer and Maney Gault to track down Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow and bring to an end the bloody crime spree that terrorized the Great Depression-era South. Unlike director Arthur Penn’s stylish and influential 1967 Bonnie & Clyde, which sought to ridicule and humiliate Hamer while further romanticizing the exploits of Parker and Barrow, The Highwaymen takes a sober approach to Hamer and Gault’s hunt. The drama also takes no pleasure in Hamer and Gault's killing of Bonnie and Clyde during a 1934 ambush in Bienville Parish, LA. Kevin Costner plays Frank Hamer and Woody Harrelson plays Maney Gault. Frank Hamer lived his retirement years in Austin, and like Travis County native Maney Gault, is buried in Memorial Park Cemetery in Austin. The Highwaymen premiered locally during this year's SXSW Film Festival and opened March 22 at the iPic Austin in advance of its March 29 Netflix premiere. Longview, Texas native John Lee Hancock is not a stranger to Austin: he wrote the Clint Eastwood-directed A Perfect World, which starred Kevin Costner, and directed The Rookie and The Alamo, which were all partially shot in Austin. Hancock, who specializes in telling fact-based stories also directed The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks, and The Founder. Hancock is currently attached to direct the Denzel Washington the serial-killer thriller Little Things. John Fusco wrote Crossroads, Young Guns, Young Guns II, Thunderheart, The Babe, Hidalgo, The Forbidden Kingdom, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, and The Shack. He created the Netflix series Marco Polo and is currently writing a Christopher Columbus series, Hispaniola, for the streaming service.
Aired: March 25, 2019 Web site: https://www.netflix.com/ |
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