Kevin Costner’s Big Gamble: ‘A Good Idea Is Still a Good Idea’

At the screening of Chapter 1 of Horizon in Cannes this spring, a teary Costner, with five of his seven children nearby, received an 11-­minute standing ovation at the film’s conclusion. He’ll take it. “I’d heard that they clap for you there even if they don’t like it, which is kind of beautiful,” he says ruefully. “But as this went on and on, it got beyond that. I had visualized being in Cannes with a movie that was really, really important to me, and this movie became that movie — that response was everything I could have dreamed of. At some point I stopped hearing the clapping and began thinking back to the beginning of my career and the ups and downs, to retrace the breadcrumbs of my life. And when I came back from that, they were still clapping!”

Today Costner seems unvexed by the risk, turmoil, mixed reception or potential losses, though he manages to turn nearly every question back to his current obsession and bet-the-farm gamble, Horizon.

Q. Let me just start with Yellowstone. Was leaving difficult for you?

A: I loved Yellowstone. I would have gone back and done it again under the right circumstances. I had a contract for Horizon, and the Yellowstone producers knew about that. The rug came out from under us because the universe they were creating got bigger [with Yellowstone prequels and sequels], and they just didn’t have the scripts for Yellowstone. That’s where the Yellowstone producers should have been clear with everyone involved and said: We need to get our scripts finished. I became this kind of flash point. I didn’t enjoy that it was mischaracterized. I had 300 people waiting for me in Moab, all of them ready to begin work on Horizon. I couldn’t leave them behind.

Q. Dances With Wolves was also a gamble. Have you always been someone comfortable with risk?

Kevin Costner in 'Field of Dreams.'

Photofest

6 for 6: Six films in six years launched Kevin Costner to stardom

1987 The Untouchables

Ness vs. Capone. “They pull a knife, you pull a gun ... the Chicago way!”

1988 Bull Durham

“I believe in the soul … the small of a woman’s back ... the hanging curveball....”

1989 Field of Dreams

America’s pastime as mystical vision quest. If you build it, they will come.

1990 Dances With Wolves

Twelve nominations. Seven Oscars. Costner’s directorial debut: priceless.

1991 JFK

Oliver Stone revisits Dealey Plaza and jumps through the looking glass.

1992 The Bodyguard

KC to Whitney: Start the song a cappella. The rest is history. 

— Chris Nashawaty

A: I grew up in a conservative house and had a brother in Vietnam. It stalled my thinking for a time. My dad had one job, an electrician. He came out of the dust bowl. Growing up, there wasn’t really a time when I wanted to dissent, though at that time it seemed like the whole country was dissenting. For me to even daydream, that was code to my dad for “lazy” as opposed to, “I’m thinking about things. I’m thinking I can be something.” So it took me a while to find my own ground, to come to think I’d like to tell stories for a living, permanent daydreaming. And I’ve lived kind of like Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer. I have built tree houses, floated down rivers, played hooky — and I found my own yellow brick road in storytelling. And that really threw my dad. He didn’t know how to help me, and I didn’t know how to explain it to him. Thank God I found my own way.

Q. Where did Horizon come from?

A: I commissioned a script in 1988, and we kept fiddling with it and finally tried to make it in 2003. But I wanted more money than the studio was willing to pay. I was disappointed. After that I sat down with a new writer, and I became a cowriter. And we began to expand and reengineer everything. Out of that came these four screenplays.

Q. Four movies. Did people think you were crazy?

A: It seemed so backward to Hollywood. They said: “Nobody wanted to make the first one. What makes you think they will want to make four?” But that’s me in a nutshell.

Q. What, that you’re stubborn?

A: I just don’t fall out of love, and I loved the story. I tried again to get it made in 2015. And nobody would make it then, so finally, a few years ago, I just said, “I’m going to make it. I can’t wait any longer. I’m just going to do it.” Because I’m also getting old. I have a shelf life, and eventually I would be too old to make this movie that I really wanted to make.

Kurt Iswarienko

Q. The movie is full of precise historical details. Where is that from? Is it from your own experience running ranches and small businesses in the American West?

A: No, I just read books. I’m thrilled by details and the survival instinct that people displayed on the frontier. I love the spontaneity and the mindset of engineers in the era. Movie viewers are usually rushing toward the gunfight. But somebody had to plot these towns out. Somebody had to go out there with a shovel. Wheels broke down. And the way pioneers solved many problems elegantly, just ingeniously, I always like reading about that. And then I think, Can I fashion a story, a dialogue, around those facts?

Q. Women are often central to your storytelling, and that seems true again in Horizon, which stars, among others, Sienna Miller as a frontier wife.

A: Women are not ornaments. They have a story. And I found it was easier to write about the story if women were embraced as the people that made the thing go. The West, where there’s no law, sets up for very dramatic architecture between good men and bad men, and the people that get caught in between are women. In the West, they were victimized and often had no say in why they ended up out there. And so many women worked themselves to death just trying to keep their family clean and fed. I had to make this movie because those stories are as much a part of the West as the gunfight to me.

Q. You’ve cast several of your children in the movies you’ve directed. Your son appears in Horizon.­ What was that like for you?

A: What I love about my children is they’re not wrapped up in what I do. Like any adult, I try to figure out ways for them to be with me. So, small roles. But my kids don’t know a lot about the acting business. I don’t draw them into it. My son was on the set, and I pointed and said, “That’s your mark.” He said, “What does that mean?” I had a bigger part for my little girl, but she turned it down. She said to me, “Daddy, I like the first day of school. I like meeting my new friends.” I love that she knew herself so well.

Kurt Iswarienko

Q. You’ve put a lot of your own money into this project. Do you see it as more of an investment than a gamble?

A: I did the same thing on Dances With Wolves. And when the money fell apart on [2014’s] Black or White, I paid for it. I’ve been lucky. I’ve been blessed. This is my guesthouse. Next to it is my house. And I have 10 acres that I haven’t built on. So, yes, I mortgaged all that to put money into Horizon. If I lose this house, am I a failure? Maybe I lost something in the making, but entrepreneurially, to not bet on this would be foolish; I wouldn’t do that. I don’t think my dreams are foolish.

Q. On another subject, how can you tell a good movie script from a bad one?

A: It’s fairly simple. Writing is everything in Hollywood. I remember reading Field of Dreams and knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was magical, that it had some gold dust on it. You have to see the moments in the script that would be a reason why someone would leave their house and pay for a babysitter. And I know that if I can hit those moments as a director and actor, then it’s going to be a fulfilling experience. Field of Dreams was full of those moments and so is Horizon.

Q. And how will you judge Horizon’s success?

A: You know, I think we have false gods when it comes to how we judge success. I understand what it’s like to have a huge hit and what it does for you. And I would love for this to be supported, watched, shared, because I made it with that in mind. But what’s success? Is it money? Is it doing what you wanted to do in life? Movies aren’t just about opening weekend. Ten years later, a good movie will still be shared. Success is: Will you revisit it and show your daughter, show your son? Will you revisit it because you wonder about it, because you find new details? Those are the measures.