Role Recall: Kevin Costner

Role Recall

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

KEVIN COSTNER: Memorable part for me, I'll never forget doing it. I knew it was a classic. It didn't get a big release, but the people who have found it have always loved it. I enjoyed Judd and Sam Robards and Chuck Bush, big Chuck, 6' 7" guy. I'll tell you a funny story about him was a day before we were to film, we still didn't have the guy to play our gentle giant. I think the director couldn't sleep. I might be getting this a little wrong, but couldn't sleep because he suddenly didn't have a cast member that he really needed.

I think he went in to get a Coke about one in the morning and there was this big guy in front of him, just had Cokes and cupcakes and all kinds of [BLEEP]. He just kept looking at him and finally said, hey, you want to be in a movie? And of course at that moment, he said you know, you got to be kidding me. And he said, no, I'm not, I'm desperate.

I remember telling Sean I thought he'd win the Academy Award. And I say that simply because number one, he was a great actor. And number two, usually you're going to put a character actor in his part, the Irish beat cop. And he didn't. He's put to my mind, the greatest, the biggest star I ever worked with, Sean Connery in that role. And he just owned that supporting part. And I think what was a big memory for me was to actually see him get the Oscar, because I remember the day I saw it. I said I think that you could win the Academy Award with this role. And he did.

You know, when I read that script, I knew it was great. Problem was, we couldn't get anybody to make that. Ron Shelton, who wrote it, took it around to the studios twice and everybody rejected it. And there was a moment where both him and I both had to say, well, I guess no one's going to make this. We ended up making it for like you know $6 million or something like that.

- Ron Shelton said that you liked to show off your athleticism on the set by throwing out runners, even when the cameras weren't rolling. Is that true?

KEVIN COSTNER: I was having a game inside the game with myself. I saw a guy just hanging out and I kind of, you know, go ahead, steal it, you know what I mean? It suddenly turned it into a game. Guys started coming out of dugout at first, and then they were taking too big a lead. I say, hey, you can't do that. 'Cause if he throws you out, how about you lose your role in the movie. The league got shorter, right? Got more reasonable. And then pitcher'd throw it and I threw out about 25 out of 30 guys.

- Get a hit, Crash.

KEVIN COSTNER: Shut up.

- Is it true that you made the batboy cry?

KEVIN COSTNER: I don't know that I made him cry. I was convincing with my line. I told him, you know, we weren't making "The Natural" here where he says get a hit and the guy says, I will, Billy. Not here. It's like, get a hit, shut up, you know. And if he cried, it was because maybe Ron didn't tell him what I was supposed to say. You know, that was not the best career advice to make two baseball movies in a row when baseball was thought to be poison or whatever.

Hey, dad. You want to have a catch? It's not very often do you build a whole movie around a line, which is, hey, you want to have a catch. Most every studio executive would go, [YAWN] you mean that's our big moment? You want to have a catch? But that's the power of movies, that we could create a story to where those lines would have such depth and have such meaning to so many people. You, your dad, people around the country. You know, men really weep, they don't cry. They kind of weep about things gone unsaid in your life to people you love. And "Field of Dreams" hit that.

DWIER BROWN: Is this heaven?

KEVIN COSTNER: It's Iowa.

DWIER BROWN: Iowa?

KEVIN COSTNER: Yeah. It's the most quoted movie in Iowa for politicians, I'll tell you what. I was nervous enough being a director on it. And I remember the very first day the very first shot I set up was even wrong. And I was like, you know, that's the shot you're supposed to get right, the first shot, because the whole crew's watching you. Like, does he know what he's doing?

And I really debated whether I should say that or just shoot it wrong, so that I didn't look bad. And I thought, no, I'm directing this thing, I've got to tell 'em. And I said, you know, I think we've got to go the other way. And everybody kind of did this. OK. And they all went back to work. And that was a relief in itself that very first moment.

But three days later when I saw the dailies, I went, this looks like a movie. I was desperately hoping that it would. I don't know, I'd never done one. We had one effect where we wanted it to look like there was 50,000 buffalo just grazing. I managed to get about 3,000 in the frame. We had no more. So we were going to do an effect above them you know, to show the way the country was. Because it was believed at a certain point there was almost 90 million buffalo in the United States.

- Is it true that some of those buffalo came from Neil Young?

KEVIN COSTNER: One did. That was the one we used, and we put arrows on him and just put him in the herd. And he didn't like being in a herd with the other buffalo, because he wasn't raised with buffalo. So wherever I saw him in the herd, I went and chased him. So now he's really flipped out. He's with buffalo he doesn't want to be, and one guy in particular, me, keeps chasing him. So if he wasn't paranoid before he got there, he was paranoid after.

But to make him come, we would shake this carton and it had Oreos in it. I don't know, that's what Neil said. You know, just he'll come for these. And so we're out in the middle of the prairie shake in this thing going, at that point, you just believe anybody, because you want to do your movie. So we start shaking a carton of Oreos and here he came. So we thought, OK, it worked.

That movie, it's surprising how many people will actually say to me, that's their favorite movie. We had a really great script. He has a fantastic eye. And we made a really fun movie that people still talk about. That's probably the best thing for me at this point in my career, which is nobody drills down on a certain movie. I'm always surprised what comes out of their mouth. And that makes me feel good that it could be anything.

It was a screenplay from Lawrence Kasdan, the first one he sold in this community, and it wasn't made for 15 years, and made a whole bunch of money. So you're thinking, well, who's really that smart in Hollywood? You know, it's been out, no one would make it. If they all knew it would make that kind of money, they'd have made it 15 years earlier.

I was told that it was a moment where she was actually declining in terms of her popularity. And that really didn't matter to me. I just thought that she was the perfect choice. It wasn't, it wasn't her in moment, you know. It might have been easier to cast her, although you know, everybody alerted me to the fact that she was black, which I knew. It might have been easier two years earlier at her peak. But after that movie, she became I think maybe one of the biggest stars in the world.

- So that was seen as a detractor at the time that she was black?

KEVIN COSTNER: No, I don't think so. I just think that you know, people are trying to cast what they think is the best person, and sometimes people, feeling was, well, let's cast a real actress. That could be the best for the movie. You know, it's like faking being a good baseball player. When you see one of our world class actresses faking being a great singer, it doesn't seem right. So I really felt that we should go for a true singer. Didn't matter if she was black or white, but the fact that she was black, that didn't matter to me.

Well, in the script it was, it was his last game, you know, that he was going to retire. So the math worked. There was a scene at the end of the movie where I send a ball up, tell 'em I'm through. And it goes all the way to the top to the owner. And so the owner's reading the ball, and way deep in the background you see the team, you know, getting ready for the next inning.

And they said, Kevin, you don't have to work. We'll never know it's you. And I said, no, let me go down there, because I knew I would be warming up and I just felt like throwing. And pretty soon, Ricky Green, who was a real Major League umpire, I saw him wander over and get behind the catcher. I was really throwing about as hard as I could.

And when it was all over, they said, OK, cut, thanks. You sure didn't need to do that, but thanks. I walked by Ricky and I said, you were back there. I said, how hard was I throwing? And he said, you were in the low 80s, you threw about 83, 84. And I went, all right. And I was 44. So I felt very good. That's a private moment. But it was just me down there, just popping the glove.

My dad you know, really loved John Wayne. And he said to me, you can do that. And of course, I can't, you know, be John Wayne. But I have personally taken an interest in the American Western. And I will do more of those. And you know, that final shootout, a lot of people say that they really enjoy that. That's been ranked as maybe the top shootout. And so I'm very proud of that.