Kevin Koster He talks about the early days of his career and his struggle to achieve success in it.
During a recent interview on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast, Costner recalled that while he was working as a stage manager at Raleigh Station and struggling to succeed as an actor, he “felt like I was never going to make it.”
“Once I got in the door, I progressed pretty quickly,” he said on the podcast. “It wasn’t like sliding across the floor of Tom Cruise at 18. It was at 27, 28 for me. I was a stage manager at Raleigh’s, working for $3.25 and there was Richard Gere and Mel Gibson and Nicolas Cage and Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn. At a certain point, (I thought) I might not get the role.”
After a while, Costner said he realized actors could only make so many films a year, and that he “needed to see anything that somebody had rejected.”
Costner began to feel that he would have no existence in Hollywood. (Getty Images)
Kevin Costner Brings His New ‘Love’ to the Set of ‘Horizon’ While Third Western Is in Production
While his agent didn’t seem to understand that…Yellowstone” On what the star was thinking, Costner said he wanted to know if another actor “had come off on something great,” and that he was committed to “pursuing that idea.”
“All actors want to have an agent, but you realise you get 90% of the money, maybe you have to do 90% of the work,” he said.
Although Costner’s scenes were cut from the final edit, he credits his role in 1983’s “The Big Chill” with changing his life. Costner explained that when he got the role he “knew I was with the right people,” adding: “I wasn’t in the movie, but I realized it wasn’t going to be my last movie.”
Soon after, he starred in the Western “Silverado,” which became his big breakthrough in the industry.
Costner’s big break came when he was cast in the Western “Silverado.” (Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
“I was prepared to play Scott Glenn’s role, Peyton, who was played by Kevin Klein, because I knew the era. It was already my thing. So I thought I already knew how to do minimalist. I got the guy who was angry and climbing like a monkey and fighting, and I felt I wasn’t ready to play him before,” he said. “I knew how to do this other thing. This guy was as big as the horizon, so I tried to play him, which was to play up to the horizon.”
Following the success of “Silverado,” Orion Studios offered Costner several films they wanted him to star in next, but he turned them all down. He explained that they wanted his “career to happen at some point,” and said he didn’t think any of those films were “suitable” for him.
When they turned down his ideas, he asked them what movie they wanted to make, and they chose a movie called “Finish with Engines.”
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“I was doing all this back-work of who was turning down what…constantly reading myself, I found this movie called ‘Finish with Engines’,” he explained. “I said I’ve read the script, I’ll do it. It was at Warner Bros. It was in exchange, so they said, ‘Okay we’ll do this with you,’ and there was no way they’d change the title, but I knew how it read. It matched my sensibility. So after that, then it was done.”The Untouchables‘ happened.”
After reading the script, Costner told the studio he wanted to make “No Way Out”. (Orion/Getty Images)
The film was called “No Way Out” and also starred Gene Hackman. The film was a huge success and earned more than double its budget at the global box office. He then starred in “Bull Durham”, “Field of Dreams”, “The Bodyguard” and “Dances with Wolves”, which he also directed. The film won him two Academy Awards, one for Best Director and the other for Best Picture.
Coster has since starred in a number of successful projects, most recently starring in Paramount Network’s popular show “Yellowstone.” On the podcast, he revealed that he initially only agreed to do three seasons of the show, but ultimately stayed on. for all five seasons,
“What happened is, I believed the world. I knew it was a soap opera. I knew we were supposed to be in prison,” he said. “We’ve all killed people in there. And so you throw logic out the window, don’t you? But he (creator Taylor Sheridan) has a fantastic ear, and he just wrote that material really authentically, and it was good fun. And he wrote my part particularly well… so listen, I really enjoyed it.”
The actor has departed from “Yellowstone”, and is focusing on directing and starring in “Horizon: An American Saga”. The first two films will be released on June 28 and August 16, respectively, while production on the third and fourth chapters has already begun.
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Most recently, Costner starred in the Paramount show “Yellowstone.” (Excel/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)
