Kevin Costner is showing no signs of slowing down. The “Yellowstone” star will appear on AARP’s August/September Magazine cover, and the actor sat down with the publication to talk about his long career and what still lies ahead.
“I have been tested in a lot of different ways. There have been very critical moments where I had to listen to myself and act and not be afraid of the outcome. I always put the audience on my shoulder,” the 65-year-old told the outlet of how he picks his projects.
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“I will say to Hollywood people, ‘Don’t be too sure they don’t want to see that.’ And that’s what the fight is about. I haven’t always been really successful in certain movies. But I still love it.”
The actor currently has multiple projects in the works—Costner has starred in Paramount’s “Yellowstone” as John Dutton since 2018, and will return as the rancher in the series’ fourth season come 2021. Costner has a long history of playing rough-and-tumble characters in western-style movies, starting with the 1985 film “Silverado.” But the actor’s upcoming project “Let Him Go,” while technically a western, attracted Costner because of the story’s relatability.
“It felt honest. Men sometimes have to follow their women. [My character] George knows his wife is right, but he knows exactly where this leads,” the actor said of why he chose to star in the movie. Kevin will play a retired sheriff searching for his grandson after a tragedy in the upcoming movie. “The western is not based on one person’s story. It’s based on something that probably happened thousands of times.”
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“The first western I did, Silverado, wasn’t history, it was good matinee fun. Later on I did Wyatt Earp, which was more biographical. My western Open Range was based on a novel, yet the conflict it showed between free grazers and the people who were fencing in land with barbed wire could have played out a thousand times. I don’t think because something is fiction doesn’t mean you can’t find yourself.”
As for what the actor looks for in future projects, Costner told AARP his future movies will have a certain level of “poetry.”
“I plan to play out the second half of my career with really big movies that take you somewhere, that have a level of poetry. There’s a perception out there that I can do whatever I want, that things get easier for me professionally with age. It’s simply not true. They don’t. It’s just as hard to make things now as it was when I was trying to make Dances. But I should do whatever I want. I’m at that spot in my life, artistically. I should be doing what pleases me.”
Kevin Costner
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