- 12 hours ago
Oscar-winning director and actor Kevin Costner sat down with THR's Scott Feinberg in Cannes for a live recording of our 'Awards Chatter' podcast in front of an audience in Cannes, presented by Campari.
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00:00:00I'm Scott Feinberg, executive editor at The Hollywood Reporter and the host of our Awards Chatter podcast.
00:00:06And I want to thank you for joining us for our third annual edition of the podcast that we're recording at the Cannes Film Festival here in the beautiful Campari Lounge.
00:00:16You can't really beat this view. And so we want to thank them for hosting us and thank all of you for being here.
00:00:22Today, it is my great honor and privilege to be joined by one of the most gifted actors and filmmakers of our time.
00:00:30A two-time Oscar winner and screen legend who tonight will premiere at this festival the first chapter of a multi-part Western that has been his passion project for decades.
00:00:40And that he co-wrote, produced, directed, and stars in. Horizon, an American Saga, Chapter One.
00:00:46I'd like to read something that was written about him in Time Magazine back in 1989, but is every bit as true today.
00:00:54Quote, he is something else. A grown-up hero with brains.
00:00:59He's modern and classic. He thinks fast and shoots straight.
00:01:03He has city reflexes that help him beat the big boys at hardball, yet he stokes memories of the lone man on a horse silhouetted against the craggy horizon and setting sun of Old West values.
00:01:14He has the requisite danger for big-screen stardom, the stubbornness in pursuit of ideals, the slow anger when pushed, the threat in a face that can mask its intentions, even as his actions inspire trust.
00:01:26He could be a husband, a lover, a chief of state.
00:01:29And now, he is poised to tote the Ten Commandments of frontier heroism into an anxious new decade.
00:01:36He is the hard-riding scout bearing the movie's message of what America thinks it was and hopes it can be again.
00:01:43Close quote.
00:01:44Would you please join me in welcoming Mr. Kevin Costner?
00:01:47Good morning, I think.
00:01:57Good morning, and thank you so much for making the time to do this.
00:02:02I understand that it's the firstâit's not the first time that you've been at Cannes, but it's the first time that you've unveiled a film of yours at Cannes.
00:02:10Can you just tell us a little bit about your history here at the Fest?
00:02:14Yeah, I was here once.
00:02:18There's a lot of Campari going on here.
00:02:21Anybody seen any Campari lately?
00:02:27Yeah, I was here.
00:02:28I was selling open range, but it played on one of the back streets, and I didn't even watch it.
00:02:36And I started to wander around, and I started to feel this thing that happens here.
00:02:42And somebody said, do you want to go on to see a film?
00:02:46And I said, of course.
00:02:47I said, we're going to need a tux.
00:02:48And I said, okay.
00:02:52And I saw I think it was the second Matrix.
00:02:54But I went up, you know, and I walked on the red carpet, and I looked around, and I will tell you for sure, you know, I thought I'd like to come back to this place.
00:03:05But I want to come back to it in a very specific way.
00:03:08When I feel like I've authored something, that I can stand in front of it, that there's no apologies, that if you have problems with the film, you bring them to me, because they were my decisions.
00:03:22And that happened.
00:03:24And I knew I was going to make these films, and I knew I was going to do it independently.
00:03:29And I had the idea, if I make these films, I'm going to bring the first one to Cannes, if they'll have me.
00:03:39And theory stepped up in a very big way for me.
00:03:44This whole festival did.
00:03:45And when you're an independent filmmaker, to have a platform, the biggest platform in the world here, I can't tell you what it does for me, what it does for this film.
00:03:57It's important.
00:03:58And all I can say is this is an important moment for me, and I'm in the celebration of movies, which I think unites us all.
00:04:09So that was it.
00:04:11Well, we are going to circle back around to Horizon, which I've been lucky enough to see already.
00:04:16It's terrific.
00:04:17It's going to premiere tonight.
00:04:19But on this podcast, we go chronologically.
00:04:22So if we can go to the very beginning, can you share where you were born and raised and what your folks did for a living?
00:04:27Yeah, well, I was born in a place called Compton in California, and I think a lot of you have heard of it straight out of Compton.
00:04:37My parents were from Oklahoma.
00:04:41My dad had one job, and it was during the Dust Bowl, and they lost everything.
00:04:48And my dad swore that he would never let that happen to him.
00:04:53He watched his own parents lose everything.
00:04:56His father began to drink.
00:04:59And so my dad was a really simple person, and he had a job.
00:05:04And he told me time and time again, never let another man outwork you for your job.
00:05:11And he repeated that to me so much.
00:05:14And he only had one job his whole life because that was to feed his family, and we didn't have a lot of money.
00:05:21But he said, don't let a man outwork you.
00:05:24And I remember looking at him and saying, I'm five years old, so I won't.
00:05:33But really, that's what has to happen.
00:05:37And so I've had a very conservative, simple life, and the idea that I would find my way into storytelling was that I knew how to work.
00:05:53I worked fishing boats, commercial fishing boats.
00:05:56I drove trucks.
00:05:57I framed houses.
00:05:58But I also wrote when I was by myself, and I didn't really tell people about it because in my family, you had to have a job, and you weren't going to let anybody outwork you.
00:06:09And so to be writing was to be daydreaming.
00:06:13And so code for daydreaming with my dad was you're lazy.
00:06:18And I said, I just can't help it.
00:06:20I said, I can work and daydream.
00:06:22And I was lucky for me that later in my life, I heard the ticking of my heart, and I knew that I would tell stories.
00:06:33And I knew that I wouldn't let anybody outwork me, and that if I had to work alone, I would do that too.
00:06:42Not all of us have a specific moment that we can point to where our lives went in a certain direction.
00:06:48It could have gone either way.
00:06:50You're sitting in accounting class in college, right?
00:06:53And what happens?
00:06:55I was.
00:06:55I was in an accounting class.
00:06:57I was in my last year of college, and it was at night.
00:07:00And so if you know anything about night school, the people in there are really serious about going to school.
00:07:06Shit.
00:07:07And so I knew that on a bell curve, I was going to be on the wrong end of this thing.
00:07:12And I really actually felt myself turn off in the middle of class, and there was a student newspaper.
00:07:19And college newspapers are only three pages long, one page, two pages, so far.
00:07:25And I got to the back of it, and I saw there was this thing, an audition for Rumpelstiltskin.
00:07:30It was a play.
00:07:32And I'm thinking, Rumpelstiltskin?
00:07:36What's Rumpelstiltskin about?
00:07:38I forget what Rumpelstiltskin is.
00:07:39And I go, well, there's got to be a prince in it.
00:07:43They all have princes, right?
00:07:44So I'll just go down there, and I'll try to be the prince.
00:07:46And, of course, I didn't, and somebody else got that part.
00:07:52But for the first time in my education, even in my last year of college, I caught on fire.
00:07:59There was something that interested me.
00:08:01You know, I have a dog, a hunting dog, not very popular with people.
00:08:08But for me, the dog was everything.
00:08:10And my dog, like a normal dog, just lays in the hallway like everything else.
00:08:15If the door, someone knocks, there's a bark, and there's a loud.
00:08:18And so he's just an average dog.
00:08:21But when I take him out into a field of grass, a yellow field, where I'm going to hunt with him,
00:08:29something happens to him, and he looks like a different dog.
00:08:33It's like his IQ goes up 30, 40 points.
00:08:37His head is up.
00:08:38His tail is out.
00:08:39He's moving.
00:08:40And I thought, I need to be like this dog.
00:08:43I need to know when I'm in the right place in my life.
00:08:46And if I can get myself in the right field, my IQ is going to go up 30 or 40 points.
00:08:55And when I found storytelling, when I found moviemaking, there was no guarantee of success.
00:09:01There was no guarantee of anything.
00:09:03But I was in the right field.
00:09:05And that's the only thing I could hope for in my life.
00:09:08And for anyone else, that if you find your yellow brick road, your first step on it, you don't have to have the guarantee of what's going to happen.
00:09:17But it's a neat thing to feel like, can I find that first step on what it is I think I am?
00:09:23Can I be that dog in the field?
00:09:25Can I look like this is where I belong?
00:09:30Now, at the outset, as would be the case with many people just finding their path in life, I gather there was a little bit of doubt if this was also, you know, pursuing acting was the responsible thing to do.
00:09:44And so can you share how, of all people, Richard Burden helped to clarify that?
00:09:50Well, he didn't clarify it as much as I just ran into him on the plane.
00:09:54And I remember seeing him, and I was just married.
00:09:58I was married at 22.
00:10:01I married the first girl that liked me.
00:10:04I thought, this is great.
00:10:08And I thought I was getting old at 22.
00:10:10I should do this.
00:10:12But it was on my honeymoon.
00:10:13But I was thinking about acting.
00:10:15I hadn't told my wife that that's really what I thought I was.
00:10:19And I got on a plane after our honeymoon.
00:10:22I remember it cost $300, and actually $324.
00:10:29And so now we're leaving Puerto Vallarta, and we're waiting to get on a plane.
00:10:34And I see this one couple being led out to the plane, like getting on the plane by themselves before anyone else.
00:10:41And so, okay.
00:10:42But now the rest of us go on a plane, and I look up, and I see it's Richard Burton.
00:10:47And I see that he's bought all the seats around him so that no one could sit next to him.
00:10:51But I didn't know anything, and I became that dog in the field, and I just looked at him.
00:10:55I was looking at him.
00:10:57And I didn't think that a person could buy seats around them.
00:11:01I came from a very conservative background.
00:11:03It was just hard enough to buy one fucking seat, let alone like five so nobody's around you.
00:11:09So, and I knew he had a volcanic personality.
00:11:12I knew that he was, you know, him and Liz Taylor, legendary.
00:11:16But I didn't know anything.
00:11:18So if you've ever thought about a mongoose and a cobra, the mongoose has no idea that this thing could kill him.
00:11:26And so I'm looking at him, and finally I walk up to him.
00:11:31I walk down the well, and everybody in the plane went.
00:11:34It's like, period.
00:11:39So I walk up, and I whisper in his ear, I said, Mr. Burton, I said, I don't know what, but I said, if you don't mind at some point during this flight, if I could ask you a couple questions.
00:11:49And he said, yes.
00:11:53He says, I'll look back for you.
00:11:56And I said, okay.
00:11:58And everybody went, sat down, and I went back, and even my wife was going, what the fuck was that?
00:12:05What are you asking him?
00:12:06Something like that.
00:12:07And so now I watch him, just like the dog.
00:12:10I don't look over here.
00:12:11I don't look out the window.
00:12:12I don't care what's out the window.
00:12:14And I see him, and he's not turning around, and he picks up this, you know, this book, Gore Vidal on Lincoln.
00:12:20It's about 800 pages.
00:12:21I think, fuck, he's going to read the whole thing.
00:12:24And so now he's reading it.
00:12:25And I'm still watching him, because I'm not going to miss a beat.
00:12:28And he closes the book after a while.
00:12:30I'm not sure about that.
00:12:31He closes the book.
00:12:32I'm like halfway up my chair.
00:12:33And then he takes his chair, and he sets it back, and he goes to sleep.
00:12:38So now I'm thinking, I'm still going to watch him.
00:12:42And so I watched him, and he finally woke up, and he looked back at me, and so sweetly just went.
00:12:50And so I walked up to him, and everybody, once again, like this.
00:12:54And my wife was like this.
00:12:57Like, what happened?
00:12:58And I won't tell you what we talked about, but there was something very sweet about him to me.
00:13:03And I didn't stay long, and I came away, and the plane landed, and he got ushered through customs like that, and the rest of us were there for an hour.
00:13:12And like I said, we didn't have a lot of money.
00:13:14We spent it all on the honeymoon, and we were sitting on our luggage at LAX, just like going my way with Clark Gable, whatever.
00:13:23And I'm just sitting there, because our parents were going to come pick us up.
00:13:28I was no catch.
00:13:29I was just a person trying to find myself, sitting on my luggage with my new wife.
00:13:35And all of a sudden, this limousine came right here.
00:13:37It was like, because I was right on the street.
00:13:39It came right here, and it stopped.
00:13:42And the window came down.
00:13:45It was Richard Burton.
00:13:47And my wife's like, and he was about this far away from me, and he just said, good luck to you.
00:13:52So that was my story.
00:13:53That's great.
00:13:54That's great.
00:13:55So after-
00:14:02But I will say this.
00:14:03He never, I always regret, never, he didn't see me have any success.
00:14:08He passed away, and I always wished I could have circled back to him.
00:14:12Well, you, as you began to pursue screen acting, I know getting the SAG card was a little bit of an ordeal.
00:14:21There's the movie Francis that Jessica Lange was in, and I know you've said there was some, a bit of a roller coaster getting it on that.
00:14:30But eventually you get the SAG card, and there's a movie that comes along called The Big Chill, directed by Lawrence Kasdan, who's going to come up a few times here.
00:14:39And I just wonder if you can contextualize, for a young actor, you guys do weeks of rehearsal, weeks of shooting.
00:14:48It's a group of incredible contemporaries of yours, young talent.
00:14:53And then you get a phone call that this character who you've played, or you're playing, whose suicide is essentially what brings the group together, has actually been excised from the film.
00:15:08We all know that it worked out now, and in fact, that Lawrence Kasdan would come back to you very soon after with the role that kind of was the star-making role in Silverado.
00:15:17But you didn't know that at the time.
00:15:19Was that crushing?
00:15:21Did it knock your confidence?
00:15:23How did you take that?
00:15:23It wasn't.
00:15:24No?
00:15:24It wasn't, because there's a lot of people look at our lives one way, but you have to look at your life the way you see it.
00:15:32And so a lot of people, they look for outward success.
00:15:36We look at the tip of the iceberg.
00:15:37We, you know, you're not successful unless you have a part.
00:15:42You're not successful unless it's a big part.
00:15:44You're not successful unless you're a lead, whatever.
00:15:47Let me see your resume.
00:15:48I didn't measure my life that way at all.
00:15:52I knew that when I got the big chill, the day I got the part, I knew my life would change.
00:15:58I knew it driving down the freeway.
00:16:00I knew it.
00:16:01My life would change.
00:16:02I knew that I was, because I was with the right people.
00:16:05I was in the right field.
00:16:07And, of course, when I got cut out of the movie, I just accepted it.
00:16:13I accepted it as part of the mythology of whatever my life would be, because what was supposed to happen had happened already.
00:16:21You're waiting for the movie to come out.
00:16:23You're waiting for the movie to premiere.
00:16:25I knew how I had started nine months earlier that I was on the Yellow Brick Road.
00:16:30I was there.
00:16:31And so not being in the movie was not something that affected me, and it's not an afterthought.
00:16:38I knew that I would have a moment, and I didn't know what it was going to be.
00:16:44But whatever it was going to be, I was going to be ready, and I was going to be more ready because of that film.
00:16:50So outward success is something that the world sees, but you have to understand the moments in your own life when something really did happen.
00:16:59Somebody else says, this is when it happened.
00:17:01I said, no, this is when it happened.
00:17:04For me.
00:17:05And it is kind of poetic that the same filmmaker, Lawrence Kasdan, comes back to you approximately two years later to do Silverado, which is not just any movie, but a Western, which has been the genre that you have sort of single-handedly, largely single-handedly kept alive.
00:17:25Let's just note, we're going to come to Dances with Wolves, Wyatt Earp, Open Range, Yellowstone, Horizon.
00:17:34I guess the question I'd like to ask is, what is it about the Western genre that appeals to you and that makes you such a fit for it?
00:17:46I mean, even your band, I believe, is called Modern West, right?
00:17:49This is, there's something for your whole life that the Western, the West has appealed to you.
00:17:57Well, first off, I think Westerns, they're really hard to make, and there's not a lot of great ones.
00:18:03It's interesting how much the public will mythologize and say, oh, I just love Westerns.
00:18:10And it's true, but there's not very many good ones, and a lot of times it sets the movie, it sets the genre back when you see movies that are just too simple.
00:18:21There's a black hat and there's a white hat.
00:18:23There's just too simple.
00:18:25Somebody kills my family, I get to kill people the rest of the movie.
00:18:30It's okay.
00:18:30I guess if it's done well, then it's okay.
00:18:33But a lot of times people think of the American West as a myth, as something that's simple.
00:18:38It was terribly complicated.
00:18:41People from Europe came there to settle.
00:18:44They were told the things that they didn't have here, living under a monarchy, living under a king, your children would too.
00:18:55But if you could make it across that ocean, if you could get onto this place called, didn't even have a name at that point,
00:19:03could we get to this place that looked like the Garden of Eden?
00:19:06And if you were mean enough, and if you were tough enough, and if you were resourceful enough, you could be a king.
00:19:15You could take what you wanted and you could keep it.
00:19:18And you could keep it for your family.
00:19:20And while that was the message, while that was the promise, there was a civilization that had been there for 15,000 years.
00:19:31And our story can't be told if we don't tell the fact that we rolled over these people.
00:19:38But what is it I love about the West is that was great drama there.
00:19:43Drama that we'll never experience.
00:19:45People think of Westerns as simple.
00:19:47They're not simple.
00:19:48Living now is simple.
00:19:50It's amazing that we still can't fucking get along.
00:19:54We think that the West was violent.
00:19:57Look what's going on in the world.
00:19:59We have learned nothing.
00:20:01But what I love about the West is that drama could occur over water.
00:20:07It could occur over seeing a stranger.
00:20:10You had to be incredibly resourceful.
00:20:12And so for me, creating the architecture of a movie for you to sit in the dark, I have to find a story that I think is entertaining.
00:20:22Because this is what our connection is, to be entertained.
00:20:25Not to be schooled.
00:20:25It's not my job to reinvent the Western.
00:20:29It's not my job to recreate history.
00:20:32I think our connection is about entertainment.
00:20:35But I don't have to forfeit my own ideas about what I think are important, what I think are interesting, what I think are entertaining.
00:20:42And that's the platform that Europe gave me.
00:20:48I used to think that movies were just for Americans.
00:20:51Remember how I grew up with nothing.
00:20:54My family from Oklahoma.
00:20:56It was America.
00:20:57Even when I finally made a movie, the movie got shelved.
00:21:02It was only when I went to the Venice Film Festival 35, 40 years ago that a movie that I made that I was very proud of, that it got shelved, three years later was playing.
00:21:16And somebody said, I thought they wanted to interview me.
00:21:19I was with Silverado.
00:21:20All the cast was being interviewed.
00:21:23It was my first big role.
00:21:24No one wanted to interview me.
00:21:25Finally, I had one interview.
00:21:28One in two days.
00:21:30And while I was doing my interview, some guy came in and he said, you have to come with me right now.
00:21:35I said, I have my fucking interview.
00:21:38He said, you have to come with me right now.
00:21:39Your movie is playing, Fandango.
00:21:41And I said, no, no, I'm doing Silverado.
00:21:44You get that wrong.
00:21:45It's not so as Fandango.
00:21:46It's a Silverado.
00:21:47He said, no, it's Fandango.
00:21:48You have to come right now.
00:21:49And I thought, but this is my interview.
00:21:52So I went with him.
00:21:53And when I walked down the street, I had no idea.
00:21:55And I walked into a theater.
00:21:57It was full.
00:21:59Even in the aisles, people were sitting.
00:22:01And upstairs, and I was in the last six minutes of this movie.
00:22:04And I thought something was happening.
00:22:07And the movie ended.
00:22:08And I couldn't believe that the theater was full.
00:22:10And people were standing.
00:22:12And they were cheering.
00:22:13And the lights came on.
00:22:15And I thought, wow, this is incredible.
00:22:17I'd also lost my luggage.
00:22:18So I was in the same clothes for three days.
00:22:20I just had a T-shirt on.
00:22:22And at one point, the person said, I think in Italian, that Kevin's in this room.
00:22:28And the lights came on.
00:22:29And the people turned.
00:22:29And they looked up.
00:22:30And they clapped for me.
00:22:31And my heart was like, you can't believe it.
00:22:35It was so big.
00:22:37And we walked out of that theater and walked down that street in mass, you know, 800 of us.
00:22:41And I thought, my God, what has just happened?
00:22:44But something did happen to me.
00:22:47And I realized that movies weren't just for Americans.
00:22:52I know that may seem odd to you and go, God, Kevin's a little stupid.
00:22:56The world's pretty big.
00:22:59But I knew right then that I would change my thinking.
00:23:03That I would make movies that I thought the world could see.
00:23:06And it just, these moments have happened to me in my life.
00:23:12And that was one of them in Venice.
00:23:14And we'll note, so Fandango was the first leading role that you played.
00:23:19But then as a result of Silverado, this small but star-making part,
00:23:24I believe it's probably directly a result of that, that there's two movies that come out in 87.
00:23:29That, I mean, when you're in two big movies in just a matter of months,
00:23:33the first in June, the second in August, that's going to really put you on the map.
00:23:39So let's just note, first, Treasury Agent Elliot Ness going after Al Capone in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables.
00:23:45That's out in June of 87.
00:23:47And then Lieutenant Commander Tom Farrell, the double agent in Roger Donaldson's No Way Out, out in August.
00:23:53I think No Way Out was finished first, but came out second.
00:23:56And I guess I'd love to hear about both of those, but particularly The Untouchables,
00:24:04because you have said, at least at one time, that the role of Elliot Ness was in some ways the most challenging one that you'd played.
00:24:13And I found it interesting, your explanation for why.
00:24:17Yeah, it was.
00:24:20I had to play this very straight arrow guy, which wasn't necessarily a problem to play that.
00:24:27How are you doing?
00:24:29See one of my actors here, and I just have so much thanks for the actors in my life that have come and supported me.
00:24:38It wasn't so much that the part was hard to play, but because it was so straight and so narrow, and I was playing opposite Robert De Niro,
00:24:49he began to improv, and I didn't feel like I could improv outside the lines of who I was.
00:24:57And so it was very, very difficult.
00:24:59And I'll tell you who came to my aid, and I miss him dearly, was Sean Connery.
00:25:08You know, somebody says, who's the best actor you ever worked with?
00:25:11It's very hard, these lists, right?
00:25:13Very hard.
00:25:14But if I have to say someone, I might say Gene Hackman.
00:25:18And somebody said, who's the biggest star you ever worked with?
00:25:22And I say Sean Connery.
00:25:25I remember in Chicago, sitting with Sean, there was a tape around us.
00:25:31We were getting ready to do a scene.
00:25:32And this woman kept trying to get my eye, and I was talking, and I thought she's, I see she was insistent on the fact that she wanted to talk to me.
00:25:46And I thought, well, I'll get over there.
00:25:47I was still doing something.
00:25:49So finally, she was very pretty.
00:25:52And so finally, I kind of step away, because we're getting ready to do a scene.
00:25:57And I walked over to her, and I, you know, it's like, and I kind of leaned into her.
00:26:03And I said, yes.
00:26:04And she looked at me, and she said, could you get me Sean Connery's autograph?
00:26:10And I said, yes.
00:26:13Yeah, I'll give that for you right now.
00:26:17So I said, all right.
00:26:19That's great.
00:26:20Well, after that killer 87, 88 and 89 were your first baseball years.
00:26:29Let's note, in back-to-back years, 88, summer of 88, the directorial debut of Ron Shelton.
00:26:35You are playing Crash Davis, this veteran minor league catcher in Bull Durham.
00:26:39And then in 89, Ray Kinsella, this Iowa farmer who begins hearing voices in Field of Dreams, directed by Phil Alden Robinson, which just earlier this month turned 35 and is really now almost like the It's a Wonderful Life of our time, I think.
00:26:57It just gets â it's still as great as the day it came out.
00:27:01So I wonder just, A, are you a baseball guy, and B, were there people dissuading you from doing two baseball movies back-to-back?
00:27:09I mean, you were â you made the right decision, clearly, but I could see somebody saying at the time, be careful.
00:27:16Yeah, I think there's a lot to this be careful business that can scare us off from what we want to do in this life.
00:27:23There's a lot of people to talk â to warn us off things, and I mean â and they do it with even good intentions.
00:27:28Some of the people closest to you, your parents, your other things, I just â what it is is they have a fear for you that you're going to fail or be embarrassed, and they can hold you back.
00:27:39And I'm thinking to myself, I'm still this mongoose with the cobra out there.
00:27:44I don't really care too much what people think.
00:27:48I enjoy people, and I am not aloof.
00:27:52I'm not a loner, but I'm not afraid to go alone.
00:27:54And so what happens is I just â I just didn't â I felt like they were both good movies.
00:28:00It didn't matter that baseball was box office poison, and it didn't matter that the second one was baseball.
00:28:05I thought they separated themselves.
00:28:07So it really wasn't a hard decision for me.
00:28:10I just was kind of â it was kind of easy.
00:28:12But I'll tell you a small little story about that.
00:28:14It's like when I finally did get the role, I â it was a big fight with one of the most legendary mean producers,
00:28:22and I also met John Houston, the great John Houston.
00:28:26I wanted to direct Revenge.
00:28:28I wanted that to be the first movie I directed.
00:28:31So I met John Houston.
00:28:32He says, you're very young, son.
00:28:34You're very young.
00:28:36And they didn't let me direct Revenge.
00:28:40The next movie I directed was Dances with Wolves, but I was too young, and I remember that.
00:28:46But the story I wanted to tell you about Field of Dreams is at one point I asked the director,
00:28:52because Robin Williams, the great Robin Williams, was also kind of up for the role for Ray Kinsella.
00:28:59And I just thought Robin was fantastic.
00:29:02And I remember asking the director why.
00:29:04I said, why did you choose me for Field of Dreams over Robin Williams?
00:29:12I think I might have taken Robin Williams over me.
00:29:15And he said, well, he said, let me tell you, it's an interesting thing you asked me,
00:29:20because he said, this is why.
00:29:22He said, when I think of Robin Williams, I think he's a person that does hear voices.
00:29:30And I need â it wouldn't be a surprise if Robin Williams heard voices in the cornfield.
00:29:35But he goes, when I think of you, I think of a person who would have a hard time hearing voices in a cornfield.
00:29:44And I thought to myself, I love your thinking.
00:29:49I mean, I was thinking he thought that through very correctly.
00:29:53A quick follow-up about Field of Dreams.
00:29:55There's another actor in that movie who, in some ways, to me, was you before you, in terms of being a very physical actor.
00:30:09But he could also be doing nothing, and it's fascinating.
00:30:12And that was Burt Lancaster, who played Moonlight Graham.
00:30:16I know it was right at the end of his career, his life.
00:30:19I believe he was, you know, to some degree, struggling a bit.
00:30:23But what stands out to you about your interactions with Burt Lancaster?
00:30:27Number one, he was a beautiful man.
00:30:30And, I mean, just so handsome.
00:30:32And a very, very gifted actor.
00:30:35And we talked quite a bit.
00:30:38And his definitive scene was when he described baseball.
00:30:43Wrap your arms around second face.
00:30:45And he worked with his hands so much.
00:30:47The sky so blue.
00:30:49He was a very physical guy that way.
00:30:51But he was having trouble that night.
00:30:55He was having trouble with his lines.
00:30:59He was having trouble remembering them.
00:31:02And I remember that the director was becoming upset.
00:31:08And I said, this is one of the greatest actors in the world.
00:31:14We're going to keep working with him.
00:31:15And I remember there was a moment, because I had just adored him, where he didn't want me on the set.
00:31:27Because he was embarrassed that he wasn't remembering his lines.
00:31:32And I said, no, I'm right here.
00:31:35And you're going to be perfect.
00:31:37And I'm going to see it.
00:31:38And he was.
00:31:41All you have to do is get it right once.
00:31:44And there was this moment you could have heard music from heaven.
00:31:49But Burt was perfect.
00:31:51And it made the movie.
00:31:52A year after that, and we'll note, Field of Dreams was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.
00:32:02Field of Dreams nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, starting a very rare feat.
00:32:07We'll note that for three years in a row, you were the star of a film that was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.
00:32:12Next up of the three was Dances with Wolves, which, just for anybody who needs a reminder, Lieutenant John J. Dunbar, a guy who almost accidentally survives a Civil War battle and requests reassignment to the West because he wants to see the frontier before it's gone, winds up meeting and bonding with the Lakota Sioux, who nicknamed him Dances with Wolves.
00:32:36The story of Dances with Wolves sort of traces back to your film debut in a very low-budget 1981 film called Stacey's Nights.
00:32:47I wonder if you can explain that and also how you, rather than other directors who you had considered working with on this, wound up directing it yourself.
00:32:58Like anything, in Hollywood, there are people that are trying to get there.
00:33:03There'll be somebody in this room that's trying to get there.
00:33:07And you can't get there, you know.
00:33:09And acting is a funny thing.
00:33:10You know, if you're a musician, you can be on a corner with your guitar and open it and maybe get a little bit of money and play.
00:33:19But if you're an actor and you're wandering around town just dribbling out your lines, they can put you in jail.
00:33:24You need a place to be able to work.
00:33:27And a lot of times there's no place.
00:33:29And we just started an acting group down by the L.A. River, which isn't really a river.
00:33:34It's a cement thing with no water in it.
00:33:36It only fills up when it rains.
00:33:38It was a chemical plant.
00:33:40And we built a little stage.
00:33:42And many of us went down there and acted because none of us had any money.
00:33:47But out of that group of people, and there was a lot of rock and roll people that I hung with down there.
00:33:54And out of that group, I began to identify people that I thought were interesting.
00:33:59And one of them ended up writing Dances with Wolves, and I brought another one on to help me produce it.
00:34:06And he won an Academy Award, too.
00:34:08So it's a long story, and I'm not going to bore you with the things.
00:34:14But Dances was like anything else in my life.
00:34:19The Mongoose, which is, I read it and I thought, this could be a movie.
00:34:26Why wouldn't this want to be a movie?
00:34:27No one wanted to make it, so I got $75,000.
00:34:31I wrote down on a napkin how I would make this movie.
00:34:35I would give my friend, who never made any money, the director, the writer's minimum.
00:34:42I would get myself a secretary.
00:34:44I would pay her.
00:34:45I wrote down there $450 a month or week or something.
00:34:50And I thought, boy, you know, I've never hired anybody.
00:34:53So I remember trying to interview her.
00:34:57And she came in, and I said, well, you have to be, you know, come on time and stuff.
00:35:09She looked at me.
00:35:10And I thought maybe I needed to say more.
00:35:14I said, sometimes I'll work longer than that.
00:35:18And there'll be some unusual people calling here.
00:35:20And that's how I hired her.
00:35:24I've had five in my life.
00:35:27They've all worked for five years.
00:35:28They all hired the next one.
00:35:30They all had that little rub up when they would hire the next one.
00:35:35And that for maybe two months, they tried to help too much.
00:35:38And finally, one said, hey, I know what I'm doing, OK?
00:35:41That's the way you did it with Kevin.
00:35:43This is the way I'm doing it with Kevin.
00:35:45I saw this happen five fucking times where that little dust-up happened moment.
00:35:51So I don't know.
00:35:53I just, you know, I believe in movies just like I believe in Horizon.
00:35:57I believed in Dances with Wolves.
00:35:59It seemed no one else did.
00:36:01It went around the studios twice.
00:36:04I will tell you about Open Range.
00:36:06I will tell you about Dances with Wolves.
00:36:08And I will tell you about Horizon.
00:36:10Very American movies.
00:36:13But the first dollar that ever came to help me in all three of them was from Europe.
00:36:19American movie.
00:36:20I couldn't get anybody to do it.
00:36:22So thank you for this kind of openness that you guys have had.
00:36:26But imagine that.
00:36:28It was weird.
00:36:34I just wanted to know, I think the Americans, some of the reservations of the Americans,
00:36:38including some of the directors that you considered hiring before you took the job yourself,
00:36:43they felt, right, that the idea that a third of it would be subtitled was a killer.
00:36:50They didn't, in many cases, want the opening battle sequence.
00:36:54I mean, you were not going to compromise.
00:36:58Yeah.
00:36:58Well, I always think everybody's better than me.
00:37:03They cannot work me.
00:37:05But I think a lot of times people are smarter than me.
00:37:09And I had this movie.
00:37:11And so I went to three very notable directors.
00:37:13And they all had something that they weren't going to do in dances and thought it was this,
00:37:19thought it was that, thought it.
00:37:20And one by one, I said, well, no, I can't let that happen.
00:37:24And the second one, that happened.
00:37:27And the third one, and you know all of them.
00:37:29But the name's not important because they're really good guys.
00:37:33But I thought to myself, fuck, I want the audience to see all of this.
00:37:42And I thought, I said, well, I'm going to direct it.
00:37:47And I thought, if anybody's going to wreck it, it's going to be me.
00:37:50And I'm going to shoot it all because I believed in a story.
00:37:55And I believed, like, when I put something up, gave something to my mom,
00:38:00she put it on the refrigerator.
00:38:03She cared about what I did, whether it was good or bad.
00:38:07And I understood I couldn't make a refrigerator arc.
00:38:09But what I read when I wrote Dan to the Wolf, I wanted to share with you once you were in the dark.
00:38:14And I thought, I'm going to shoot all of this.
00:38:16And so I did.
00:38:18And my first cut was five and a half hours long, one movie.
00:38:23But I worked at it, and finally it came.
00:38:26But it is worth noting that the first money that came to help me was from overseas.
00:38:31And both that and in open range and this thing I'm doing now, Horizon.
00:38:39This thing that's just, you know, Horizon, I don't know, man.
00:38:45It's a...
00:38:47Well, definitely, we're coming there.
00:38:50But I think another thing that connects Dances with Wolves to Horizon with also black or white in between is that you have dared to do something that a lot of people are warned not to do, scared to do, won't do.
00:39:04When you believe in something, you put your own money behind it.
00:39:09With Dances with Wolves, I think it was several of the...
00:39:11I heard 19 million budget and maybe three of that came from you.
00:39:15Yeah.
00:39:16You know, you can spend...
00:39:19I don't think I'm a great businessman.
00:39:21Man, I'm a pretty good daydreamer.
00:39:24My dad would tell you that.
00:39:27But I've had the kind of success that I couldn't even dream of.
00:39:31But I don't want to let this pile, this pile of things I have, whether it's money, whether it's stuff.
00:39:37I don't want to let this thing be so important to me that I can't think about what I want to do right here.
00:39:44That if I do what I want to right now, if I want to make Horizon, am I going to lose this pile of things that I made?
00:39:53And I thought, I can't let that own me.
00:39:57I can't let that be the deciding thing.
00:40:00I'm going to keep enough things that my family's going to be good.
00:40:04But I can't let this thing that I kind of wanted my whole life.
00:40:10I'd like to have money.
00:40:11I'd like to have nice things.
00:40:13But I thought to myself, that's going to control me if I let it.
00:40:18And so every time I've looked at this pile, I'm like, fuck, I don't want to lose you.
00:40:24Why am I so interested in this movie?
00:40:30And I end up taking everything I have, and I push it in the middle, simply because I like movies the way you like them.
00:40:40I just want something to happen when that fucking curtain opens.
00:40:44I miss the curtain.
00:40:46I miss it terribly.
00:40:48Because I remember as a kid when it opened like that, something magical could happen.
00:40:56It didn't always, because it's hard to make a good movie.
00:40:59But when you make a good one, it can have moments.
00:41:04When a movie's working at its very, very best, a movie will have moments that you'll never, ever forget.
00:41:11A look, a kiss, something that's sad.
00:41:16One of the most powerful lines to me in all of cinema was in Giant.
00:41:21And Rock Hudson, the beautiful Rock Hudson, was now an aging, silver-haired, wealthy, wealthy bigot.
00:41:30His daughter, his son married a Mexican woman.
00:41:34He was a bigot.
00:41:35He didn't want that.
00:41:35Now he has a Mexican daughter-in-law and pretty soon a Mexican child.
00:41:43And the incredibly beautiful Elizabeth Taylor, she has silver hair now.
00:41:46It's an epic movie.
00:41:48There's a theme with me, right?
00:41:50Things I like, the kind of things I like.
00:41:52So now they're older.
00:41:54And they're sitting in a diner.
00:41:57And he's still who he is.
00:41:59A big deal in Texas.
00:42:01But they're sitting in a little simple diner.
00:42:03Both these two are the most beautiful people in the world.
00:42:05But now gray-haired, this Mexican daughter-in-law and this child.
00:42:12This is back in the 50s.
00:42:15And the guy who owns a diner won't feed him.
00:42:20And Rock Hudson, who's a big deal, goes, what?
00:42:24He says, I'm not feeding this Mexican child.
00:42:26And this one, he goes, he was confused.
00:42:30This same guy who was that guy saw bigotry right in front of his face.
00:42:37And he was confused.
00:42:39And the next thing you know, he's in a fistfight with this guy from Korea.
00:42:44Our leading man, Rock Hudson, is in a fistfight in this diner.
00:42:48And they tear the whole diner up.
00:42:50And Rock Hudson does the impossible in American cinema.
00:42:55He loses.
00:42:57He's beaten to a pulp.
00:43:00And he's laying in a corner.
00:43:04And Elizabeth Taylor walks over to him and bends down and says,
00:43:10you never stood taller when you stand up for someone who can't stand up for themselves.
00:43:19And so, you know, for as phony as movies are, they're really real to me.
00:43:25I look at him, and I knew right away who I needed to be.
00:43:32And it had nothing to do with victory.
00:43:35It had everything to do with what you believe in.
00:43:39And that's, I mean, Dances with Wolves is an example of that.
00:43:44That began just an incredible run of hits.
00:43:51We had Dance with the Wolves in 1990, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.
00:43:53You're going to wear these people out.
00:43:55No, no, no, no, no, no.
00:43:56Have a drink.
00:43:57They know what they said.
00:44:00Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, 1991, JFK, 1991, The Bodyguard, 1992.
00:44:08All of these giant, giant hits and sort of helped to cement, I think, your screen persona in a lot of cases,
00:44:16which obviously there are deviations, but people have often likened you to Gary Cooper, just this sort of strong, silent type.
00:44:25But that being said, you've also given some of the greatest monologues in the history of the movies.
00:44:31And one of them I've got to ask you about is the summation at the end of JFK, where, you know, this is you and Oliver Stone.
00:44:39And I wonder if you can, there are many, I could have prodded you about Black or White, so many where you've given great, great monologues.
00:44:47But that one, I think, is a particularly special one.
00:44:50Yeah, a lot of times I choose movies based on, I choose movies based on writing, what I get to say, what is being said.
00:44:58And sometimes I see things, I think, I need the person, I need to be the person that says this.
00:45:04And that's why I'll go after these movies.
00:45:08I'll say, I think I'm the right person to be able to say this.
00:45:11And there was this 11-page kind of monologue.
00:45:14And I looked at that and I thought, you know, it's just something I wanted to do.
00:45:20And I'm very slow.
00:45:23It takes me so long to learn lines.
00:45:26I'm so much slower than every other actor.
00:45:27It takes me about a month.
00:45:29Other people memorize things.
00:45:30I just can't do it.
00:45:32There's something in me that's wired wrong.
00:45:34And so I learn all the lines before every movie before I show up.
00:45:40And I learn everybody else's lines, too.
00:45:43But it takes me a long time.
00:45:45And I remember when we got to this courtroom sequence, you know, Oliver, you know, was, you know, setting up things.
00:45:55And he said, well, why don't we just do a run through, you know, of this thing.
00:45:59And then I'll figure out where to set my cameras and what I'm going to do.
00:46:02And we were scheduled for three days.
00:46:03I said, okay.
00:46:05And so he says, all right, everybody here in Tommy Lee Jones.
00:46:09And he goes, you know, action.
00:46:12It was a rehearsal.
00:46:14And I do the whole thing.
00:46:17And Oliver says, for fuck's sake, you know this whole thing?
00:46:21I said, yeah.
00:46:22And he goes, you know it all.
00:46:24I said, yeah.
00:46:26And he goes, all right, listen to me.
00:46:28I want you to go back to your trailer or go get a massage.
00:46:33Go do something.
00:46:33I'm going to set these cameras up.
00:46:35And we're going to do this whole thing.
00:46:38And I thought, I don't need a massage.
00:46:41What I need is I want to do this thing.
00:46:44He goes, well, I'm just going to set up the cameras.
00:46:46So we did.
00:46:47And I ran through it about five times.
00:46:50And we were done at one o'clock.
00:46:53And the scene was over.
00:46:55And it was something that we were going to do for three days.
00:46:58But it was something I'd worked on.
00:47:01I'd worried about it so much that I just wanted to be ready.
00:47:04I wanted to outwork everybody.
00:47:07That's brilliant.
00:47:07Speaking of scripts, The Bodyguard was written by Kasdan originally, I believe, for another of your heroes, Steve McQueen.
00:47:16That gets made.
00:47:17You were, I think, instrumental in giving us Whitney Houston as an actress there.
00:47:23There's the next year, A Perfect World for Clint.
00:47:26And then we come to a period that I think, you know, with the benefit of time, people may look at a bit differently.
00:47:35And I want to ask you, because there were just a few in a row where you got some grief over them.
00:47:41There was Wyatt Earp, there was Waterworld, and there was The Postman, which the third one you directed.
00:47:50Now, the reality is, like, people talk.
00:47:52I remember that with Waterworld, it was Fishstar or Kevin's Gate or all these kind of mean things before anyone even saw it.
00:48:00But I think part, people look at the, if they look now, they actually were fairly successful movies.
00:48:07And there's a lot to say for them.
00:48:09But I think with Waterworld in particular, was it, did you feel there was a target on your back when you have had such a run of success that people are, some people have their knives out?
00:48:21Do you think it was the fact that it was the first movie over $100 million budget?
00:48:25Just with the benefit of time, anything about that?
00:48:28See, that's such bullshit, what you just said.
00:48:31What?
00:48:31What?
00:48:31No, I'll tell you what.
00:48:33What, I'll tell you what.
00:48:34And I remember going to the studio, I said, maybe you need to give this script up to somebody else because I said, listen, we don't have a third act.
00:48:45And I go, you're telling everybody this is a $99 million movie.
00:48:53It's like a store, you know, what, $0.99, $0.90, you know, how they do that, like a cent's going to make a fucking, what is, why do they do that?
00:49:00It's like, everybody knows what that is, $7.99, it's fucking, it's $8.
00:49:08It's like, oh, Waterworld's going to be $99 million, and it's going to be a 99-day schedule.
00:49:17I shot Dancing with Wolves on 106 days.
00:49:23It's going to be 99 days and $99 million.
00:49:27And I remember going up, I said, I said, hey, hey, really, what, listen to me, fuck, what, who decided this movie is going to be $99 million?
00:49:36And they go, I said, I said, the most expensive movie to that date had been $129 million.
00:49:44I'm going to school you just a little bit.
00:49:46And it was Terminator 2, not $129 million.
00:49:51So I busted them on that.
00:49:52I said, look, we're not the first movie to go over $100 million.
00:49:56It's probably been $10.
00:49:59And, you know, when you confront power, they're kind of like, well, yeah.
00:50:06And I go, so what the fuck?
00:50:08Why is it 90, why are you saying it's $99 million?
00:50:11They said, we can't be the first movie that's budgeted over $100 million.
00:50:18It's like a politician or something.
00:50:20There have been movies over $100 million.
00:50:22We just can't be the first movie that's budgeted over $99 million.
00:50:26I said, oh, so you're going to tell everybody that we're making a $99 million picture.
00:50:31And I said, look, I use my money on movies.
00:50:35I said, the most expensive movie is $129 million.
00:50:38Why don't we pick a 10% contingency on that, $13 million.
00:50:42So now it's like $143 million.
00:50:44That would be a more reasonable thing to say to people.
00:50:47We're making this movie on the water.
00:50:50Well, we can't say that.
00:50:52I know you fucking can't say it.
00:50:54But it's going to get said to me that we're over budget on our first day of shooting.
00:51:02That we're over schedule on our first day of shooting.
00:51:05The movie ended up costing $157 million.
00:51:08It's a little bit more than $143 million.
00:51:12And it went 157 days.
00:51:15And so this problem landed on me that I was out of control.
00:51:23Jesus, look at me.
00:51:26Not like this.
00:51:29But I mean, I paid for my movies.
00:51:32I know what money's worth.
00:51:33And so I think it's a fantastic movie.
00:51:38I also, it's one of the most beloved movies.
00:51:40People come up to me to this day and talk about Waterworld.
00:51:44All I did was stood behind it and made it the best it could possibly be.
00:51:48And everybody ran for the shadows, for the corners.
00:51:52And I'm standing like stupid Kevin, you know, taking it around the world and trying to explain why it was so expensive.
00:51:58I never told anybody that story, what I just told you.
00:52:00But you're all drunk anyway.
00:52:02When you have gone back over the years to baseball, as with For the Love of the Game, or For Love of the Game, or the Western with Open Range, does that feel like a, just a kind of a comfortable, obviously they're all challenging.
00:52:25But I mean, is there something almost cathartic about going back to certain genres for you?
00:52:31Not really.
00:52:33I'd still like, I'm on the hunt for the great script.
00:52:37I'm still looking for the great story.
00:52:39I just don't care where it comes from.
00:52:41It's like, you know, there's the, you know, there's the supermodels and so beautiful.
00:52:47And sometimes there's the waitress.
00:52:49You just have to think who, for you, is the most beautiful.
00:52:54And when I look at the script, I don't want to just, I don't want to be affected by what the trends or what's popular.
00:53:01I want to go to what moves me.
00:53:03And if I think this little movie in the corn is just as good as some other movie, then I'm going to do that.
00:53:10It's easy.
00:53:11Two movies, nine years apart with Mike Binder, The Upside of Anger, you and Joan Allen really deserved, I hope people are continuing to discover it.
00:53:21It's a great movie where you're the neighbor of a woman whose husband's gone left.
00:53:26And then nine years later, Black or White, the grandfather of a biracial girl who there becomes a custody dispute.
00:53:35You've said of Mike Binder, first of all, that there were a bunch in between those where you didn't agree to do them.
00:53:43But the ones that you picked, these scripts and performances that you gave are so great.
00:53:47And talk about difficult things.
00:53:51And again, you have monologue in Black or White, so great.
00:53:54But just those two, I feel like, are something that people could go and read.
00:54:02Black or White is a movie that deals with racism between Compton and Beverly Hills.
00:54:07And I ended up funding that.
00:54:09I paid for all of it.
00:54:11No one wanted to make this little movie, and I thought it was pretty good.
00:54:14So away we went.
00:54:16I told Mike we'd make it, and the person that was going to make it fell out.
00:54:20And I went, oh, Jesus.
00:54:22I told him we'd make it.
00:54:24This is my pile of money up there.
00:54:28All the shit I have in the world that I made.
00:54:31Am I going to risk it all for this movie called Black or White?
00:54:36Yeah.
00:54:39I didn't make very much money, but I loved making it.
00:54:43At the start of your career.
00:54:45Careful.
00:54:47At the start of your career, the idea of going, if you establish yourself as a movie star,
00:54:53to then go and do television, was moving in the wrong direction.
00:54:56That is obviously no longer the case.
00:54:58But it's no longer the case because a few people like you changed that.
00:55:03And I think even before Yellowstone, there was Hatfields and McCoys, which was a History Channel three-parter.
00:55:10And I guess I just wonder, again, if you'd like to wrap Yellowstone into this, but just the idea, when you decided to go to television, what factored into that decision?
00:55:21Just writing.
00:55:22Yeah.
00:55:23Like, there's no mystery about it.
00:55:25You know, you can be charming all you want to be, but a movie has to, you can't be charming for two hours, or in my case, three hours.
00:55:38It has to be about writing.
00:55:40That's all that supports movies.
00:55:43You know, if they want to make the same movie a sequel, they've got to figure out the writing.
00:55:47But I like to, it's about writing.
00:55:51Actors need it.
00:55:53They crave it.
00:55:53Their careers, if they base it on writing, I think they'll never feel bad about where their career has gone.
00:56:01So writers are underestimated.
00:56:04They're also whiners.
00:56:06They will cry babies.
00:56:08Whoa, don't get everybody to pay me, and I never get the, you know, these jackasses.
00:56:15They have the most power in Hollywood, and they don't know it.
00:56:21Writers, if you can write, if you can really write, you can do anything you want, because every actor, every studio, everything is looking for the great script.
00:56:35And so, if you want to be a director, become a writer, and have, you can get anywhere you want if you can write,
00:56:44because that's the blood of what we do, writing.
00:56:47It's not movie stars.
00:56:49It's not anything.
00:56:51It's writers.
00:56:53Before we come to Horizon, I've got to ask you, and I want to ask you about one of my favorite of your performances,
00:56:59which is as John Dutton on Yellowstone.
00:57:02We've had a number of, I think, five seasons so far of this.
00:57:07It started out back in 2018, or went on Paramount Network, which we learned about because of Yellowstone.
00:57:16But I just wonder if you could share how that one was presented to you,
00:57:21and kind of what the appeal was of this guy, John Dutton, at the outset.
00:57:28It was the writing.
00:57:29When are you going to catch on to what I like?
00:57:34Well, in this case, the writing, it's Taylor Sheridan, who'd done Hell or High Water.
00:57:38He'd done Wind River.
00:57:40Did you guys know each other before that?
00:57:42He had talked to me about Hell or High Water, and I just didn't, I think that was, no, Wind River.
00:57:48Wind River, yeah.
00:57:49But, no, it came to me, and I thought he was just spot on with what he'd done.
00:57:55It's modern ranching, not a cowboy movie, but it's modern ranching.
00:58:00It's still going on in America.
00:58:02We still ride horses.
00:58:03We still get up before dark.
00:58:05All that meat that you find in the stores and the restaurants, somebody's doing that work.
00:58:10It's real work.
00:58:10And so, he really captured that world.
00:58:16I respond to writing, and that's why I did it.
00:58:19And that's why I did it for five years, and maybe I'll do it again if the writing matches up with, you know.
00:58:27There's really no mystery how to catch me.
00:58:31Just put the cheese right in the corner and put it right there.
00:58:35And if it's like a really good script, we'll nail them.
00:58:39We'll get them.
00:58:39Funny thing, your late father, who I was watching last night, I watched the clip of you winning your Oscars for Dance with Wolves,
00:58:48and it's unbelievable the resemblance that you two have.
00:58:52But he apparently advised you against taking Yellowstone?
00:58:57Yeah, he said it was too nasty.
00:58:59He says, you're going to lose your audience.
00:59:01There's a filthy mouth.
00:59:02They have filthy mouths.
00:59:03And he was in a kind of a, what do you call it, assisted living by that time.
00:59:14And the first year it became really successful, and all the nurses wanted to know about Yellowstone, and he just kept telling me after that, don't you quit that show.
00:59:25Don't you quit that show.
00:59:26And I talked to all these nurses about you, and they wanted to know what's happening next.
00:59:32Four years that kept him alive, I think.
00:59:35The same guy said, this is terrible.
00:59:38This is nasty.
00:59:38You're going to lose your audience, Kevin.
00:59:41He said, you're going to lose your one job that you had.
00:59:43Just a couple stats related to that.
00:59:47Season four finale in January 2022 was the most watched telecast on cable since 2017.
00:59:54Season five premiere in November 2022 was watched by 4 million more people than that.
01:00:00This is getting, this show gets the kind of viewership that nothing else really gets these days.
01:00:05And I wonder if you, based on what you hear from fans, what you, your own take is, why has it popped so much in, in this time?
01:00:16Is there something that it says about the world today or something else?
01:00:20That's my standard answer with writing.
01:00:23It's writing.
01:00:25It's really written well.
01:00:26It's fun.
01:00:27Who knows why?
01:00:29You know, it's very difficult to pick what a hit's going to be.
01:00:33But it's not hard to pick what you think is good.
01:00:39If you try to translate that you know what a hit is, well, you're going to be chasing something.
01:00:45But if you actually know what good writing is, I think that's just going to support you.
01:00:49And this is a, it caught lightning, you know, with an audience to see running horses, rivers that have never stopped, mountains that have never moved.
01:00:58Those are images that we'll never tire of.
01:01:00And if you can put a story against it, you know, that's what happened.
01:01:05The show has been out of production for a little while.
01:01:09There's been all kinds of anonymous people suggesting why that is.
01:01:14You have not really weighed in on that because I know you don't really do press unless you're promoting something.
01:01:19So you're promoting something now.
01:01:21And I wonder, I mean, the, I just, the suggestions that money, availability, conflicts with the rise and whatever people have been saying, would you please set the record straight from your perspective about what's going on and whether or not you expect to come back to the show?
01:01:37I, you know, I, I will come back to the show if it, if it, if it, if it lives up to everything that we've been trying to build on that show.
01:01:46It's just things happen with a show.
01:01:48Five seasons is a lot.
01:01:50There was a season that we shut down completely and no one really knows about it.
01:01:57We were about a month before we were start filming.
01:02:01We didn't film and we went about 14 months before we came back.
01:02:06No one really knows about that.
01:02:08And, and I thought to myself, I can't let that happen to me again, you know, because you can't just pick up another job.
01:02:15And so at that moment I thought, well, if it happens once, it could happen again.
01:02:20I need to put myself in a position where that doesn't happen.
01:02:24And so I just, after starting Horizon in 1988, I don't really fall out of love.
01:02:33I love something in 1988.
01:02:35I love it today.
01:02:37I don't, it's very hard to move me off a position.
01:02:39It doesn't mean I won't, but until somebody says something that makes sense to me, that's where I, that's where I stand.
01:02:47I know you're, you want this Yellowstone thing.
01:02:50It's just simply, Yellowstone was important to me.
01:02:54It's still important to me.
01:02:56I put it in first position and I, I decided that I would make Horizon between the raindrops.
01:03:02And so that's what I did.
01:03:04I scheduled my movie between when we were supposed to make Yellowstone and when we were supposed to start.
01:03:10And somewhere along the line, they couldn't follow their dates.
01:03:14And I had 400 people waiting for me and my own money there.
01:03:20And so a series that I gave all my attention to for five seasons, I still was prepared to do that,
01:03:27but I couldn't break my word with actors that I made promises with and a promise I made to myself.
01:03:36It doesn't matter how much money you throw at me.
01:03:40Let me check with my lawyer for a second.
01:03:43How much were they talking about?
01:03:47Kevin, that much?
01:03:51Maybe you should think about it.
01:03:54I don't know what's wrong with me.
01:03:56I want, I'd like money too, right?
01:04:01But it just doesn't inform my decisions.
01:04:05It just doesn't.
01:04:07Because if it all goes away, it all goes away.
01:04:11I know how to work.
01:04:12I can work on a fishing boat.
01:04:14I can build a house.
01:04:16I'm okay.
01:04:18And, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to spit on my life because I'm afraid.
01:04:23Well, here we are up to horizon now.
01:04:28And I've got to.
01:04:29Fuck you, take a long time.
01:04:32That's what this was about.
01:04:34Hey, do you know where you're even at?
01:04:39Now.
01:04:39Ten years ago, when you were doing Black or White, I had the opportunity to interview you.
01:04:48And you said, quote, I have another Western that's about 10 hours long.
01:04:52What am I supposed to fucking do with that?
01:04:55Close quote.
01:04:56So, you weren't sure.
01:04:59I've changed.
01:05:00You can see I've changed.
01:05:01I've changed.
01:05:04You weren't sure if it would end up as a limited series or a series of films or something else.
01:05:08But you had, as you've said, already been thinking about it for years, going back to 88.
01:05:12So, how did this idea first come to you?
01:05:15Why did it appeal to you?
01:05:16And I know that I want to reiterate that you are a co-writer of it with John Baird, who you also did your Explorer books with.
01:05:25And so, I guess to put that more briefly, just how did it evolve?
01:05:31After I made Silverado, I wanted to make another Western.
01:05:38And Mark Kasdan, who's Larry Kasdan's brother, I gave him an idea.
01:05:42I wanted to do this cowboy movie.
01:05:46And it was called Sidewinder.
01:05:47So, I had it written in 1988.
01:05:50And I liked it.
01:05:52And I was going to, I thought, I'll make this.
01:05:54You know, I'll fit this in.
01:05:55And, but it was like about two guys.
01:06:00And in 2003, I decided I would make it right after Open Range.
01:06:05And the studio wouldn't make it.
01:06:08There was a $5 million difference.
01:06:10And the $5 million bugged me too much.
01:06:13So, I wouldn't make it, you know, for, I wouldn't make it for that.
01:06:20And so, about seven years passed.
01:06:25And I started thinking, well, you know, this is probably the best example of who I am.
01:06:32Not that I, you know, you probably already have drawn your own conclusion of who I am.
01:06:38But, by the way, this is a really good format to talk with alcohol all around you.
01:06:45But, honestly, to have an interview like this, I feel like I've been able to really truly communicate with you.
01:06:51And there's nobody going to commercial.
01:06:54So, I appreciate this format a little bit more than you might imagine.
01:06:58But, I had this idea that, you know, since the town seemed to really like that first one, the one in 1988, that no one else would make,
01:07:16I thought, well, fuck, I'm going to write four more.
01:07:19Really, Kevin?
01:07:25Nobody liked the first one.
01:07:29Nobody.
01:07:30There's like eight studios.
01:07:33Nobody liked that first one.
01:07:35And you're going to write four more.
01:07:39Yeah, man.
01:07:40I have this really good idea.
01:07:44They didn't like the first one.
01:07:47And they're going to write four more.
01:07:49Yeah, what do you think?
01:07:54Well, no one particularly was itching to make the next four either.
01:08:00So, I thought, I didn't know what to think.
01:08:07But there came a moment in my life where I said, I'm not out of love.
01:08:13I'm going to make this.
01:08:14And I don't really care about you.
01:08:17In fact, I'm actually glad you're there.
01:08:19Come on down here.
01:08:21I'm going to make a Western.
01:08:22I'm going to make four of them.
01:08:23I'm not going to make one and see how it goes and then make something up because it went well.
01:08:29I'm going to make all four of these guys.
01:08:31And so, that's what I did.
01:08:33And that maybe doesn't make a lot of sense, but half the people who went West didn't make any sense.
01:08:44So, the first one, which is premiering tonight, comes out in June.
01:08:48The second one comes out in August.
01:08:50Right.
01:08:51Where do you stand on the additional installments?
01:08:55I need some more money.
01:08:59I do.
01:09:00I need some of these big billionaires with fucking boats from here to here who are fond of telling people they're billionaires to come with me and make a movie.
01:09:16I don't have the money they had.
01:09:17I've already made two of them.
01:09:20Where are you, rich guys?
01:09:22Well, they're right out on the harbor here.
01:09:23Yeah, where are you, tough guys?
01:09:26You know, let's put it all in the middle and see who blinks.
01:09:32Now, you hadn't.
01:09:32So, I'm serious, goddammit.
01:09:36Where are you?
01:09:38So, me, I've been out there.
01:09:41I've shot three days already of chapter three.
01:09:44I'm going to go back, and I think I have enough money to shoot another seven or eight days.
01:09:49That's just me.
01:09:51And it's just the way I like it.
01:09:56I'd like it to be easier, but I don't think it ever is going to be for me.
01:10:03And I don't think what I love is that much different than what you love, but I think that what I love is just a little different, and I think that's why I love it, and I think that's why I feel like it's worthy of sharing.
01:10:15It's just a little different.
01:10:16So, I hope tonight, for those of you who see it, I just ask you to do one thing, and when the lights go out, and it's about to start, and you know it's about to start, I just want you to close your eyes for a second, and become a little girl again, or a little boy, and open them, and go for a ride with me to Horizon.
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