Kevin Costner

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard, I'm joined by Monica Padman.

Good morning.

Good morning. You have copped to this once or twice. I feel like this one caught me off guard. I got a little starstruck.

Yes.

Could you feel it?

I could. You could. Yeah.

I thought it was nice.

Yeah, I really was. I was a bit starstruck.

Yeah, it's cute.

Kevin Costner delivers. Well, first of all, let's just say.

My goodness.

Fuck, I mean, the pictures will be up. You could go look, but I don't even know. It couldn't possibly do it justice. He looks so fucking good.

Yeah, he looks so, so good.

Oh my God, in real life? He was so stylish. Yes, and so tan.

Yes, very suave.

God, he had a nice tan. I kind of just was like charmed right out of the gates. And he had a real rascally smile. every now and then he'd let rip.

He did, he was fun. He had a great energy. I do feel like I get why you were a bit off kilter.

because he's old school.

He's like an old movie star. He is. Not old, I mean, he's like a.

A legend.

Yes, he's a legend.

And I think I was like, I was reminded of that when I researched him before he got here. I kept looking at credit and going like, oh my God, of course. It's like when you're looking at Spielberg's and you're like, oh right, and he did that, and he did that. Right. So yeah, Costner, I was just like, oh God, The Bodyguard.

Yeah, we get into that, and it's so good.

Yeah, Dances with Wolves, The Untouchables, Waterworld, Yellowstone. He has a new film, well, he has two new films that are coming out, called Horizon, an American Saga. And it's broken into two. The first one comes out on June 28th and part two comes out on August 16th in the movie theater. It's so huge and grand in scope.

And this is gonna be four parts.

Yes, this might be the most ambitious movie project I've ever heard about.

Really, really cool.

And boy, did he charm the slacks off of us. Please enjoy Kevin Costner.

♪ He's an armchair expert ♪.

♪ He's an armchair expert ♪.

♪ He's an armchair expert ♪.

Is that chair too big for you, Monica? No, it's perfect. You should see me in this one. I feel like you have a timeout.

Who's this? Hi.

Hi.

Oh, okay, great. Come have a seat. We're just talking to our buses. I'll hide in the corner. Oh no, you're right there, boss.

Yeah, you're fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you the cleaner? When he kills us, are you going to? I'm the fixer. You're the fixer.

Yeah, there we go.

What's your name? Arnold.

Arnold, we've been together a long time.

Hi, Monica. Nice to meet you. How long? 23 years. Wow.

23 years.

That's lovely. That's pretty nice.

Have you ever done a podcast?

I did one this morning.

You did? Whose did you do? IndieWire.

IndieWire. And I've done Adam about five years ago.

Corolla? Corolla, yeah. Okay.

We're pals. He's just a funny guy. Stern?

Yeah, have you done, Stern?

Yeah, is that a podcast?

It's not, but it's long form.

I've never done Howard.

Oh, you haven't?

I don't think I have.

Next.

You can do it in an hour.

Is it next? We'll do it again. when you do it. She just dacks on.

Stop.

They've got you booked until midnight.

I'm gonna work today. I just got back from France and I'm gonna do this and I gotta do something for Memorial Day Parade. I'm not really sure what that's about. Then I'm gonna see Jimmy Kimmel. Yeah.

You star next week?

No, I shot three days, stopped everything, went to France, screened the movie because it was important for us, as kind of essentially an independent movie, to throw as much light as I could on what we've been doing, because people have been wondering about it. So it was out there for the film festival. It was something I had imagined a couple of years ago earlier that I was gonna need to do that. And thank God they took the movie and gave us a really nice placement on the weekend and I was able to bring out seven of my actresses, because the movie is very heavy on women. And wow, talk about girls who know how to walk the red carpet.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

One leg goes out. It's an art.

Well, when I walk the carpet with my wife, she's got about seven different poses and I stand there with the same confused look on my face. And I'm like, am I supposed to adjust with her?

Get your hair going right.

Yeah, well, occasionally I'll throw it over my shoulder the way you do.

But the thing is, you can wreck your neck.

You can really injure yourself.

This was at Cannes?

This was at Cannes, walking out.

You got a seven minute standing ovation. Wow. And you got, rightly so, emotional?

I did. It was about 11 minutes, actually, because the first four, they were clapping when it was dark. And finally, I thought, you should maybe turn the lights on and find out what's happened.

Right, right, right. Have they arrested someone?

Maybe somebody fell, they got up and they kept clapping. And what happened when the lights came up, it kept going. I did get emotional, actually. My eyes filled. There's 2,500 people there in that theater.

Oh, my God, really? That many?

And Bertolucci said so accurately, it's like the last place where 2,500 people can sit in the dark and dream the same dream. I don't know exactly what's happening, and I can feel the balcony. And all of a sudden, I went back in time. They kept clapping, but suddenly the sound went away from me and I went back to, this started in 1988 for me. Couldn't make it in 2003,, and decided that in 2003,, since nobody liked it, I'd make four more.

Yeah, so you don't want one, I'll give you four.

So no, it's like from a therapy point of view. Kevin, did you hear they didn't like the first one? You heard that, though, right? And you did what? You wrote four more.

Yeah, we hope to uncover that today.

Right, and so what happened was I started going backwards and I got emotional, and my children were there. I had five of my children, two of my boys were in tuxes and my three little girls were all dressed up and they were watching too, and they got a little startled by it. My son had not ever seen me be that emotional.

You know what's ironic, right, is you? and I would pray that when that camera's on us in the scene, that we could get to that spot, but then there it happens in real life and there's this hesitation, right?

There was a hesitation. I was holding back because here's the camera, but I can see this 100-foot screen behind him and that's me. And I looked and I could see my eyes were full and I thought, good fuck, that's not kind of good. But I walked backwards. and finally I thought I should bring this to a stop, so I didn't know there was gonna be remarks.

I guess the screen behind you is the big part. That's basically like doing your scene in front of Video Village, like watching yourself. Right. Yeah, did you walk back in time, not just from the story of the movie that then came to fruition so many years later, but did you have that kind of awareness of like, wow, this has been a pretty long walk I've taken and to land here, minimally, you gotta recognize, well, this is a unique experience. Not a lot of people get to have this moment.

Yeah, that's a whole town focused on film and at that moment it was focused on us. It was lots of ups and downs and just trying to stay true to it, trying to not let it be manipulated and wondering why I'm such a not-head, but there it is. There's no apologies for it. I don't know if you've gotten to see the movie. I did.

I watched it two nights ago. Oh, you did? Yeah, it's beautiful. It's also at an interesting time in history, and we'll get into that, where we have a lot more layers of accepted behavior. These people are out in the middle of fucking nowhere, having not gone to school, having not lived anywhere, where they would have observed elders passing anything.

The thing I was trying to do with this movie is that, historically, movies, the towns are already there. It's like what? What, do they pop up after a rain? and they're mushrooms?

Yeah, you're right. They're building like one church generally when we arrive.

These towns were built and burnt down. It's a 200 year experiment.

I think we're getting a little deep into it. Monica, maybe you didn't see. She's the voice of the audience. at all times. I actively don't watch the movies.

so that I know when we're getting too esoteric or not. And I am a bit confused, so we should.

So, in general, this is a really, really expansive story and it's following three or four different sets of people in three or four different areas of the West during the four year span of the Civil War.

Actually, what happens is it's before it a little bit. It's a 10 year thing and we start a couple of years before the Civil War starts. We don't really deal with the Civil War, but what we're saying is, when you historically know the West, you realize that when the Civil War was actually going on, the people that were coming West were way more exposed. Why? Because there was no army.

Yeah, we'll be killed in a second if they decide.

That's right, that line in there. They could rid us in one day's work.

15,000 Apache or 100 and whatever of them.

So it's a saga and then it passes that time and of course, in about the next 20 years, the West shut down after the Civil War. So it's a migration West of people who don't know each other, all headed to a spot that looks like maybe they can have a life because a salesman put pretty pictures on. it, said they can catch trout, and none of those things, of course, are there. But if you watch television now on the 800 channel, people are selling shit all the time.

Well, think about even California and its history. We were sending huge train loads of oranges East to go like, look what we have in the middle of winter, begging people to come out here.

Now we're like, please stay away. Yeah, I actually didn't know that, but that makes a lot of, we're showing off.

All these people where I'm from Detroit, are in the middle of winter, they haven't had a fresh vegetable or fruit in three months in this train, car of fresh oranges arrives.

Do you know, Mike Binder?

Funny enough, I have him on my list to bring up. Yeah, Binder and I are friends and it occurred to me during my research that you guys are buddies.

Michigan is really big for him.

Yeah, I enjoyed watching you play a retired tiger in Upside Anger.

Mike, that was a brilliant screenplay. So you are gonna have to get out of that big chair someday and go see the movie like a big person.

Never, of course, I will, I'm excited.

One thing you'll notice right away that in American West, women are dominant. in my movie. I think you'd probably agree with that, surprisingly so.

So there's a few different groups we're following and of course their stories are slowly being funneled into this place, Horizon. We have some things set in Montana and then we have Luke Wilson driving a convoy or caravan through Kansas and that trail. And then we have where Horizon is, which I'm guessing is Utah.

No, it's down in Arizona.

Arizona, okay.

Off the San Pedro River. So it's the first hundred pages of a novel, if you will. You're setting your story and you're setting these people. And some people are getting there on purpose and some will get there by coincidence.

There's a bunch of themes, I think, being explored, but it's really fascinating that the characters in this movie, the Civil War, is not even happening. for them. They are so far removed. It makes me think about our access to everything currently. Like, you could be anywhere in the world and you can be actively watching a couple different wars happening right now.

And, by the way, there was never a safe day for them. Every day was work. Every day was keeping your family fed, keeping them clean, if you could. It was nothing but work. Women for that 200, 300 year span were working themselves to death.

I mean, one of the fascinating things I learned about the Old West, which is really telling of how scarce everything was, is when they built structures and then they moved on, they burnt down the houses to reclaim the nails. Nails were so rare that they had to burn down the houses to gather up the nails so they could build again.

No, it's true. I mean, a little girl passes a biscuit to the boy and he takes it. He's gonna put it back. She goes, no, my mom needs that cloth. She'll know that it's gone.

Nothing's disposable.

That's why the sharing of food, probably nothing more important in life. If you wanna have a bond with somebody, share food with them. Yeah. Yes. And what they started to understand was maybe, if they're gonna exist on this land, maybe they need, with their technology, to like leave a deer that they shot out.

A little act of good faith.

Right, and we were kind of willing to do that when our numbers were, you know, please don't hurt us. But the minute there's a tipping point, we just treated the indigenous like they were an inconvenience in their own country.

Yes. Okay, we're gonna dive into the movie a bunch, but I do wanna go back to Can in the moment there because I am gonna guess that through the course of this really illustrious and incredible career, it's fun to research someone like you, to be reminded. For me, American Flyers, that is a seminal movie for me that my brother and I watched over and over and over again on on TV. It just played and played and played and played. I remember how much time I spent with that specific movie.

I had the feeling that I was never going to make it.

And then, when you do, it's kind of like, well, this feels a little too good to be true. You're kind of waiting for them to knock at the door and go like, big mix-up, so sorry.

Once I got through the door, I kind of went pretty fast.

You sure did.

It wasn't Tom sliding across the floor at 18.

So far out of reach.

So at one point I even said, if they can only do two movies a year, I need to see everything that somebody's turning down. I drove my agent crazy. I wanna know if they've walked past something great or they just can't get to it because they've committed to something down the line. I said, let's chase that idea. And so my agent thought, what are you thinking about, buddy?

Yeah, true, true, true.

I had an idea about myself. You know, when you do look at the breadcrumbs of your life, when you walk it back, you measure your life different, certainly, than anyone else does. And so somebody who looks at the tips of these icebergs, of whatever you wanna say, when do you think it happened? I have a different view of when it happened for me. For me, when I got the big chill, driving down the freeway, knowing that I got the part, I knew my life had changed.

Well, your hand, did, I think.

But I knew, stop with that. Stop with the research.

Unforgettable hand.

If you don't have a real grasp of your career, then you're kind of wandering. When I got that part, I knew I was with the right people. I was with the right director. I would absorb everything. Yes, I had a moment.

Well, you made an impact on Larry Kasdan, clearly.

He made a big difference in my life, both watching him behave, watching the rehearsal process. We made Silverado. It was a very flashy part. That part had a lot of juice.

It was set up to win.

And so what you have to do is embrace it, walk right into it, which was a little hard for me because I was prepared to play the laconic Scott Glenn role, Peyton, who Kevin Kline played, because I knew this era. It was already my thing. And so I thought I knew how to do the minimalist. Here I got this guy that was raging and climbing like a monkey and picking fights. And I thought I wasn't prepared to play him at first.

Yeah, were you nervous?

I was because I knew how to do this other thing. This guy was as big as the horizon. So that's how I ended up trying to play him, which was play to the horizon. It's not like anybody else is in the room.

Right, right, right.

It's like you're not value for value on shit.

In your world, everyone else is passing through it.

That's right. But that moment of the big chill, I wasn't wrong. Silverado happened. But sometimes being on the yellow brick road is as much about getting where you're going.

Listen, I can relate to that greatly, which is the biggest hurdle is being invited into the fucking room. Because you're on the outside of the room for so long that that moment where you go, oh my God, I got a call time. I'm on my way to a movie set is very, very special. You go, well, now I'm up to bat. I just had never been up to bat.

We're in a real spot as actors, because even musicians can stand on the corner with a guitar and their case open. They can make a little dough, they can play. As an actor, if you're fumbling your lines on some street corner, you're going to jail.

Yeah.

They're moving your way. So the ability to practice your craft, granted, you have the theater, but you realize it's limited. And so what you're talking about is how am I going to step through that door?

You need permission to do the thing you want to do. Yeah. Unlike writing, you can sit down.

They can't stop you. So when it did start to happen, when the American Flyers turned into No Way Out, I found that movie. I had done. Silverado. Orion thought it was a pretty catchy part, asked me to come in, showed me all their movies.

And you had that from the beginning?

I developed it where I thought, I need my career to be about something at some point. I just went like, you know what? I'm trying so hard. I need to be able to look back. And so I did have that.

Pull ahead one third. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you look at it on the brass, you can look at it, I think, on sand pebbles. If you pull it all the way back, it says, finished with engines. It's the shutting down. Those are big ships. You got to be really sure about shutting it down because you can't get it started right away.

You went to UC Fullerton. What was your degree in?

Marketing.

And you discover acting in college, right? In college, the last year. And so, prior to the dream of doing that, did you have a fantasy of going into marketing?

I didn't. I was a rat chasing the cheese in a maze. I was very conservative. growing up. You go to school, you go to a college, you get a job and you raise a family.

They were Dust Bowl.

Dust Bowl people, yes.

Grew up in Compton.

Here? Yes.

Oh, wow.

For the first seven years and then moved to a little Santa Paula and then up between Santa Paula and Ohio, a little one street, and there was a two room schoolhouse up to the sixth grade. So you're in with a lot of kids. And I thought to myself, it was a little harder in Compton, this is all right. Bunch of kids, I can deal with a sixth grader, come on.

But you moved a ton. I moved a ton too as a kid. And I think it either makes you or breaks you, because man, reintroducing yourself constantly.

It almost broke me. I found I lost confidence. in 11th, 12th. I was also an undersized kid. I'm looking at my boys right now.

And you suck at school.

Yeah, and I was not good at school. I could play sports and that gave me one leg up. At least you had a built-in set of friends a little bit.

And you're going from pretty radically different cultures, Compton to Visalia. Last two years of high school is Orange County.

I'm really proud of you for digging in. Honestly, you're starting to say some things I forgot.

You're worthy of it.

Well, thank you. And the first girl that kind of liked me that I dated, I didn't have dates in high school, I married her. Wow.

This may be too revealing, but I'll go first. So elementary school, I love girls. I'm in love with girls from the day I'm born. None of them like me. I get to junior high, my older brother gives me a really cool punk rock haircut.

Well, I think it does make the world go round. I'm sorry.

Yeah, I know. It is an irresistible-.

And I wanted that. It wasn't that I didn't like her. It was just like, if I walk across there, ask her to dance, she is gonna say no. I wasn't a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's just, I wasn't going to be the guy.

Kind of an ironic twist with the career you had. And how big and handsome you turned out to be.

It wasn't gonna happen, and I was lost. I got this little hunting dog up in Visalia, and all I did was just got that dog. I would go and not come home.

Did you live in fantasy world a lot?

I daydreamed, which was a little bit hard on my dad. I was always a worker. I worked since I was little, but he confused my daydreaming with me not knowing how to work. And I really knew how to work. My dad finally came to me and said, your mom and I have been talking.

Well, but can I say, you had already experienced exclusion. It was terrible. And then you lived through it. And I think that's a weird gift. You can stomach it.

I can exist where I'm at. It's like the movies. There's a pattern in my life. I'm a bit of a plotter. It took me a while in high school.

Like your growth spurt.

Yeah, quite honestly, even as I exist in the industry today, people under the illusion that I can do whatever I want. The truth is, I do whatever I want, but I can't do whatever I want, in a sense that some of these movies they have not wanted to do, have not been popular. in their mind. The Dances of the Field of Dreams and the Bull Durhams were movies that just had to take them around, push them uphill. In some instances, use your own money.

It doesn't scare you?

It never has. Wow. I have a sense of responsibility because I have children. There's a core that I'm not gonna let go, but this pile that has meant a lot to me, I'm not gonna let that inform my decisions.

Well, you're probably rightly going, okay, I'm the deathbed. Do I wanna stare at the pile as I go, or do I wanna go, oh yeah, and I got that across the finish line?

Even the idea of I got that across the finish line, I realize at the end of the day, we're still gonna have this big question. What was our life about? What's on my grave marker? I hope it says, and I made movies too.

Yeah, that's great.

So maybe that's a trick. I mean, we don't know what this is about. We know that it has to do with love, because that is a thing you can go to bed with and wake up with. And I have the love of my children. I have a love of a profession that I finally understand.

Yeah. When you get to at 32, when you have this crazy string, the untouchables, all these things, and now you are officially a leading man. You are going to make decisions. You're driving the boat. You know, you're globally famous at that point.

That's an easy transition, because I wasn't concerned with it. Just once I realized what it was, just the same way, I realized that when I was on the freeway at the Big Chill, I said, this is happening for me. This is fucking happening. Yeah, yeah.

Here we go, baby.

And everybody said, you're not in a movie. You're not in a movie. Like John Lovitz was talking to me. It was nothing like that. Bryce, it didn't happen for you.

Oh, I just saw him at the Hollywood Bowl. He came out during Bill Burr. No way.

We need this guy. But anyway, it's not how I define things. So when that happened, I didn't have that moment with my head out doing cocaine on the hood of a car. I was like down about what I... I should have followed you around.

You've driven us straight into a ditch, I promise you.

Kev, with me, we can be on the rope.

Your nose looks dry. Let's get something in it.

Here's the thing. I had that actually happen, believe it or not. When I was a stage manager, Raleigh, it was called Producer Studio because of Roof's leak. Only thing we got there were commercials and low budget movies that didn't have enough money and then didn't even pay the studio. I mean, it's like we were constantly changing.

Yeah, yeah, that's rough.

So in mass, they came over and started rewiring our stages, and the electricians came over like rock stars. They were prepping it, strong like you,

you know, the whole thing.

And they were there for three weeks, just stringing cable, and then sets were being built and they took all seven stages. But I was a non-union lot. So whenever they needed something, I got it for them. Whether it was a grip, whether it was electrician, it was anything. And they're always saying thank you for me.

You don't want to be rude.

No, and nothing. And I do it a second time and I do it a third time. And finally I said to them, I said, hey, look, how much is that? And he says, that's about $20 right there. And I said, can I say something to you?

Yeah, I'll take the 20.

I could take a 20.

Yeah, oh, truly.

There was nothing there for me. But because I said, I'm trying to build something from, my wife was wondering what in the world I'm doing.

You're not pursuing marketing.

You're working $3.

Yeah, it makes you much more human. Yeah. And they know I've done kilos of it. So at 32, though, when you have all this opportunity, was there somebody's career at that point? Like you have a very apocryphal, fun story on the way home from your honeymoon.

No, I had this idea that I knew inherently, no matter how fast I was going, there was gonna be a moment where somebody else is going to be the number one actor or something.

You did know that.

I knew that easily. When I actually knew the way I was gonna run my career, that was probably going to happen because I was frustrating people by not making the second bodyguard, not making the second anything. And I wanna just say, I'm not an elitist. I would have done it had I thought that the next script that was written was really good. And they go, well, no, let's just make it.

In a way, you're a boxer who you've got a great right cross and they're like, keep throwing that.

Right, and Hollywood inherently knows that they want something new, but they're afraid that it's not gonna make the money that something old does. And we've weaned an audience off that. We've created the conventional wisdom that they gotta be this long, they gotta be this, they gotta be that.

Stay tuned, armchair expert, if you dare.

I wanted to direct the movie in front of it. I wanted to direct Revenge. I had actually helped write a 106 page script. So not everything I was gonna do had the length that people think that I desire. When I met Ray Stark, I don't know if you remember who Ray Stark was.

Writer or director?

No, a producer and a mean guy. And John Huston was his partner. I helped him on some of these movies and he didn't listen to Ray very much. But I had to get past John Huston. John Huston.

There's worse guys that get told no by.

I've gotten to work twice with Dan, it was just so great. But John just felt that I was a little young. So I acted in that. And then the very next movie, I directed Dancers with Wolves.

Okay, now I wanna ask if it's a blessing or a curse to have the first thing. you direct get nominated for 12 Academy Awards, you win two. It makes a fucking fortune. In the same way that Pulp Fiction comes out, and it's a little bit like, I'm a little scared for this guy. How do we follow this up?

I just enjoyed it.

But what a fucking, even in your wildest expectations, it couldn't have been.

Yeah, but I'm trying to be square with you. Yeah. Because you've been square with me, you know? We're talking about drugs and stuff. What it was is the validation of the movie encouraged me to do better, not rest.

Yeah, but tall order.

I guess it has been. But I still think the play is the thing. Yeah, I was looking for a big movie and I'm trying to do revenge and I get into this giant fight with them because they keep postponing, keep postponing. And I read this little movie and I finally said to Ray, I said, look, if you don't finally do this movie, you know, you kind of made it, so I can't direct it. Now you're fucking around.

Rikki-tikki-tap.

I get on the phone with him. He goes, you know, I'm gonna sue you. And I said, that's the first words out of your mouth, isn't it? And he said, what? And I said, I heard you were a smart guy.

I feel like this business we're in is plagued by gatekeepers and intermediaries, and things keep escalating because no one's actually talking directly to one another. And every time you do pick up the phone and call the person directly, shit gets done in like five minutes.

It can, and sometimes it can't, but let's find out if it can. I think that's what you're saying. So dances. I knew that that was a moment and I just had to enjoy the moments that would come after that. And I would make sure that the movie that I would pick sustained me.

Did you have playback back then?

Not really, no. I had it on dances, though, I needed it.

So I've directed a couple of things. I started in as well. And playback's essential if you're in it.

It's totally essential.

Yeah, and I was just curious if back then it was readily available.

I use playback with my actors. I bring them all in. That tent, I don't treat that place sacredly. I don't even, the crew look, because I love everything about a movie. You want to watch a great take, watch this.

Well, there's a lot of things you can't explain. when you're directing. You have to bring the actor over and go, this is why it looks weird when you're doing this.

You see what you did? It's a tool. Somebody said, well, it slows things down. Well, I think it speeds things up.

How old were you then? Dances.

I think I was 34 when I made it and then edited it. I became 35..

At the moment, you probably felt old, but now, looking back, do you not recognize, like, I was pretty fucking young to take on that movie.

There was a lot about it that was funny. I just knew that the movie was what I wanted to make.

You were on a mission.

In the sense that, let's just follow the script. I'm pretty anal about script. I'm not somebody that goes out there and wings it. I will leave what I call a window of opportunity, which is I go out there, stick with the script. It's the Bible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Don't you find, now, I've only directed things I've written, and I would never wanna direct something I hadn't written, because I think when you believe in something from the beginning, you understand it from the beginning, I think that ends up being infectious to people around you, because ultimately, as the director, you're really getting everyone to buy into this same fantasy that you have created, and I think you have to infect people with it.

I can see where you're coming from. I come from the place that I could direct every movie that I said yes to, but where the problems exist is when a director comes on who is directing it and starts to go, well, I never really liked that scene or I didn't like the way I shot that scene.

Well, isn't that the actual origin of dances, which was? there was a director and you wanted to cut some scenes.

I went to three directors, pretty good directors, and each one of them had a difficulty with some of the issues, whether a subtitle should be there, whether maybe we should just start with him out at the fort, screw the Civil War thing. Studio's gonna cut out that first 15 minutes. anyway. Let's start with him there. Don't meet the guy at the fort, the crazy guy who pisses his pants.

I have one movie to ask you about, and this is self-indulgent, but I happen to be kind of obsessed with her because I've watched two documentaries about her, Whitney Houston. And I'm curious, on that movie, if that was a special experience, was she nervous?

She's really smart. It was a movie I probably should have directed. I just thought somebody could do a better job, but he was uncomfortable with her. She was my choice. So I was the actor, I produced it, I picked her.

So you probably have the same fascination I have with her.

Listen, the first girl I thought was pretty was Diana Ross. I saw her on Ed Sullivan's show and I thought, fuck yes. Let's go. That's pretty. And I'm like 10 years old.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I loved her. So it's not like this giant mystery. So I knew that she should be the one. So in producing it, I produced Whitney in the movie, meaning I put her there. I didn't let the director, well, I'm directing, we've all decided places.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Bodyguard's the first script that Lawrence Kasdan sold?

Really? Right, and Sidney Pollock was gonna make it. Somehow it fell through the cracks. He goes on to write Raiders of the Lost Ark, Empire Strikes Back, Body Heat, Silverado, but that was the first one. So I kind of asked him about it.

He was nervous. he couldn't get out of her.

I started to guide her and I wasn't trying to usurp my director, but I had made a promise to her, not to fucking him. Yeah.

For sure. And to the movie. And as a scene partner. That's right. You want to lift.

And then, editorially, we had a real problem. That movie was not testing. I was testing the 60s. No way. And I had promised Whitney that she'd be good in it.

Because we're not gonna lose any scenes.

We're gonna put back in scenes. He says, well, I don't think you'll be able to do it. I said, watch me. So I went home and I remember I sat in my bed for two days on the weekend looking at the numbers.

Just writing down time code.

Yeah, cut this, cut that, start here, cut this, cut that. And came out to 28 minutes.

No way.

That's freaky. It did.

And we barely got out of Dodge. And that movie went up, tested a lot higher. I'd made a promise to Clive Davis that Whitney would be good. I made a promise to her.

Clive was managing her?

Yes. And we got it. Larry actually went in with me, but I worked this thing. And I think we barely got out of Dodge, but we had this movie that worked. And that was my promise to her.

A, did you sense there was a ton of pain there? And B, did it break your heart?

No, but I eulogized her and I didn't want to. When she passed away, there was a steady drumbeat to hear. She was such a big personality that everybody was going on the air talking. And that was not my first instinct. Even Arnold, after about five or six days, he goes, Kevin, you need to say something.

You're seeing people capitalize on it. That's right. Which is gross. And yet you are close enough that it would seem crazy. you didn't.

Arnold tried to explain that to me. And then the BET Awards said, well, would you come and give her an award at least and talk? And I said to Arnold, well, how long is that? And he goes, well, it'll be two minutes. I said, I can't do it.

Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

And I'm sitting in this row and somebody said, CNN's here. I go, CNN's here? And they go, yeah, they wouldn't mind if your remarks were kept shorter because they're going to have commercials. And I said, they can get over that. They can play the commercial while I'm talking.

Wow. And you said everything.

That I felt I needed to say.

I watch those docs and I think, A, the talent is so once in a generation, but the fucking work ethic. When she was juggling the full-blown addiction and still doing the shows, she was a force of nature. I can't help but be enamored by the whole thing.

It was a moment where I knew. when Whitney came, I said, look, you can't have an entourage, but I'm going to take care of you. If there's a person important to you, turned out to be Robin Crawford, I said, let's have Robin with you. But I said, I don't have one, you're not going to have one. And that's how we started.

You must've made her feel really safe. That's what the entourage is all about. I mean, there's a lot of fear.

I don't know what it was, but we had a moment and I realized that the world had a higher idea of who we were. So I basically embraced it. I was her imaginary bodyguard.

Yeah. It's so sweet. It works on all these levels. And I think there was probably real things that were happening that really helped in what we ended up seeing. You were her bodyguard.

I didn't miss anything. It just didn't catch on, but the hostility that kind of came behind it. People that came out to throw an extra dirt clod.

Yeah, well, unfortunately we tell stories and you're the victim of stories, which is you're at the very top of the mountain and there's only one chapter left in the story. It's not that they build a higher mountain next to you and you climb it.

No, you're right.

It's unavoidable.

I saw that, but the good thing about it for me is if someone watches the movie again, they're gonna see what I wanted to do in the postman.

Yeah, you executed what you hoped to do. Which is the thing you have to prioritize the most, but also, sometimes you go like, well, I'm confused why. sometimes my conviction is widely appealing and sometimes it's narrowly. I don't know why, because I'm just following this gut. that was the same on that thing.

No, but it was a trap. I remember. my agent called me and said, hey, look, these people have this thing, Hatfields and McCoy. They know that you like this era and they were just wondering if their script was any good. That was the pitch.

Oh, that's a good trick. They just want your opinion.

Yes.

Yeah, because they value it so much.

So two things happen. One, that'll have a little bit of meaning to our things, because we'll give your show a little poetry, a little kind of like circle. back moment. I said, it is good. It reminds me of something I have.

Oh, totally.

So never did change Silverado. Never did change Untouchables. Never did change Fandango or No Way Out. Didn't change Bull Durham. Didn't change Tin Cup.

Yeah, now I know how to get you in a movie, by the way.

So, four days later, I wrote the scenes and I said, do you like them? And they said, yes. What else are they going to say?

Yeah, it's hard to trust that reaction.

So now I'm with Nancy Dubuque. She says, do you want to do this? And I said, I can do this, but do you like every scene in these scripts? And she said, yes. I said, so do I, but this isn't two nights.

Meaning four night shoots?

Four nights of viewing. Oh. It had so much content. I got you. I did my own trapping.

And again, this is one of these bolts of lightning. It sets records.

But it's the movie. I know what a good movie is. I'm not sure what a hit's gonna be. I could tell it was good. But one funny thing that happened, and it's not so funny, but you would think that I'd have enough experience.

Oh, fuck.

Wow, talk about a crash.

Talk about a last minute. And I had agreed to do a movie that I thought was gonna be in Kentucky for Caroline. And of course it was, how could you miss that one? How could you miss that fastball? And I go, I just did.

But not me. But you just dealt with it. I dealt with it. It was such an enormous hit.

It went beyond. And it went beyond not because of me. All I did was protect it. It went beyond because it was what it was supposed to be.

Yeah, but still, 14 million viewers on cable just doesn't happen. So I think you're a little piece of that.

I accept I was a piece of it. I accept that I protected it.

People love watching you. Sorry, that's how it works.

Get over it.

That's what we've learned.

It was a good story. though. I can fit in a good story. I can't be charming for three hours. Try it.

Well, you just did it.

That movie will fail.

Yeah, yeah. So does that make Yellowstone a little easier?

I see why you occupy that chair. I kind of like that line. I come in every now and then. You just did it.

That's great. Does that make Yellowstone easier to say yes to, with the great success of Hatfields?

Yellowstone was just a really great script. Boy, here comes this boring song from me. It was just a great script.

Again, it's so fucking enormous. Are you shocked by that?

I thought it was kind of good.

Yeah, I watched the shit out of it.

Right, it hadn't been made, and all of a sudden they said, would you go over and sell this to the buyers in Europe? Because they don't want to make a Western about ranching. So I'm on a plane. There's nobody on the plane with me. I land there about seven in the morning.

Three seasons.

And then I ended up, you know, making five.

I'm not going to make you trudge through that.

No, I don't have to. What happens, is I just believed in the world. I knew it was a soap opera. I knew we should all be in jail. We've all killed people there.

It's a great example of plot. The plot is fucking moving in that show. Like a breakneck pace.

It was really good. I recognized that. So I did it the best I could possibly do it.

That does set us up. Okay, so, as we look deeper into Horizon, obviously you've had a lot of success in the sports world, but definitely what you seem to have this crazy connection with is the Western. And I know, as a kid, you watch a movie that's really impactful, but I'm more curious, what is it about the West that captures your imagination? Just geographically, what does it symbolize? And then also historically, what is so endlessly interesting to you about it?

Colorado. I think there's something about how big the country was and all the possibilities to go with something big and untouched. That was a unique thing. I could feel it as a child. And to live by your wits and to be resourceful.

There's a great scene where the reality of that hits you. You have gotten yourself ensnared in someone else's story by accident. And you reluctantly have to shoot a guy. And you're in this tiny little mining-ish town.

I love that you singled that out, because people think the West is simple. It's way harder than LA or Cannes. It's like if you have a problem, you can go to the store. And if that store doesn't have any food, you can go to another store. And if you got a real problem, you can get a lawyer.

Yeah, he's trying desperately to claw some masculinity.

And he kills me. And he has a history of probably dominating people. And he just picks wrong. And I love the idea that you don't always know who you're dealing with.

Oh, don't we love that?

What is that from being 5'2"?

It's from me thinking, when I know I'm on solid ground, I know this happened a million times. Not this time in this movie, but this happened in some form. We have bullying now in our schools. What you had out there were bullies with guns and nothing to stop them. They're words that have absolutely no meaning in our culture.

Oh, my God, yes. Okay, so, really quick, you shoot this guy and the folks in town have heard a gunshot. They come upon the scene. One guy's dead. We don't know.

It is. I get the nod from this guy. I just loaned him some money. And all of a sudden he goes, the only favor I can give you is a headstart, because you're on your own. That's part of this four-part series is these people are relentless.

Yeah, they're crazy. You have killed a member of a criminal family who's already on the war path because the patriarch got shot by this woman. I also love how many questions you leave. I'm like, I don't know why she shoots this guy at the beginning. I'm gonna have to fill in the blanks.

That's all?

Yeah, I'm gonna have to assume the worst about this gentleman.

Would you want a five-hour fucking movie?

I know it was 3.

That was my editorial guy.

I love hearing you talk. It was 3.50 and you knew for sure you couldn't get five minutes out of it.

At first I couldn't. And then finally I got it down to, you're so funny, I love you. I couldn't. Then pretty soon there it went. But yeah, the West is terribly complicated.

Yeah, he is. I'm really excited. I did a movie with him, Idiocracy, and I fucking adored him.

He's worked really hard and he really holds it.

Big time.

And the word support, people on that wagon ride, they do not know each other.

Right, it's a bunch of strangers.

Luke Wilson is unqualified. He just was six feet. They voted him the captain. And now he's starting to pay a price for it.

It's beautifully shot. I think part of the West, when I asked you about the geography, right away we start in Horizon and you have these plateaus behind everybody. And you know those things are miles wide. If you like fantasy, and I love fantasy, that to me is the weird magic of the West and Westerns, is like, my God, it's big.

And it's still there.

Yeah. There's no set dressing for you.

It's still there. That's the one thing that we can keep in mind. That's probably a little bit to do with Yellowstone. Those mountains are still there. There's still work being done on horseback.

But there's also a unique architecture to Westerns. I was thinking about it a lot while watching it. And the Westerns have a lot more things unsaid. And there's a lot of visual storytelling.

But Horizon is heavily written. Danny talks about Manifest Destiny. That script between me and that guy. isn't, you better? leave me alone.

No, it's a lovely dance that goes-, It's a seven minute scene. Yes, and again, back to your dilemma.

But you are talking about the kind of Westerns that you've seen that bother you and why that would be hard on you. Because we aren't just about yep and nope. There is, should be dialogue. It was a Victorian age. And that's why I lean heavily on dialogue, because I believe it has its place in Horizon.

Well, that was the other thing I wanted to bring up that I loved about. it is people setting out with good intention. I just like the multidimensionality of everyone. So there's this raid on this settlement. A bunch of people are killed and murdered.

Well, it starts to turn into commerce. They said, does it really matter to you who the fuck you're gonna kill?

Yeah, will anyone be able to tell what scalp is what scalp?