Kevin Costner names his most iconic co-star: “The kind of actor this industry was built on”
Like most actors with lengthy careers who’ve experienced superstardom, regardless of how fleeting it may or may not be, Kevin Costner has shared the screen with an array of icons, legends, and all-time greats.
The two-time Academy Award winner has rubbed shoulders with Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Robert De Niro, Donald Sutherland, Glenn Close, Susan Sarandon, Morgan Freeman, James Earl Jones, Dennis Hopper, Paul Newman, and Tommy Lee Jones, to name just a small few, so he’s well-versed in spending time with a cavalcade of industry heavyweights.
Costner seemed well-placed to join them when he was flying high as one of Hollywood’s most popular and bankable stars, but he developed a habit of letting his ambition get the better of him. Waterworld, The Postman, and Horizon saw the star invest millions of his own dollars to realise his creative vision, and it would be an understatement to say his risky gambit didn’t pay off on any count.
Still, he deserves credit for at least trying, even if it was two decades before he clawed his way back to mainstream prominence. Costner has collaborated with some of the most important, influential, and indelible names to ever grace the silver screen, and there was one he singled out for special praise as the type of indescribable performer that his entire profession was built on.
Costner’s 1989 hit Field of Dreams was Burt Lancaster’s final credit before he passed away five years later at the age of 80, with the Oscar winner and four-time nominee one of ‘Golden Age’ Hollywood’s most celebrated leading men. He was among the first actors to found their own production company, went out of his way to work with the best directors, and constantly sought roles that would challenge him as a performer when it would have been a lot easier to continue sticking rigidly to type.
Those are all common traits in modern cinema, but in an era when the most famous faces in the business were largely stuffed into the categories that made them household names in the first place, Lancaster approached his work with a desire to upend the established conventions and status quo, an impact and influence that wasn’t lost on Costner.
“I’m glad we’re talking about Burt Lancaster,” he said when looking back at Field of Dreams with Front Row Features. “Because he’s the kind of actor that this industry was built on.” Describing him as “a piece of manpower that knows how to command the screen,” Costner was thrilled at being involved with the film that turned out to be his swansong.
“When Burt Lancaster took that part, it was really great to see,” he continued. “It was at the end of his career. I have a fondness for him because he’s obviously a physical actor, and that’s been a lot of my stock-in-trade.” There are definite similarities between them, but with the greatest respect to Costner, he’s no Burt Lancaster.
