The one co-star Dennis Hopper called a legend: “His career has definitely matched up”
As one of the ‘New Hollywood’ era’s foremost hellraisers, Dennis Hopper was up close and personal with many of the key names who defined the period for both their onscreen exploits and offscreen antics.
The industry’s paradigm had shifted away from classicism and into a bold new direction, and with that came a significant uptick in debauchery and hedonism. The biggest stars were opening movies at the box office and making headlines in equal measure, with Hopper suffering at the hands of his excesses.
He was close friends with Jack Nicholson from Easy Rider until his death despite having to be strongarmed into casting him in the first place, and some of the other icons he shared the screen with over the years include James Dean, John Wayne, Robert Duvall, and Marlon Brando, all of whom can be called indisputable legends of the business.
Would anyone put Kevin Costner in the same category? While the actor and filmmaker certainly has his fans, the only people who’d be willing to elevate him to the same pedestal as the timeless greats mentioned above are probably the same people who’d claim until their last breath that The Postman wasn’t as bad as everyone made it out to be.
As a rebellious sort who was defiantly anti-establishment for better or worse, Hopper admired how Costner had the guile to leap over any hurdle and recover from any setback Hollywood threw at him. They worked together on the ill-fated Waterworld and the flop dramedy Swing Vote almost a decade and a half later, which left Hopper in no doubt.
“Hollywood has never been able to ignore Kevin, because he keeps reinventing himself,” he told Cigar Aficionado. “If they’re not going to give him a project, he invents projects. He’s not going to sit around and wait for them to make some decision for him. And his decisions are usually right on.”
“Usually” being the operative word, considering Costner has sabotaged his mainstream status at least twice. Still, that wasn’t enough to turn Hopper against him. “He’s a terrifically creative guy, and I really admire what he’s done,” he continued. “His career has definitely matched up to the most legendary in Hollywood.”
The thing is, people still talk about Dean, Wayne, Brando, and Nicholson, and to a certain extent, Hopper. As for Costner? He was rendered irrelevant for the better part of two decades before Yellowstone put him back on the mainstream map, which isn’t a trajectory by which legends are made.
Then again, maybe Hopper saw something of a kindred spirit in a successful actor and occasional filmmaker who endured several rises and falls, albeit with exponentially less drug use. Costner has backers, of that there’s no doubt, but comparing him to the most legendary careers in Hollywood history feels like a stretch.
