The only role Kevin Costner regrets rejecting
During the peak of his popularity, Kevin Costner was one of the most in-demand and bankable stars in Hollywood, but the downside of acquiring such visibility is that some of the many offers placed on the table end up being rejected.
There aren’t many names in the industry who enjoyed a run as stellar as Costner’s at the time, though, with the actor appearing in critical and commercial success stories like Silverado, The Untouchables, No Way Out, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, JFK, and The Bodyguard between 1985 and 1992 alone.
However, Costner ended up turning down two huge parts for which he was the first choice, only to make significantly inferior movies instead. In addition to knocking back The Shawshank Redemption in favour of Waterworld, Air Force One was written specifically for him before he passed it onto Harrison Ford and ended up directing the abysmal post-apocalyptic flop The Postman.
Before he was a household name, though, Costner also missed out on the chance to appear in a classic that won four Academy Awards, including ‘Best Picture’. Director Oliver Stone was eying him for the part of Sergeant Barnes, which was ultimately played by Tom Berenger in Platoon, but turning it down proved to be a regret.
“The one role that I regret refusing,” Costner said of Platoon. “My brother Dan was a Marine in Vietnam and had a problem with Vietnam movies that show vets as wigged-out guys. He’s very proud that he came back, went to college, and has a family. In fact, Platoon was real and right. But my consciousness was with my brother.”
Stone echoed that opinion, telling Entertainment Weekly that Costner “passed on it, I believe, because his brother had been in Vietnam”. That being said, the filmmaker made a point of saying he wasn’t anywhere near as big of a star at the time of the casting process, mentioning Mickey Rourke as another contender for the role of Barnes.
“They were not who they were at that time. There were others, too, because there were so many layers of time with this film,” he clarified. “It was written in ’76 and was almost made then by Sidney Lumet and Pacino. Then there was a period in ’84 when Michael Cimino was going to produce it and Emilio Estevez was going to play the role, actually.”
Stone’s ensemble were phenomenal across the board in Platoon, while Costner did just fine despite missing out, after accruing a body of work across the late 1980s and 1990s that saw him rise to the top of the A-list and capture a ‘Best Picture’ Oscar of his own to go along with the ‘Best Director’ statue he also secured after helming his passion project Dances with Wolves.
