The one role Kurt Russell will always regret not playing: “It’s just part of the game”
If he hadn’t become an actor, Kurt Russell would have loved to be a baseball player. In fact, things were touch and go for a while over which career path he would ultimately choose before his mind was ultimately made up by circumstances he couldn’t control.
After making his screen debut kicking Elvis Presley in the shins in 1963’s It Happened at the World’s Fair, Russell quickly became Walt Disney’s favourite child actor. Sitting under the learning tree of a multimedia icon, influential creative mind, and awards-laden genius was invaluable, and it set him up nicely to navigate the tricky evolution from a rising star into a fixture of the silver screen.
However, baseball kept calling. His father, Bing Russell, was a player and eventually an owner in the minor leagues, and it looked like he’d be getting into the family business. Playing for the team that his old man owned, Russell was good enough to consider turning professional on a full-time basis, but a shoulder injury forced him into retirement in 1973 to guarantee his future in acting.
With that in mind, it was inevitable that he’d make a baseball movie eventually. Screenwriter Ron Shelton was another ex-minor league player making a name for themselves in Hollywood, and he was the second unit director on 1986’s sports-centric dramedy The Best of Times, in which Russell starred opposite Robin Williams.
For his feature-length directorial debut, Shelton was drawn to his first love. He’d struck up a friendship with Russell, and the actor became involved in developing a story about a veteran catcher who tries to teach a protege about the finer aspects of the game to prepare them for the major leagues.
Unfortunately, when Shelton began pitching Bull Durham to studios, he could only secure the financing from Orion Pictures if Kevin Costner played the lead role of Crash Davis. To Russell’s detriment, he wasn’t a big enough star or bankable enough attraction to sway anyone’s decision, forcing him to set out the baseball flick he’d worked on refining alongside the filmmaker.
“That was close; that was a lot about me,” Russell recalled to Cigar Aficionado of Bull Durham slipping through his grasp. “But Costner was hot at that point. It’s just part of the game. That’s the one I think would have been the most fun to do. It all balances out.”
Still, it must have stung for Russell to watch Costner headline a project he’d helped Shelton with from its inception, especially when that script earned an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Original Screenplay’. Sadly, the ultimatum was that it was either one Costner or no Bull Durham, placing Shelton in an unfortunate position where he had to choose his directorial dreams over showing loyalty to his friend.
