TRUE GRIT
WITH HIS LONG-AWAITED PASSION PROJECT HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA, KEVIN COSTNER IS GOING TRULY EPIC, WITH NOT ONE, BUT TWO FILMS - AND MORE YET TO COME. HE TELLS US WHY HE'S LITERALLY BETTING THE FARM ON IT
WORDS CHRIS HEWITT
NOBODY COULD EVER ACCUSE KEVIN COSTNER OF PLAYING IT SAFE.
Idealistic First Lt Trent Gephardt (Sam Worthington);
It’s been over 20 years since he last called “Action!”, on 2003’s excellent Western Open Range, and you could be forgiven for thinking that he had hung up the megaphone for good. Not the case. Far from the case, in fact. The case, to Kevin Costner, is a dot in the distance. Because this summer he returns to the director’s saddle with not one, but two, Westerns. And there’s more where they came from.
Horizon: An American Saga —Chapters 1 and 2 are the opening salvos of Costner’s magnum opus: when all’s said and done, there will be four movies examining, with unparalleled scope and scale, the impact of the American Civil War on a growing town. Costner stars as the enigmatic outsider Hayes Ellison, but as director he has assembled an impressive ensemble cast including the likes of Sam Worthington, Sienna Miller, Danny Huston, Abbey Lee, Glynn Turman and Thomas Haden Church. “A Western can’t be hinging on the gunfight,” says Costner. “It has to be hinging on the people and what they’re going through.”
Costner has been hoping to make Horizon since 1988, when it existed as a single script and a simpler story. And, as he explained to us while he was prepping for Chapter 3, it mushroomed into its current state. Astate that studios baulked at, and which required significant investment to turn into a reality. Because Costner doesn’t play it safe, he ploughed millions of his own money into the movies. It’s something he’s done before, most notably on the multipleOscar-winning Dances With Wolves, but this represents the biggest gamble of his career; not least because he has effectively walked away from the lead role in Yellowstone, Taylor Sheridan’s wildly successful TV show, to focus on Horizon.