Kevin Costner Names His Two Favorite Roles — Did Yours Make the Cut?

Kevin Costner has played just about every kind of American icon you can think of. So when he was asked to name the two roles that hit him hardest personally, I figured we were headed straight for the usual suspects. Not quite. He picked two that might not match your first guess, and that little twist is very on brand for a guy who quietly follows his own compass.

The two roles Costner says he connected with most

• Billy Chapel in For Love of the Game – Sam Raimi directed this one, with Costner as an aging pitcher staring down what could be his final start, on the mound at Yankee Stadium, while his life off the field unravels in parallel. It is not near the top of his critical-darling list, but it has a stubborn, loyal fanbase and a soulful, end-of-the-line vibe that clearly stuck with him.
• Charlie in Open Range – Back in his favorite terrain, Costner directed and starred as a cattleman drawn into a showdown with a ruthless rancher. It is a spare, revisionist Western with a moral backbone and a late-film gunfight that still rings in the ears. This one sits squarely in the pocket he has owned for decades.

Why those two raise eyebrows

If you were playing the home version of this game, you probably guessed Dances with Wolves, Field of Dreams, or even Yellowstone. Dances with Wolves is the giant: Costner took home two Oscars for it, including Best Director, and the movie won Best Picture; he was also nominated for Best Actor. Meanwhile, his run as John Dutton on Yellowstone turned him into TV dad of the decade, even if the whole stop-start rollout left a lot of fans feeling like the air went out of the balloon.

Instead, he went with a baseball drama that critics were lukewarm on and a lean Western he built himself. That says a lot about what matters to him: the headspace of a character in crisis, and the kind of frontier morality tale he keeps returning to when he is in the driver’s seat.

The long road to those picks

Costner’s resume is crowded: The Untouchables, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, JFK, The Bodyguard, A Perfect World, Mr. Brooks, Swing Vote, The Company Men, 3 Days to Kill, and plenty more across four decades. He has been the straight arrow, the troubled antihero, the romantic lead, the political lightning rod, and the guy with a badge who will not blink first. But the ones that stuck with him most? A pitcher hanging on by his fingertips and a cattleman pushed too far. Not flashy choices, but very Costner.

What he is up to now

Costner is deep into his passion project, Horizon: An American Saga, an epic Western he has been willing into existence for years. Chapters three and four are in the works, because of course they are. When he finds a patch of frontier land he likes, he settles in.