Kevin Costner, the sexiest man in cinema according to several recent tabloid headlines, is balancing precariously on a chair in his small office and looking decidedly uncomfortable about his newfound and unasked-for status. ”It`s a high-class problem I guess, and I don`t want to bitch about it too much-I mean, they could say far worse things about a person. Right?”
Casually clad in jeans and a black shirt (he has already kicked off his shoes), the hottest actor in Hollywood right now seems genuinely puzzled by all the fuss and plaudits flowing in the wake of ”The Untouchables,” one of the year`s biggest hits, and ”No Way Out,” his latest picture, which looks certain to do as well.
Hearing the earnestness in his own question, Costner pauses, and his handsome face cracks into a wide, boyish grin that suddenly makes sense of such extravagant claims. ”Calling me `the sexiest man` is just nonsense. It`s just not true, and it gets in the way of everything else I`m trying to do as an actor,” he complains.
He`s only half right, of course. Costner`s sex appeal fairly sizzles in
”No Way Out,” particularly in one long, funny scene, where he seduces costar Sean Young in the back of a limo. ”Yeah, well,” mumbles the actor by way of explanation, ”that was necessary for the set-up. The real plot doesn`t kick into gear until after all that stuff.”
And far from detracting, all ”that stuff”-plus a few more highly charged erotic sequences-only serves to emphasize and reinforce Costner`s already abundant natural charm and appeal. As ”The Untouchables” director Brian de Palma puts it: ”Kevin is an immensely likeable actor, and audiences pick up on that quality immediately. They want to see more of him.”
Costner`s star has certainly risen very quickly over Hollywood during the last 12 months, a star that has also been fueled by remarkably few other appearances. His first big break came with Lawrence Kasdan`s ”The Big Chill,” but his character (Alex, the suicide) and performance ended up on the cutting-room floor.
Then there was a small part in ”Frances” (also cut), and a starring role in ”Fandango,” a film the actor describes as ”a great, great movie that was basically just thrown away by the studio `cause they weren`t quite sure how to market it.”
It`s the sort of low-profile track record that might make any ambitious actor contemplate real-life suicide, or at least another profession. ”Things did begin to look pretty bleak for a while,” admits Costner, ”but I never, ever considered quitting.”
Even when another character he`d been cast for was cut from the script of a film shot in Greece-before he`d stepped off the plane? ”Well, obviously I wasn`t too pleased about that deal,” he snorts, ”but to be honest, this poor-Kevin-got-cut-out-of-all-his-early-movi es routine has been romanticized and blown out of all proportion. The only film I`ve really had my whole performance cut from was ”The Big Chill,” and there were good reasons for that decision. All the flashbacks of Alex were just too distracting; they altered the entire focus of the film. It was much better without my character.”
Costner`s need to tell it like it is and instinctive avoidance of the myths and disguises many performers feel obliged to clothe themselves in appears to be rooted deep in a background he proudly describes as, ”very simple, very conservative. I had a very happy childhood, very stable, and the sheer normality of it worked both ways. I always enjoyed singing and performing as a kid, but I didn`t always have this egotistical desire to be the center of attention, because it wasn`t tolerated in our family. No one was special.”
Growing up in Compton, a nondescript suburb of Los Angeles, with an elder brother (who was later awarded a medal for heroism in the Marines), and friends who were more interested in ”watching baseball and downing a few beers” than going to the theatre and studying Shakespeare, Costner appears to have been a sensitive kid who predictably buried his dreams under the easy-going nonchalance of a Southern California jock.
”I always had this gut feeling, deep down inside, about acting,” he recalls, ”but growing up with my family-Dad worked for the utility company-was so normal that acting seemed like pure escapism, something that no one in my family would even consider. It wasn`t that they would have stopped me-it was more that it never appeared as a real possibility.”
Instead, the athletic Costner concentrated on football, baseball and basketball at high school, before following in the family tradition and enrolling at California State University/Fullerton, where he graduated with a degree in marketing and finance. ”I then took some crummy sales job, but after a month, I realized it was just a joke and that I was never going to cut it,” he adds. ”That`s when I decided, right out of the blue, to move to Hollywood and start acting.”
After taking a low-paying job as a stage manager, and attending some drama workshops, Costner lucked out and hit the Big Time. ”At least, I thought I had. I landed a role in a film called `Sizzle Beach.` Of course, it turned out to be a T and A exploitation thing but what did I know? I was totally naive, and we shot it on weekends over the course of a year, so I had no idea what the finished picture even looked like.”
Hardly surprisingly, ”Sizzle Beach” has already come back to haunt Costner. ”They sell the damn thing every year at film festivals, and my name gets bigger and bigger,” he confesses woefully. ”I expect it`ll be Movie of the Week by Christmas.”
The experience wasn`t without its benefits, however. ”I did it during my very first year in Hollywood, and while it completely turned me off the business, it taught me a valuable lesson,” he said. ”It changed me, not so much because of the low budget, but because of the filmmakers` low-budget thinking. And that`s stayed with me ever since. I don`t care nearly so much about the money in a film as the quality of the participants, and how well-thought-out the project is. I won`t tolerate low-budget thinking, even on a big-budget movie.”
True to his new-found principles, Costner didn`t work again for six years. ”I realized you don`t have to be in front of some camera to act, you just have to love acting for its own sake,” he said. ”So instead of running around banging on casting directors` doors and trying to land bit parts in films I didn`t even want to be in, I started taking classes and studying the whole craft of acting very intensely.
”That`s when I really started to fall in love with acting. I formed a workshop that included writers, directors and other actors, and we`d just put on anything we wrote, just for the hell of it. No one was making any money, but I was learning all the time, and I was happy.”
Eventually, the young, highly committed actor began making a name for himself, and after a small part in ”Night Shift,” Costner was offered a larger role in John Badham`s ”WarGames.” He decided to pass in favor of
”The Big Chill.”
”At the time, it didn`t see like the smartest move,” he admits.
” `WarGames` became a huge hit, and Alex bit the dust.” But his performance was enough to spur Kasdan into casting Costner as the scene-stealing Jake in his neo-Western ”Silverado,” and Badham later starred him as the doomed doctor in ”American Flyers.”
Suddenly, Costner had arrived. But it wasn`t until de Palma cast him in
”The Untouchables” that his career really took off. ”It was definitely the hardest role I`ve played yet,” he said. (”No Way Out” was completed the week before he arrived in Chicago to portray Eliot Ness.) ”He had to come across as this quiet, naive, almost unlikeable character who`s out to spoil evryone`s fun. I couldn`t play him too charming too soon.”
More to his liking is the character of Lt. Cmdr. Tom Farrell in ”No Way Out.” ”There`s a lot of action, a lot of physical movement in the part, and I think I`m really at my best when I`m in motion. I did most of my own stunts in the film, `cause that`s part of being an actor. You get to ride horses, crash cars, chase women and generally raise hell.”
Ironically enough, off-screen Costner is apparently a dutiful husband and devoted father, living quietly in his suburban Pasadena home. Married since 1978 to his high school sweetheart, and with two kids, the actor heads straight home every night when not on location. ”No Hollywood parties, no drunken brawls,” he confesses. ”I guess I live out all my fantasies in the films. Once I get home, I`m rather domestic.”
And of late, Hollywood`s hottest property has been spending plenty of time at home, much to the frustration of studios, directors and casting agents everywhere. ”I have nothing in the can, and I haven`t worked since November of last year-out of choice,” he says. ”People tell me I`m crazy, that I should be doing anything while I`m this hot. But I don`t agree. I`m very choosy about what films I do, and where I want to head with my career.”
In fact, it appears that Costner, without the benefit and advice of what he disparagingly terms ”the usual army of lawyers and personal managers”, has been calmly saying ”No` to offers since ”The Big Chill.” ”Well, I did turn down stuff like ”Who`s That Girl,” ”Shanghai Surprise” and ”The Ice Pirates,” he laughs ”and I`ve probably turned down 20 more films this year.”
More revealing are the projects he actively, if unsuccessfully, pursued.
”I really wanted the biker part in `Mask,` and John Malkovich`s part in
`The Killing Fields,` but that was already cast. I was also very keen to do
`The Beast,` which Kevin Reynolds, who directed `Fandango,` recently did in Israel, but I didn`t get it.
”The problem is that I tend to put all my eggs in one basket, as with
`The Beast.` If that`s the film I want, that`s the film I go for. And if I don`t get it, I don`t go for the next best one, and so on. I just wait for another first choice.”
Right now, while the actor is being vigorously wooed all over Hollywood, he`s stubbornly waiting on just such a first choice, one which unfortunately is also ”having problems getting financing,” he allows. ”People are advising me to move on, but I`ll stick with it as long as possible `cause I believe in it. I`ve then got plans to do a picture called `Revenge,` produced by Ray Stark, and I`ve also got something cooking with Larry Kasdan.”
”If it all works out, I could be working straight through the next year or two-for the first time ever. I realize a lot of people think I`m very crafty, turning down projects and upping my price, but it`s not that at all. You want to know the big secret of my success? I just wait for scripts that I know I can really fit into, and I think it`s pretty obvious what parts I should be doing. That`s the big secret.”
