“That’s how I’ve conducted my career” — Kevin Costner lays down his condition for making movies for men

Yellowstone star Kevin Costner opened up about the presence of strong female characters in his movies. During an appearance alongside his fellow Horizon: An American Saga cast members in the Thursday, June 27 episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the actor conceded that he primarily made movies for men but said he wouldn't make them if they didn't have strong female characters. He said:

"I won’t make a movie unless I have strong women characters, and that’s how I’ve conducted my career. And I think that’s why I have a good following."

Horizon: An American Saga, Kevin Costner's 4 part epic will open in theaters across the country on Friday, January 28.

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"I thank you women for dragging your men here. It was a Western, after all"- Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner sat down alongside his fellow Horizon: An American Saga cast members, Luke Wilson, Sam Worthington, and Abbey Lee on the Thursday, June 27 episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast which was live recorded at 92nd Street Y in New York.

During the podcast, the Oscar-winning actor and director delved deep into the topic of writing female characters for his movies. The actor stated on the Happy Sad Confused podcast:

"I make movies for men. That’s what I do."

However, as mentioned earlier, Costner further added that he wouldn't make a movie unless he had strong female characters and thought that this was why he had a good following. The Dances with Wolves star expressed:

"I thank you women for dragging your men here. It was a Western, after all."

Horizon: An American Saga, Costner's passion project contained a stellar female cast of Abbey Lee, Sienna Miller, Ella Hunt, Jena Malone, Isabelle Fuhrman, and more. During the podcast, he talked about the connection between his writing process for the movie and female characters. He explained:

"When you start writing you go, ‘Where’s the woman?’ It just drove the story in every plot line."

Costner added:

"It just seemed to me to be so easy. I mean, I just hardly couldn’t conceive of a scene that didn’t involve women or a young girl raised by a strong woman."

In another appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show on Monday, June 24, Kevin Costner opened up about the important role female characters played in Horizon: An American Saga. The actor stated that the project had a "tremendous amount of women" involved in it. He told host Kelly Clarkson:

"They play such a big part of the West and what happened. They were often taken out there against their will and with their children on the idea that there was something great out there. There was nothing out there except a group of people who lived there for thousands of years."

He added:

"Women were drug into the most terrible of circumstances and made it work. And somehow they don’t find themselves in Westerns and in ‘Horizon’ they dominate."

Costner has had an illustrious career working alongside some of the most prominent and talented women in the industry. Costner worked alongside the legendary Whitney Houston in the 1992 hit The Bodyguard. More recently during his tenure in Yellowstone, the actor worked alongside Kelly Reilly who played Beth Dutton, a character the show's fans grew to adore and respect.

Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2024. The 69-year-old actor was moved to tears during the screening courtesy of the tremendous 7-minute standing ovation his project received. The movie ushered in mixed responses with a respectable IMDb score of 7.2.

As mentioned earlier, the first part of Kevin Costner's four-part epic opens in theaters on Friday, June 28. The second film is set to release on August 16.