Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner (born January 18, 1955, Lynwood, California, U.S.) is an American film actor and director known for his portrayals of rugged individualists with sensitive streaks. He found success in such movies as The Untouchables (1987), Bull Durham (1988), Field of Dreams (1989), and The Bodyguard (1992) but is perhaps best known for Dances with Wolves (1990), for which he won Oscars for best picture and director. He had a late career resurgence as the star (2018–23) of the TV series Yellowstone.

Bull Durham and Field of Dreams

After graduating from business school at California State University, Fullerton (B.A., 1978), Costner began taking acting lessons following an encouraging encounter aboard an airplane with actor Richard Burton. Costner’s scenes were famously cut from The Big Chill (1983), the motion picture that provided the breakthrough for several other young actors, but its director, Lawrence Kasdan, later cast Costner in the western Silverado (1985).

Costner’s first starring roles came in 1987. That year he appeared as Eliot Ness in The Untouchables, and he then portrayed a naval officer who becomes a murder suspect in the political thriller No Way Out. His further success in the baseball movies Bull Durham (1988) and Field of Dreams (1989) made him a popular leading man, and he formed his own production company in 1989.

Britannica Quiz

Oscar-Worthy Movie Trivia

Dances with Wolves and The Bodyguard

1 of 4

2 of 4

3 of 4

4 of 4

In 1990 Costner produced, directed, and acted in another hit, Dances with Wolves, about an American Civil War soldier who assimilates into a Sioux community. The film won the Academy Award for best picture, and Costner also won an Oscar and Golden Globe Award for best director. After taking on the title role in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), Costner portrayed the tenacious district attorney Jim Garrison in Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991) and starred opposite Whitney Houston in the romance The Bodyguard (1992).

Subsequent acting credits in the 1990s include Clint Eastwood’s drama A Perfect World (1993); the postapocalyptic Waterworld (1995) and The Postman (1997), the latter of which he also directed; and the sports-themed Tin Cup (1996) and For Love of the Game (1999).

Open Range, Hidden Figures, and Molly’s Game

In the early 21st century Costner directed his third film, the western Open Range (2003), in which he also starred. He continued to act in such movies as Thirteen Days (2000), a dramatization of the Cuban missile crisis; the comic dramas The Upside of Anger (2005) and Swing Vote (2008); and the action movie The Guardian (2006). Costner then was cast as the head of the Hatfield family in the television miniseries Hatfields & McCoys (2012), for which he won an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe.

He returned to movies in 2013 with the Superman film Man of Steel, playing Clark Kent’s adoptive father. In 2014 Costner portrayed a veteran CIA agent in the thriller Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, a spy trying to manage his family life in 3 Days to Kill, the general manager of an NFL team in Draft Day, and a single man trying to raise his biracial granddaughter in Black or White. The next year he starred as a high-school cross-country running coach in McFarland, USA.

Get Unlimited Access

Try Britannica Premium for free and discover more.

Subscribe

Diverging from type, Costner portrayed a psychopathic death-row inmate who has a dead CIA agent’s consciousness transferred to his brain in the thriller Criminal (2016). That same year he appeared in the acclaimed Hidden Figures, about three real-life African American women who worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the early years of the American space program. In the biopic Molly’s Game (2017), Costner played the estranged father of Molly Bloom, who became famous when she was arrested for her role in an illegal high-stakes poker ring favored by Hollywood celebrities.

Yellowstone and Horizon

Costner then returned to television playing the patriarch of a Montana ranching family in Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone (2018–24). The show was hugely popular, and he won a Golden Globe Award (2023). In 2024 Costner announced that he would not return to his role on the show. His last appearance was in episode eight (2023) of Yellowstone’s fifth and final season.

In the Netflix film The Highwaymen (2019), Costner played a former Texas Ranger searching for the outlaws Bonnie and Clyde. He then lent his voice to a contemplative Golden Retriever who narrates the story of his years as a companion to a race car driver in The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019). In the drama Let Him Go (2020), he appeared as a former sheriff who seeks to save his grandson from an abusive stepfather.

In 2024 Costner released Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1, the first installment of a planned four-movie series about the settling of the American West. In addition to starring in the film series, he has served as director, cowritten scripts, and invested a substantial amount of his own money—some $38 million—toward its production.