Questions/Answers: Kevin Costner on the unveiling of his western saga “Horizon” in Cannes

CANNES, France (AP) — One month to go Kevin Costner releases the first part of his multi-chapter western “Horizon: An American Saga”, the actor-director came to the Cannes film festival to reveal his self-funded passion project.

“Two of my boys are fishing right now,” Costner said with a smile during an interview at the Carlton Hotel. “And the three girls found their way to a boat. So dad is there, looking for his film.

The film is actually two, or if Costner wants, four. “Horizon: Chapter One,” which lasts three hours, will be released by Warner Bros. in theaters June 28. “Chapter Two” will follow on August 16. Costner prepared the scripts for parts three and four.

This is only the fourth time Costner, 69, has directed, following 1990’s “Dances with Wolves,” 1997’s “The Postman” and 2003’s “Open Range.” But when he does it, Costner does it usually with a clear-eyed passion for the narrative and the characters. That’s evident in the sweeping epic “Horizon,” with a cast including Sienna Miller, Abbey Lee, Sam Worthington and Costner.

It’s also Costner’s biggest bet. To raise the funds needed for the more than $100 million production, he mortgaged his Santa Barbara, California, seaside estate. He’s been trying to make “Horizon” for over 30 years.

“I thank God for Cannes. I’m basically an independent filmmaker and I’m here on my own,” said Costner, whose film was scheduled to premiere Sunday. “So it’s a big moment for me because it helps me raise awareness for a film. I don’t have all the money in the world to exhibit this film. But I have my time and a platform here.

Remarks have been lightly edited for brevity.

AP: What was your calculation in deciding to invest your money in “Horizon”? What was worth it to you?

COSTNER: You can spend your life just trying to grow your pile. And I haven’t really been very good at it. I’m like everyone else, I wish it was big. But not at the cost of not doing what I feel like I love doing. If no one helps me do it and I firmly believe in its entertainment value, I have the business in mind. But I don’t let that overshadow the entertainment value and essence of what I’m trying to depict. I don’t try to let this fear control my instincts on any level. I don’t want to live this way. If I watched a movie about myself and thought, “Oo, don’t risk your money and do something like that,” what a (expletive).

AP: Was it an easy decision? Haven’t looked around your Santa Barbara beachfront property and thought about mortgaging it?

COSTNER: No, it wasn’t an easy decision, but it was the decision I had to make. It’s like, wow, why do I have to do this? I think I’m doing mainstream entertainment. I don’t know how you felt about the film, but I felt like it was really mainstream. I don’t consider myself an avant-garde person. But still, I think my stuff is a little messy. I’m willing (in a cart-dragging scene in the film) to see a woman bathe because her desire to be clean was so pronounced. If you’re a woman, who wouldn’t want to be? But the next moment you realize it’s against the rules, man. You could cost yourself your life. So this scene became important to make the next scene important. For me, a scene like that is just as important as a shootout. And if this kind of scene doesn’t want to exist in a mainstream film…

AP: Could this have been a series?

COSTNER: I suppose. It will be. They’re going to divide it into a hundred pieces, you know what I mean? After four sessions, they will have 13, 14 hours of film and that will turn into 25 hours of television, and they will do what they want. This is exactly how we live our lives, but they will also exist in this form. And it was important to me to make sure that happened. And I paid for it.

AP: It’s a bold release plan, with a second film coming out two months after the first. What attracted you to that?

COSTNER: The studio wanted to try that. I knew it was going to come out pretty quickly, like every four or five months. It might have been easier. But it’s something that they feel like people can remember from the first and it can relate to the second. I integrated into each of them a montage of what is coming.

AP: Since you directed “Dances with Wolves,” you’ve directed “Open Range” and starred in “Wyatt Earp” and “Yellowstone.” » What keeps bringing you back to the West?

COSTNER: I like to see meaningful behavior in men. I make films for men. I just make sure there are great female characters because that’s really important to me. The backbone of our film is actually the women. I don’t like boys who behave stupidly. I love the little boy who (fleeing an attack) takes the two horses and actually saves his life. I like to see people behave honestly in desperate situations. The heroism of a little boy saying “I’m going to stay with you, Daddy” is a truly powerful moment. It’s my son (Hayes Costner) and it was very difficult to watch.

AP: In dramatizing the settlers’ push west, what was the Native American perspective you wanted to take into account?

COSTNER: Confusion about this. The colonel said: “If we salt the earth with enough of their dead, the carts will no longer arrive. » When you’re this far away, you can’t go. When people said goodbye on the East Coast, they didn’t come back. So the confusion for the Native Americans was that they couldn’t figure this out. Normally, if you kill enough people it won’t bother you. But these Americans, these people were getting flyers saying they could have this land. There are sellers every century, every decade who sell something they don’t really know what it is. It’s just America. It’s just this giant experience of hope.

AP: But America means different things to different people, doesn’t it? There are also Chinese immigrants in the film.

COSTNER: When they weren’t useful, they were just discarded. And they had to create a sense of community and they came in droves. They came together and they were very hardworking. They will be the richest people in this town until there is a tipping point and racism kicks in and suddenly they are gone too. You look. This is what would happen in real life.

AP: What I mean is, there’s a tragedy in that. Do you view westward expansion and your film as a tragedy?

COSTNER: There is inevitable tragedy. And there are divisions. You see a whole tribe split in two. You see a father separating from his son.

AP: Have you already started shooting the third opus?

COSTNER: I’ve been shooting for three days and I’m still having to push for money to finish this film. I have to figure out what else I can do to make this happen. But I’m not waiting to see how people feel. I know what it is, and I think if people like the movie experience, they have a very good chance of wanting to see the next one. That’s all I can believe. The prudent thing would be to wait, but I guess I’m not cut out for that waiting.

AP: Some of the problems on “Yellowstone” seemed related to time and timing. How do you feel about your future with this series at this point?

COSTNER: “Yellowstone” was really important in my life. I really loved this world and what we were able to do in five seasons. I only thought it would be one, but I made five. I was ready to do three more – five, six and seven – but it didn’t happen. Certain things were happening and it just didn’t happen. So the idea of ​​going back, I’m open to that idea. But it’s based on everything that the first three or four were based on, which was the scripts.