Kevin Costner Reveals His Two All-Time Favorite Co-Stars
Even though Kevin Costner has made some questionable career choices over the years, there’s no denying he’s a sharp operator. He might occasionally come off as overly confident, but you don’t reach the heights he has in Hollywood without being clever and calculated.
Costner could have maintained his A-list status much longer had he not indulged his ego quite so freely. There’s a reason people warn against pouring your own money into massive movie productions — yet Costner has done it multiple times. It paid off spectacularly with Dances with Wolves, which won him Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director while becoming the highest-grossing Western in cinema history. But subsequent efforts haven’t matched that success, and to say the law of diminishing returns has taken hold would be putting it mildly.
In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Costner was among Hollywood’s biggest stars. But after reaching the pinnacle with Dances with Wolves, his ambitions often outpaced his results. Even when the hit series Yellowstone revitalized his career, he stepped away to bankroll his ambitious Horizon saga — a passion project that’s already proven financially and logistically challenging.
Interestingly, when asked to name his two favorite co-stars of all time, Costner singled out two actors known for being just as tough and uncompromising as he is — a possible sign that he didn’t take all their lessons to heart.
Costner diplomatically divided his favorites into two categories: a “movie star” and an “actor.”
“I’d have to tell you that my favorite star to work with had to be Sean Connery,” he said. “I would say Gene Hackman was the actor I learned the most from. I worked with Sean on The Untouchables, and we just connected immediately. He’s a real guy’s guy, and he just has this great honesty about him. He doesn’t suffer fools lightly. It was a joy and a pleasure working with him.”
Costner has previously admitted to being intimidated by Connery during their time on The Untouchables — and he wasn’t alone. Connery carried an unmistakable gravitas, and when he called someone “boy,” it was actually a term of endearment — a sign that you’d earned his respect.
As for Hackman, Costner soaked up everything he could during the making of No Way Out. “If you want to talk about working with an actor I learned from, it would be Hackman,” he said. “His approach was so professional, and he was so prepared.”
So, to any co-star who shared the screen with Costner post-1987 — after those two iconic collaborations — you were always going to be fighting an uphill battle to top his list.
