I WANT TO RESCUE HIS REPUTATION
After ‘rescuing’ the man who killed Bonnie and Clyde, Kevin Costner tells Eoin Murphy he wants to bring our ‘Big Fella’ to the screen – again
IT is a hot summer in 1992 and the Dublin fans are going ballistic on Hill 16 at the prospect of dispatching their Clare rivals in the All-Ireland football semi-finals. In the stands there is one of the world’s best known faces, Kevin Costner, a year after his Best Director Oscar win for Dances With Wolves, and the winks and elbow nudges filter around the ground like a Mexican wave.
Until now, Costner’s presence at the game was something of a mystery, an urban legend that has been regarded almost as a myth told by inebriated and boastful Dubs about the celebrity of their fanbase, to heap more misery on the Clare footballers. But the actor and director was at the game trying to sniff out his next Oscar win. He was researching the life and times of Michael Collins as he planned a blockbuster about the Big Fella.
However, that part eventually went to Liam Neeson and the directorial role to Neil Jordan. Today, Costner still harbours a desire to make another movie on the life and times of Collins, should he get the right script.
Costner – who is a bona fide ‘star’ of the old school Hollywood variety – loves his history. However, he’s not interested in just sentamentalising its heroes. In Wyatt Earp, he presented an almost psychotically vengeful version of the legendary marshall. With Collins, he wants to make a film about a man who was ‘compromised by politics’. And in his latest movie, The Highwaymen, he rescues the reputation of a man who was made a laughing stock of by Hollywood – Frank Hamer, the heroic Texas Ranger who brought down Bonnie and Clyde.
It is mid-afternoon in Madrid and the Oscar winner sits back in his chair and drinks in the sunshine outside. He is at the end of two days of promotion for the Netflix production, which is directed by John Lee Hancock and co-stars Woody Harrelson, Kathy Bates, John Carroll Lynch, and Kim Dickens.
The biopic follows the fortunes of former Texas Rangers Hamer (Costner) and Maney Gault (Harrelson) who join forces to try and capture outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Hamer was portrayed as a bungling, oafish detective in the 1967 film starring Warren Beaty and Faye Dunaway.
‘It was a sensational movie, but the problem with that movie was that besides the people who were murdered, they killed the reputation of Frank Hamer,’ he says. ‘That man was a living legend and well respected by law enforcement. In the original movie, they combined three characters to make him up. Frank Hamer’s wife, who was in two shootouts with him by the way – she killed a couple of people as well – she saw the movie in 1967 and was appalled.
‘She saw it in Austin, Texas. I saw it in the same theatre, and she called up Joe Jamail who was a famous Texas lawyer and said: “Let’s go sue Warner Brothers.” And they did, and WB settled for defamation. She said: “Shame on you, you have no idea how heroic my husband was.” And she defended his memory in death. It has taken 60 years for that family to get a different view as to who their grandfather or father was.’
Bonnie and Clyde were a new kind of criminal; armed with state-ofthe-art machine guns, a formidable Ford V-8, and a sense of liberation that captured the imagination of the general public who were suffocating in the Great Depression. It was important for Costner to research the criminals for the movie and he is quick to point out that Bonnie and Clyde were not the glamorous outlaws they have been made out to be.
‘I know the history now and it has been over-romanticised,’ he says. ‘I was 13 or 14 when I saw the original movie and I thought it was brilliant. I loved it and I actually went out and read a few books on that period because my own family is from Oklahoma and they lived in those migrant camps and they lost everything.
‘They put money into the bank and it collapsed and that changed their lives and they never recovered. They had to go to California and lived in their car for three or four years, and it was unsanitary and hot and dusty. Frank Hamer chased Bonnie and Clyde for 104 days in a car and it was not glamorous at all. Obviously, the Bonnie and Clyde film didn’t deal with the heartbreak and pain of the other side. Imagine your father, who is a policeman going to work, being blown away by this couple. The rest of the world loves Bonnie and Clyde, but people were losing parents to this group. ‘Violence has a side that people often don’t investigate. So yes, Bonnie and Clyde were sensationalised into folk heroes.’ America has a long history of worshipping outlaws – from Jesse James and Billy The Kid, to John Dillinger and Al Capone. But just because someone grew up in adversity, it is not an excuse for this sort of carnage. ‘Look, Bonnie and Clyde grew up in a tough situation,’ Costner says. ‘So did my grandparents, but they didn’t kill anyone. They didn’t go on a spree and lose everything. My great-grandfather started to drink a lot because he never recovered after that.
‘But yes, they did grow up in tough circumstances and that is the truth. Bonnie did kill and was there and did it point blank. Bonnie and Clyde were bad for one another.
‘Clyde, when he was in prison, some people thought he was abused a little bit. But he suffocated his cellmate who was trying to, maybe, take advantage of him. So he killed this guy in prison. He also didn’t want to work on the chain gang because it was such hard work, so he got an axe and cut off three of his toes. Three days later they let him out. So that is the sort of man he was.’
This deep research into the psyche of heroes and anti-heroes is Costner’s ‘schtick’. But it’s hard to see how he can improve on Jordan’s version of Michael Collins. As an ‘Irish’ movie it’s a classic – arguably our version of The Great Escape. How does he plan to tackle the godlike Collins?
‘I was really interested in making
the Michael Collins story,’ he says. ‘Eoghan Harris wrote a beautiful script and I loved it. Ireland is a mythical place and I just wanted to go and see how green it really was.
‘I still want to make that movie. I know it was made by another director [Jordan], but that’s not the story I was going to make. I love the epic notion of Collins. I’d still like to make that movie some day. I found him to be an incredible person who was compromised by politics.’
As for his visit to Croke Park: ‘I loved the match in Croke Park, it was very different to the football I am used to. Europe is very different from our country and I know Ireland is not Europe. America is so young; it is just a little bit over 200 years old,’ the screen legend says. ‘You are always amazed by our guns and all our s**t, but we were just raised with guns. But all the borders in Europe were formed in blood – look at Ireland. We in America were formed in blood too and we wiped out a group of people. That is to our shame and we will not recover from that. We just have to remember it. We can’t recover from that, but we have to tell that history honestly and not look outward, but look inward.’ A prominent gun owner and hunter, Costner says that he believes in sensible gun ownership. He is a strong advocate for toughening up America’s gun laws. ‘The gun laws need to be stricter,’ he says. ‘I own guns and they need to be really strict. For me, as a man – you may not grasp this – they are important. You can’t argue with people who are against guns – so I don’t attempt to do it.
‘All I can tell you is what guns mean to me. I have hunted since I was little. I have gone out by myself and I have been by myself in nature. I have gone with my father, and my grandfather’s gun was passed to my father and it has passed to me. And when I put it to my cheek it is the same thing as when you put on a beautiful watch or necklace that a parent gave to you that you will pass on to your children. They are heirlooms to a man, not for killing, but for the experience of going out and being together in nature.
‘When I have that gun I think of only being with my dad and I do the same now with my sons. It will be up to them to see how they feel about hunting. I have taken them and I don’t force it on them. Like I don’t force sport on them.
‘I expose them to the experience and it is up to them. To me there is no debate. There should be incredibly strict laws – no automatic weapons. But we, for some reason, will not let go of them and it is political and it is fierce, and our politicians don’t have what it takes to stand up to it. Everyone wants to be re-elected.’
Costner is lean and blessed with that southern charm that still addresses the ladies in the room as ‘ma’am’. He is 64 but doesn’t look a day over 50, something he works hard at.
‘Aging doesn’t bother me. I understand what it is and I would love to live forever and get to watch everything about my children’s lives unfold. But what you do is you teach them everything that you know, so that when you are not here they have some kind of quiet guide in their lives. I feel like I have made their lives important and not my career.
‘I do love my career, but they know where they stand and I am trying to do everything I can to stay relevant in their lives and in my own. I am trying to take care of myself. I think I can play 15 years younger and 15 years older and that’s because I try to take care of myself. Someone needs to make some money for the family and that’s probably going to be me.’
The Field of Dreams star says he is becoming more discerning in his later years.
‘Nothing about Hollywood has changed over the years; they are still chasing money and decisions that don’t seem artistic. So when I make a movie I always have the audience in mind. The business is changing constantly and I won’t let them put a value on me. I will do my own thing and they cannot stop me. The things that I need to do I am always pushing uphill. The things I want to do I have to push for a lot. I have tried to pick carefully but I don’t look back. I ask if they are fun. They don’t all have to be serious.’
Time is wrapping up and Costner has a flight to catch. What is the next film on his radar?
‘I want to do a cowboy movie,’ he says. ‘There are four of them I want to do and they are all the same. And I will tell you this for sure, there are the greatest women parts in there as well. It was hard, the West was hard on women, but they are really good parts, and powerful, I am going to get there and I will keep pushing and I will make it. I am, I know it.’
IRELAND IS A MYTHICAL PLACE AND I WANTED TO GO OVER TO SEE JUST HOW GREEN IT REALLY WAS