Who finally told Kevin Costner Rumor Has It… and Mr. Brooks didn’t count as comeback vehicles? Where are you? Let me give you a bear hug.
Following news that the former leading man, who took hold of the late 80s/early 90s with hits like Field of Dreams and Dances With Wolves, would play Jonathan Kent, Superman’s pops, in Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel, comes word that Costner is set to co-star in Quentin Tarantino’s next film, Django Unchained, which already has Jamie Foxx cast as the titular vengeance-seeking ex-slave, Leo DiCaprio as baddie slave owner Calvin Candie who owns Django’s wife Broomhilda (a rumored Kerry Washington) and Christoph Waltz as Django’s bounty-hunting mentor [Deadline].
The actor will play Ace Woody, Calvin Candie’s crony, a sadistic man who trains slaves to fight each other as entertainment for white patrons. The women slaves he trains to be prostitutes. Yep, Kevin Costner will be doing that on screen, and taking orders from DiCaprio, who’ll be doing just as bad if not worse. It’s against-type casting at its most interesting. Tarantino’s made a career of it, from John Travolta as a smooth-talking hitman in Pulp Fiction to Robert De Niro as the burnt-out ex-con stoner Louis in Jackie Brown, and Costner appears to be just the kind of actor who responds to this type of role. The world knows him as an everyman movie star, ruggedly sexy and decidedly devil-may-care. Being allowed to do something different should bring out the best in an actor everyone’s convinced plays one note very well.
What do you think of Costner? Does he have the chops for this racist role?