Kevin Costner has played various versions of the American everyman for over four decades. With prominent roles like Eliot Ness (The Untouchables), Crash Davis (Bull Durham), Ray Kinsella (Field of Dreams), Wyatt Earp (Wyatt Earp), Jonathan Kent (Man of Steel), and his Golden-Globe-winning role as Lieutenant Dunbar in Dances with Wolves, Costner has shown range, depth, and unwavering patriotism.

His ability to see the full spectrum of the American experience may come, in part, from his own journey of living the American dream. “Most people don’t want to look at a person’s life like mine in reverse to understand,” Costner told the HFPA via zoom from Montana in October of 2020.

“I was married very young. And I was staring up at the ceiling wondering what I was going to do in my life. I graduated from college, I was making about $100 a day, $120 a day framing houses but I knew I wanted to be an actor. And I remember having a conversation with my wife and had $56 in the bank. And I said “well, I’m going to be an actor”, which was even a bigger blow because now, I might never make a living. And in fact, I didn’t really make a check for six or seven years after that decision. But I went to Hollywood and became a stage manager and I made $3.50 an hour, which is about $24 a day. So I was making $120, which wasn’t very much all day pounding nails, and suddenly I was in Hollywood making $25 a day. So, I wasn’t exactly moving up the pay scale!” he said.

Of course, things took a turn in the 1980s: “I’ve had more success now than I could have ever wanted and enjoyed but there were very dark days for me,” Costner recalled.

Costner’s life, work, and activism (he’s donated millions to environmental causes in addition to backing Water Planet, Inc, which specializes in producing smart membrane products) seem to be in tribute to the country that made him famous, as well as his connection to its land.

And Costner’s current hit television series Yellowstone centers on the character’s relationship with the land as much as their relationships with each other. “It’s set against mountains and running horses and running rivers and I felt that it was very different, kind of raw, melodramatic if you will, but it’s also important I think the world should know that this way of life still happens in America. There are people that still get up every morning on horseback. We still do it this way,” Costner said speaking about his Paramount Network powerhouse.

The show is also notable for its inclusive storylines about not only the people who colonized the land, that is now called America, but also the people who were here before. “I’m a student of history and I want to know who was here first. I want to know what the story is, and why does it look the way it looks now. One of the beautiful things about mountains is people almost can’t alter them. One of the things about beautiful rivers is people almost can’t stop them but we try, we dam them, we cut their logs, we build but right now, where I’m at, I’m at a place that was very significant in American history.”