All dads are not created equal. Some offer unconditional love, some take a firm-but-fair approach, some are rolling stones, some are actual Rolling Stones, and some are The Great Santini. It’s a cosmic crap shoot as to which kind of paterfamilias you wind up with, and even an ideal upbringing can morph into a contentious relationship over time. Life, and human beings, are weird that way.
This is why there is no shortage of fiction dealing with dads. We’re especially flush with tales centered on the always tricky father-son dynamic. Whole civilizations have come and gone, but dudes have always been hung up for one reason or another on their pops. And over the past 40 years, no actor has been more closely associated with the dramatic exploration of this occasionally fraught kinship than Kevin Costner.
Indeed, the first film that comes to mind for many when they rattle off their favorite Costner movies is “Field of Dreams,” Phil Alden Robinson’s classic male weepie about a Hippie-turned-Iowa-farmer who, on the orders of a disembodied voice, plows over a massive chunk of his cornfield to erect a baseball field in the hopes that his father’s favorite baseball player, Shoeless Joe Jackson, will return to play the game from which he was banned (for participating in the World Series-fixing 1919 Black Sox scandal).
Costner’s Ray Kinsella feels obliged to obey the voice because he never had a chance to mend fences with his dad before the old man died. Interestingly, Costner found the tables turned on him in real life when his dad took issue with his involvement in “Yellowstone.” Fortunately, everyone hung around long enough for the issue to get smoothed over.
This is a naughty show
In a 2022 interview with Parade, Costner was asked if his fans had trouble reconciling the ruthlessness of rancher John Dutton, his character on Taylor Sheridan’s runaway TV hit “Yellowstone,” with the principled and likable protagonists for which he’s best known. He revealed that it wasn’t just fans who struggled with his decision; his dad also thought taking the part was a terrible idea. As the star told Parade:
“My dad, who passed away this year, my mom, too, within months of each other, took a big interest in my career. He said, ‘You’re going to lose your audience, fellow. That is a naughty show.’ He said, ‘They’re going to drift away, son.’ He said, ‘You mark my words, that’s naughty.’ I just had to look at my dad, ‘Oh, my God.'”
Clearly, his dad was wrong. “Yellowstone” was pretty much a hit right out of the gate. Did Costner’s father apologize for being wrong? Nope! “[T]wo years later, he’s going, ‘The nurses want to know how it ends,'” said Costner. “‘They just love it.’ He just forgot about that other prediction.”
I did not know Costner’s father, but I do have experience with a dad who, when he’s been proven wrong, has a selective memory. You just have to be the bigger man, and accept that this is some people’s way of apologizing. In any event, I’m glad Costner didn’t have to build another baseball field where there shouldn’t be a baseball field as a means of family therapy. Though I can’t help but wonder what the elder Costner thought of his son playing a serial killer in Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon’s “Mr. Brooks.”