Kevin Costner’s career has been dominated with male-skewing projects, but the writer and director of Horzion: An American Saga – Chapter 1 has made sure to keep a spotlight on the stories of women, too.
Costner’s filmography was built uponWesterns,baseball, and big-scale extravaganzas. This – combined with his run as the hard-headed, no-nonsense patriarch inYellowstone– means the majority of his fanbase is comprised of men.
And Costner knows it, too. On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, theHorizon: An American Sagamastermind confirmed that his projects appeal to a very particular audience. However, there’s always one condition that comes with that; the inclusion of strong female characters.
“I make movies for men,”Costner said. “That’s what I do. But I won’t make a movie unless I have strong women characters, and that’s how I’ve conducted my career. And I think that’s why I have a good following. I thank you women for dragging your men here. It was a Western, after all.”
The addition of female characters in his movies is something that Costner claims to take into consideration from the get-go. In Horizon, it simply made sense to include the likes of Sienna Miller’s Frances and Jena Malone’s Lucy when detailing the many stories of settlers in the West.
“When you start writing, you go, ‘Where’s the woman?’ It just drove the story in every plot line,” he said. “It just seemed to me to be so easy. I mean, I just hardly couldn’t conceive of a scene that didn’t involve women or a young girl raised by a strong woman.”
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At the time of writing, Chapter 1 is sitting at 39% on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 70% Audience score.
For more, check outhow to watch Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1. You can also check outall the Yellowstone cameos in Horizon. Or, find outhow to watch every Kevin Costner Western.
Jessica Cullen is a TV and Movies Writer on Dexerto’s UK team. She’s previously written for The Digital Fix, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29, Slate and more. Aside from being the residential Yellowstone expert, she also loves Westerns, ’90s action movies, and true crime. You can email her here: jessica.cullen@dexerto.com.
