The Bill Simmons Podcast - NBA Summer Mailbag Plus Kevin Costner on His Best Baseball Movies, Acting Lessons, and Navigating True Superstardom | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: July 25, 2019

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons opens the NBA summer mailbag to cover who will be next year’s Pascal Siakam, Paul George–to-L.A. conspiracy theories, the underrated Warriors, and more (2:55). Then Bill sits down with actor Kevin Costner to discuss his early years in Hollywood, his career as a director, making ‘Dances With Wolves,’ ‘Bull Durham’ stories, playing sports in movies, and more (44:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network, brought to you by ZipRecruiter. The best teams start with great talent. You know who didn't have great talent? Kevin Costner's Tigers team in For Love of the Game. It didn't matter. He was able to overcome it with his great talent. Pitched a perfect game.

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We love his movies. More importantly, there's nothing going on this week. So why not own Tarantino? He's got a huge movie coming out on Friday. We have a Rewatchables podcast also coming out on Friday, Reservoir Dogs. Sean Fantasy's Big Picture podcast is doing a

whole bunch of Tarantino stuff. And our old Halloween Unmasked feed, we have refashioned that. And what is it called, Craig? Quinn Tarantino's Feature Presentation. Yeah. A special three-episode podcast. Tarantino, we presentation. Yeah. A special three-episode podcast. Tarantino, we interviewed him in his own words

about some movies that he cares about. Go to theringer.com. You'll be able to find it. And check out all the great stuff we wrote about Tarantino this week. A lot of staffers. Big Tarantino fans here. Unbelievable. His career is finishing up decade number three.

It was really fun to talk about Reservoir Dogs 2, which is a movie that came out in 1992 and seems both dated and not dated at the same time. But we really dove into that. Me, Sean Fantasy, Chris Ryan. So you get that on Friday. Coming up, we're going to do a little NBA mailbag stuff at the top. And then an interview I've been holding for weeks and weeks. It's awesome. Kevin Costner, finally come on. He came on after,

God, I don't know how many years I was asking him, but he's here. And it's better than I thought it would be. I'll leave you with that. But first, Pearl Jam. All right, I'm going to hit some NBA mailbag stuff. Just so you know, I'm taping this on a Monday. I think all of this stuff is relatively evergreen. If anything crazy happens,

don't hold it against me. You figured like the NBA, it's got to get quiet one of these weeks. I figured it'd be right now. We'll get to Costner in a second. You sent some emails. It's themailbagattheringer.com if you ever want to email me, but let's go through a couple of them here. This one is from Owen in Larchmont, New York. He was wondering who I thought would be the Pascal Siakam of the 2020 season. Not necessarily an impact finals player, but someone making a leap, someone coming out of relative nowhere that we knew was pretty good, but then all of a sudden by the end of the year, we're asking, is that an OMA guy? Could that guy be the second best guy in a finals team? All right, so I thought about this question.

My answer is this. Here are the nominees. It has to be somebody that's going to be on a playoff team, either a contender or somebody who's one move away from being a contender, or a team that's just relevant. Those would be my three categories for that. So we'll go through all these. Brandon Ingram.

I think he has the talent. He's young. The blood clot thing set him back, but supposedly he has a chance to be healthy. That team needs a score. I kind of like the team. I like the Lonzo-Drew Holiday combo. The Zion thing will be fun,

but they need a score. They need somebody to give the ball to in the last four minutes of the game. I could see him making a leap. I don't think that's a contender or anything, but they might be a stealth 43-win playoff team. Who knows? But if that happens, it'll happen because of him. Next one I would pick is Jalen Brown.

And before you say that I'm a homer, I should mention, one of the best guys on a team that almost made the finals a year plus ago. I thought he was really good from January on last year. He had just an awful first two months and then rallied and became a reliable, semi-elite two-way guy. And I'm interested to see what he does with more shots on a team that doesn't want to kill each other every week.

He's young too. And there is, I've talked about this before, but there's a statistical trajectory with him where Paul George isn't unrealistic. Him having, him being able to blossom like that. Every time I say that, people get mad at me, but just go look at Paul George's stats the first couple of years and get back to me.

I'm really interested to see what happens with him and Tatum now that they know this is their team. Mark him down. Karis LeVert on Brooklyn. I guess the recipe would be if Kyrie was just awesome this year, which is very possible. He was awesome in year one in Boston. And Brooklyn ends up being a little better

than we thought they'd be in a week conference. And they're stringing along until KD can potentially come back in the spring, next spring, who knows. But Levert's somebody that was looking like a 20-point-a-game guy and is still relatively young. And the big question with him is whether he can just stay on the court. But I think he has the talent too. The next one, I don't believe in, but I'm just going to mention him, Kyle Kuzma. Just because he's going to be in a really nice situation with the Lakers where

he's going to have a lot of open shots. He's going to have a lot of support and they actually probably need him a little bit. I'm just not convinced he's anything more than like a 17 and seven. I don't think he's a very good defensive player either. So, but I had to mention him or else the Laker fans are like, oh, you mentioned Jalen Brown. You didn't mention Kyle Kuzma. Well, I mentioned him. The next one is my dark horse.

Jeremy Grant. Really liked him on OKC. I think it's very strange to be on OKC. It's a weird team the last few years with Westbrook and then Paul George comes in and you're basically just an ornament offensively. And then defensively you have to try your ass off and all that stuff.

But I really want to see him on this Denver team. That ball movement, offensive sophistication, being at a whole other level than OKC. I think he's a really good athlete. I just have always liked his game. And they've needed an elite wing on that team. I don't know if he has the talent, but I have my eye on him. Zach Collins on Portland. You know he's going to play because of Nurkic is out

until at least the All-Star break. I don't believe in Hasan Whiteside at all. I like the flashes of Zach Collins in the playoffs, and he's young. I think he turns 22 during the season. And looks a little like Producer Craig. Looks a little bit like you. Okay. Yeah. A. Yeah.

A little taller. Josh Richardson, I think, is the favorite and the guy that I left for last year. We know Philly's going to be good. We know they are going to be one of the two or three best teams in the East. We know they need him desperately to help defend basically the best perimeter guy on the other team.

And then on top of that, make wide open threes. And I think he's good. And I think he's somebody that the average NBA fan just hasn't watched a lot of the last couple of years. And if anything, was in a situation in Miami where they were asking a little too much for him. I think if he's like your fourth banana, fifth banana, he could really thrive. And I'm interested to little too much for him. I think if he's like your fourth banana, fifth banana, he could really thrive.

And I'm interested to see what happens with him. I thought he had some good moments last year. So those would be my nominees. If there's anybody out there that I missed, tell me. Next question from Andrew in California. This is a good one. The Knicks are one of the few publicly traded sports teams as part of the MSG stock in the New York Stock Exchange.

Can you imagine a ringer-led crowdfunded effort to purchase a controlling share of MSG, then fire James Dolan and take control of the Knicks? The current value of MSG is $6.8 billion, $3.45 billion, which gives you a 50% stake, and the ability to name yourself CEO. Let's make this happen. Oh, I didn't realize I got to be the CEO in this whole thing. This is magnificent. All right.

So I thought this was obviously ludicrous. How are you going to raise $4 billion in a crowdfunding effort? Well, last year, a blockchain startup, I think I know what blockchain is. Do you know what blockchain is, Greg? A little bit. A blockchain startup raised $4 billion without a live product. It was a Cayman Islands startup. It eclipsed the world's biggest initial public offerings on stock exchanges that year. It was Block.one. It was funding a blockchain platform called EOS.ios through a process known

as an initial coin offering or ICO. I'm just reading this from, I copy pasted it. A multi-billion dollar fundraising effort more than doubling the next biggest offering of that type. Well, I mean, that sounded pretty sketchy. We could create RingerCoin. RingerCoin, maybe. Could we pay for the Nixon blockchain

or RingerCoin or whatever? All right, I'm going to look into this but all I know is if a Cayman Islands startup can raise 4 billion dollars we could raise 3.45 billion

and take the Nix away from James Dolan you do think though there's probably like conservative estimate 12 million Nix fans get one one million of those

12 million toicks fans get one million of those 12 million to contribute $100? I can't add. I used to be able to add. I got a 690 on my math SATs, which was really high back then. Now I can't add three plus four. But yeah, I'm not going to rule out this Knicks thing. Ringer-led crowdfunded effort. Yeah, let's do it.

All right, next question. Mike in Philadelphia wonders, Adam Silver doesn't catch nearly enough crap for forcing Jerry Colangelo down the Sixers' throat, who in turn hired his idiot son and his huge callers to immediately knock the Six off their rebuilding

course. But then the Lakers and Knicks can somehow continue to be run by my niece's easy baked cake sale. What the hell is going on here? It's from Mike in Philadelphia. My answer is, you're right. It is a little weird that they intervene with the Knicks. I guess the difference is they intervene with the front office and not the actual ownership.

The problem with the NBA, the NBA is like a neighborhood where some asshole buys the house next to you. And at that point, it's his house unless he's selling heroin out of there or doing something illegal, or it's Jeffrey Epstein. The NBA really has no power at all to get somebody to sell with one exception. We saw it with Donald Sterling this decade. And we kind of saw it with George Shin way back when, when he was involved. He owned the Charlotte team before Bob Johnson and Michael Jordan. And even then, they made him move out of Charlotte.

Or maybe he wanted to move or both. And he moved to New Orleans. And even that, they couldn't get rid of that guy. It's really hard. It has to be like a Jerry Richardson, Donald Sterling type of situation. And even then the guy doesn't really necessarily have to sell. He could drag it on in court for 20 years. So Mike from Philadelphia, I don't really have an answer for you except for you're right. Why did Jerry Colangelo, why was that the one who got forced down the Sixers third? I will say there has been some revisionist history with the Sam Henke era in Philly where his idea was great, but then some of the execution of it was pretty, I mean, he did take Jaleel Okafor in the top five and he did take New Orleans to well sixth. And he did, he did, what was the other one? Oh, Michael Carter Williams.

Like his drafting was pretty iffy. His trades were good. And really what he did that, that was probably the most indefensible was he enraged the other teams. They just didn't like dealing with them and they thought he was arrogant and wouldn't call them back and all kinds of stuff. There's a way to deal with fans and other teams that where you could have a modicum of civility and interplay and he just didn't care. So I think from that standpoint, the league probably needed to intervene, but the stuff about them just throwing seasons away to get high lottery picks is kind of vindicated by Embiid and Simmons. There was some way to do a modified version of that

that I think would have been really defensible. The other version of that is what the Lakers did for basically this whole decade where they tanked, but it wasn't even intentional. They were just incompetent. So anyway, if you look at Philly's decade versus the Lakers' decade, the Lakers were actually probably worse. Next question. Matthew Illman wants to know, with Paul George fleeing OKC one year after re-signing, do you think this adds more weight to your previous argument the Lakers were banned by the league from signing him last year as a penalty for alleged tampering? This was conspiracy billed, did weigh in with this a year ago.

It would seem now that maybe Paul George always intended on leaving for LA, but perhaps couldn't do it last year, and now he can do it. It's from Matthew Ullman. All right, here's my answer. Let's just look at the evidence. We heard for two years that much like Kawhi, Paul George wanted to come to LA when he was a free agent because he's from Southern California. He went to Fresno State, Indiana, and traded him partly because they were convinced he was ditching them for, they thought, the Lakers. And then out in LA, there was just a lot of talk of Paul George

is coming here in a year, which on the one hand can be rumors, but on the other hand, when it's LA and Jeannie Buss is rubbing in the circles with a whole bunch of different people and people are saying, I saw Jeannie, she said, Paul George is coming. You never know what to believe, but there definitely was a real buzz and a real sense that he was coming in a year and everybody thought he was coming with LeBron. Well, LeBron came by himself.

So Paul George loses a year ago in an unhappy series against Utah. They lose in round one. And you would think like, well, that opened the door. Now he'll just go to the Lakers. Well, what if he goes to the Lakers with Paul George, with LeBron? Well, he re-signs in late June with OKC without ever meeting anyone, without dragging out the process or getting any attention whatsoever for it, creating any dramatic tension, anything, even though he was filming a documentary series at the time, which is hilarious in retrospect.

It's on YouTube. But that never sat right with me. If you're looking for the spotlight and you have a documentary crew around you, why are you deciding in late June where you're signing? Why not milk it for another week and then do it? All right. So you got that. The timing was weird. The Lakers were fine for tampering, which you knew. You have in April, this previous, this April that just happened, Magic Johnson mysteriously resigns for reasons that remain unclear. Did Rob Plink a backstab on him?

Was he upset with something? Like, what happened there? Did we ever know why Magic? Craig, do you have a satisfactory explanation for Magic resigning? No. I don't feel good about it. I don't know what happened with that guy.

It was almost like he got pushed out. Conspiracy Bill was his eye on it. Then, July, out of nowhere, all of a sudden, Paul George wants to trade to the Clippers, not the Lakers. Now, the Lakers didn't have anything to trade because they gave up seven years of stuff for Anthony Davis. But I don't know. Conspiracy Bill gives this like a 6 out of 10 on the Conspiracy Bill scale.

I think there's some smoke here. I'm not sure I see a ton of fire. I just do not understand why he signed with OKC last June without playing it out at all or even meeting the Lakers when all we had heard for two years was

he loves the Lakers, he loves LA, he wants to play in LA and then doesn't even have a meeting with the Lakers when LeBron's coming, when everybody knows LeBron is coming. That's weird. All right, next question. This one hurts. This is from Trevor. I almost don't know if I want to read this one. Trevor writes, just reading the tea leaves here. Notice Jason Tatum has not posted anything about the Celtics this off season on his Instagram or Twitter accounts. He has not welcomed the new acquisitions, nor given the Celtics organizations and fans

a bicep flex emoji to signal approval on anything. What's worse, he congratulated Rogier for signing with Charlotte. He retweeted a Marcus Morris tweet when Marcus Morris couldn't find a team, but was telling everybody he was all right, he's going to find one. And also he happened to go to the same school as Kyrie. He went to Duke and they were actually friends last year. And that's the guy that we're all happily driving to the airport. Trevor asked, should we be worried?

I was like, oh, come on. There's no way Jason Tatum hasn't tweeted anything. Well, I go through his Twitter feed. He wasn't lying. There's no Celtics tweets. On July 6th, Marcus Morris tweeted, either way, a go, we gone, make it happen. Either way, we finally make it happen. That's always the mindset.

He's using some weird words here. Finna. Finna? Yep. Either way we finna make it happen, that's always the mindset? What's finna? Finna means fixing to, like going to. Finna?

Yeah, like I'm finna eat tonight. Is this my oldest moment of all time? No, finna's, that's okay that you don't know finna. Okay. How does Kyle not teach me about finna? This is what happens when Kyle's away. So anyway, Jason Tatum retweets this and adds, Trillist!

Always room for a bully. So you have that. And then Rozier signs with Charlotte on June 30th. Bleacher Report says Terry Rozier has agreed to a $3.58 million deal with the Hornets via sign-and-trade purse, Sham Sharania. Jason Tatum retweets, my dog, three exclamation points, couldn't be happier. Was there a Kemba Walker tweet or a welcome to Boston Ennis Cantor tweet?

No. All right, let's go back to June 12th. Bradley Beal tweets, Stanley Cup champs, four exclamation points, at St. Louis Blues, hashtag St. Louis forever. And Jason Tatum then retweets that and tweets, St. Louis forever, three exclamation points. Now, I'm not against that because he's from there and Bradley Beal is his guy. I keep going through and I don't know, Craig, there's just nothing. There's no indication that he's even on the Celtics since the season ended. So here's my fear.

From what we've heard, his name was kind of floated around a tiny bit with the Anthony Davis stuff. And how serious that was, who knows. But if they were going to try to get Anthony Davis, he had to be in the deal. So maybe he heard something. Maybe he didn't like how last season went. I'm concerned. I'm concerned in general.

I have not enjoyed the last 12 Jason Tatum months, really ever since he came on this podcast. I haven't enjoyed the last year. I also checked his Instagram, and there's just no indication that he's excited about anything with the Celtics. So the moral of the story is this, Jason Tatum, just retweet an Ennis Cantor, Kemba Walker picture and be like, can't wait to play with these guys. Just do something. Don't make me have to sweat this out. You're only two years into a five-year deal.

All right. A couple of DC fans have emailed me this question some variation of CP3 to DC for John Wall and a first round pick or two first round picks if you're a Wizards fan you're basically thinking this is our best chance to creep Bradley Beal

we upgrade John Wall I'm not going to list all the people I don't want to embarrass them who email me this trade you're We upgrade John Wall. I'm not going to list all the people. I don't want to embarrass them who email me this trade. You're not trading John Wall's contract. And this season you shouldn't because as Joe House keeps pointing out on this podcast, it's insured, I think, 80%

if you can't play this year. So you're going nowhere anyway. Play it out. Have the insurance pay for his deal. It helps with tanking anyway go for one more top five pick and then reevaluate there was news that broke today on Monday that they offered Bradley Beal three years

$111 million extension if he turns it down okay you can still take it to February or whatever and you know you can get a King's ransom. And by the way, we just talked about Jason Tatum and Bradley Beal, he's close, the St. Louis thing. That could be a possible match

because the Celtics, Jalen Brown, one of my breakout prospects of the year, but he's also going to be a free agent pretty soon. I think he's restricted next summer. And after watching Jamal Murray get $170 million and some of these other guys from his Ben Simmons got $170 million and Jalen Brown didn't get anything. So you have to wonder, are they in the clock with him a little bit? Would he want to go play for the Hawks? He's from Atlanta. How long is he going to be a Celtic especially if they haven't committed to him

so maybe that's part of how this plays out where they overpay a little for Bradley Beal and then put him and Tatum together I don't know, I'm rambling my point is this, DC is not trading John Wall nobody wants John Wall there aren't enough picks available to take John Wall

and if you're the wizard, just wait till next summer and figure it out. And best case scenario, he's in awesome shape and actually brings something to the table. John Wall's contract, four years, $171 million. Oof. I think the only realistic CP3 trade, as we've mentioned 70 times in this podcast already, was Jeff Teague's expiring and Gorgie Dang, two years, $33.5 million. What are the ads I said Gorgie correctly?

Georgie? Gorgie. Gorgie? I think it's Gorgie. God. My pronunciation is getting worse every year. I used to make fun of Eddie Manning for this way back. Now I'm turning it to him.

So I think that's the only one. And I got to say, I think I've done a little digging on this. Who represents Carl Towns? CAA. Who represents Chris Paul? CAA. Who has a really good interest in Minnesota being good next year and everybody being happy? CAA. Who got shit done? CAA. I'm in on CAA. CAA makes it happen. I think Chris Paul's on Minnesota for the start of the season. I'm making that prediction. All right, let's take a break. Hey, Rockstar Games, a one-stop destination for quality entertainment and high-end living. Where's that? Grand Theft Auto Online. The Diamond Casino and Resort offers a range of experience for all kinds of players. Try your hand at casino games like three-card poker, blackjack and roulette,

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I think the most fun thing I did this summer was letting my son finally play Grand Theft Auto. I probably shouldn't have, but he's 11. He's ready for it. And he's really enjoying it. It's been fun to play with him. So anyway, check that out. All right, back to the mailbag.

All right, a couple more questions, then we'll get to Kevin Costner, the one, the only. Eric LaPointe wants to know, you've recently nicknamed the 2010s the player empowerment decade. I'm curious what each NBA decade's name would be. It's a great question. So here's the about the NBA is the decade actually starts in the middle of each decade. They formed the league in 1946. And you almost have to look at it as 10-year intervals or so from 46 on until we get to the 2010s. If you're going to name the actual decade from start to finish of the decade, I think it just gets tougher. You can do it with something. The 80s are like the Bird Magic and MJ decade. The 90s are the Too Much, too fast, too soon decade. But I don't know what the 2000s were.

So I think it's easier to do it the way I answered it here. I think it's eras, not decades. 46 to 56, this is the white guys decade. This is white guys. The league, you look at these photos of like the Minnesota team, the Minneapolis team, George Micah played on and it's just like 12 white guys.

They look like they're all shop teachers. Then Bill Russell comes in, 56 to 69. That's the Russell era. He's the greatest team sport athlete of all time. He wins 11 titles in 13 years. He ushers in

a completely different basketball where all of a sudden now they're allowing black players to play. Congratulations, NBA. Thanks for letting people of all colors in. Bill Russell comes in, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor, Lenny Wilkins, Will Chamberlain, and the league just Sam Jones. I mean, there's, and even like about halfway through Russell's career, there was still this unwritten rule that the NBA, you were only allowed like two black guys per team because they were so afraid of how the white fans would react to it.

This is really some dark stuff. I cover a lot of this in my book, but Russell ushers in this new era and the league starts to change color while he's there. And by the end of it, the league starts to look like what it looks like now. So then you go 1970 to 1976. That's kind of the ABA Kareem era where Kareem is the best player in the NBA by far. The ABA is now kind of coming. They're grabbing people who aren't done with college yet.

They're grabbing people right out of high school. They're ushered. They have the three-point line. They're doing dunks. And it's just like a much more fun version of basketball, only it's run horrendously. It's a disaster. The courts are bad. The owners are bad. There's no fans for anything. There's barely any televised games. But the premise of it is more fun. And eventually in 1976, they merge. But I think those seven years is the ABA and Korean. That's how you remember that.

77 to 83, they merge. Or 76 to 83, I guess. And this is the tape delay cocaine uh-oh era. This is when the league really almost craters. You have just a bunch of disappointing superstars. You have drugs just ravaging the league and you have networks that don't really believe in the product leading to them tape delaying playoff games. And then the finals in 1981, when the Celtics won game six in Houston, even in Boston, they didn't show that game till 1130. I went to bed and then my dad woke me up

at 1130 and we watched the game on tape delay and didn't listen to the radio to find out what happened. I mean, this has happened in my lifetime. It's nuts. That leads out to 84 to 93, which I think is the glory days. These are just great times. Bird and Magic, the 84 finals. First time they show the finals every game at night or in the afternoon or whatever, but everything's live again. You have Kareem, you have Bird, you have Magic.

You have the right team finally wins the 84 finals, the Boston Celtics, seven game series, just a classic. And that leads to a really, really great 10-year run where the slam dunk contest comes in. David Stern's really wielding his influence. You have an influx of awesome players to watch. Dominique, Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan obviously comes in, Scottie Pippen, David Robinson, Malone and Stockton.

Like, you're just Hall of Famers every year just coming into the league and that it's a great 10 years the product was really good it's

what's weird is if you watch the games from that era they actually resemble the current NBA more than the games from the next era 94 to 2003

which I call the too much too fast too soon era that's when the wheels came off where you had rookies coming into the league. They're making way too much money right away. It's player empowerment, but in the worst possible way, where you have young guys who haven't done anything yet who think that they can control everything.

Nobody has to earn anything. There's no mechanism in place to protect people who have gone from being broke kids in high school to playing one year, two years in college to all of a sudden making seven, 8 million a year. And everything goes wrong leading to the 99 lockout where they try to basically fix some of the ills that had seeped in. But as we did that, a lot of careers that should have been great, just ended up not being that great.

Chris Weber, Penny Hardaway, Kenny Anderson, Glenn Robinson, Vin Baker, Sean Kemp. You keep going and going. All these dudes who just should have been all-timers and didn't get there. And at the same time, the league, the quality of play was way too physical, way too slow. You have the playoff games that are like 72 to 70. And it just was bad. And everything kind of crested in the 04 Olympics

when we got our asses kicked and it's all one-on-one and just no team play at all. So that leads to the next era, the look in the mirror era, 03 to 11, where the league looks in the mirror and says, we got to fix this. All right, how do we fix this? Let's add a rookie scale. Let's add some rules to make the game more fun. Let's get rid of hand checking. Let's quicken the pace a little more innovation. There's advanced metrics that are coming in. Now people know to take more three-pointers. And by the end of 2011, basketball's starting to look like basketball, like the basketball

that we love now. You have three-point shooters coming in like Steph and Clay. And by the 2011 where you have LeBron and Dwayne Wade and Bosh that already happened, you have an old-school Dallaswayne Wade and Bosh that already happened. You have an old school Dallas team

really kind of out thinking them and just playing a better brand of basketball and a smarter brand of basketball and a tougher brand of basketball and toppling them. The league's in good shape. Unfortunately, we have a lockout that sets us back. We recover from the lockout and that leads to the player empowerment error.

So even though the decision was in 2010 and the look in the mirror, I still feel like the league hadn't really figured itself out. I think the 2012 on is the player empowerment error. Really, LeBron going back to

Cleveland was the better version of that. And now everything that's happened now and shorter contracts that came from the lockout, the ability to pre-agency, which was a concept coined by a reader. I wish I could remember which reader said that, that I said on a podcast. I gave it to Jalen Rose. I told him on this podcast, he was going to steal it. He immediately went on 17

of the ESPN shows and stole it. Now, pre-HD is a thing. All of that stuff started here. So I think those are, those I would say would be the eras. And I think my favorite era was the glory days. Not just because I'm old and you look back at when you were younger and things were better, but it's just 21 teams, Bird Magic, MJ. The style of play was great. It was just really fun. I think we can get there again with the NBA. I have faith.

We have a lot of talent right now. All right, next question. Andrew in San Diego from the Bay says, can we put some respect? He doesn't use T, he uses K. Respect on Steph's name. The media consensus on the Dubs is they might miss the playoffs and the dynasty's over. The last time they were underestimated after the 2015 championship,

most felt it was a result of injuries to other teams. What happened? 73 wins. Well, am I crazy to think Steph can return to MVP form and the dubs can still contend. So I've heard this a few times and people are acting like nobody is considering this. Well, I just want to point out their odds to win the title are 12 to one, which are pretty good. They're over under for wins this year is 49, which is higher than I thought it was going to be. And Steph has the second best MVP odds, five to one. So I think this is on people's radar. I'm looking at their team. I actually kind of like their team. You have Curry unleashed. This is probably his last chance to have a real monster MVP season, I would think. Maybe he could do it. Maybe he's got a two-year window here. You got Draymond in a contract year

who finally realized last season that, oh, if I lose 25 pounds, I'm going to play basketball better. Congratulations to him. You have D'Angelo Russell who's only 23 playing on a really smart team that knows how to use guards off ball and off screens and how to take advantage of people who just thrive on the perimeter. I think he's going to be really good for them. And if he's not, they can flip him. But I am in the camp that he's going to be good for them. They have Kavon Looney and Willie Colley-Stein.

I like both of those guys. I'm interested to see Colley-Stein. I think it'll go one of two ways, complete disaster or way better than anyone thinks. I'm in the way better than anyone thinks camp. But I like those two guys together. I think they're going to be pretty good defensively. Clay doesn't come back until April, but they have Alec Burks and Alphonso McKinney who can at least give them some swing stuff.

They still seem like they're a guy short, but I feel like they're a stealth favorite to land somebody if they need somebody. I just kind of like the team. I would compare it to the 94 Bulls when they lost MJ and everyone just wrote them off. And I'm not saying they have a chance to be as successful as the Bulls. I think won 55 games. Pippen was an MVP candidate. But I thought one of the reasons they were so successful is the infrastructure of coaching, training staff, just having been there before, not being afraid, big game experience. All that stuff can really matter sometimes. And if you look at what happened with the 94 Bulls, it was really the experience and the coaching, the infrastructure, and them kind of realizing how to revolve around a different great player.

I think the Warriors, I would not count them out. 49 wins seems a little high, only because if Curry got hurt, I think this team would have a lot of trouble offensively, but I'm with you. I don't think the dynasty is over by any means. And if they can hold the fort, be in that five, six, seven seed range for when Clay comes back, and if he can come back,

people come back from that injury now and in 10 months, they seem fine or 90% what they were. So if that can happen, great. Josh from Richfield wants to know, five years from now, who's the best point guard in the NBA? Here are the nominees.

My answer. Darren Fox, five years from now, who's the best point guard in the NBA? Here are the nominees. My answer. Darren Fox, 20 years old. Ben Simmons, Devin Booker, Trey Young, John Morant, SGA, or then Steph and Dame in their mid-30s still doing it. My money would be on Darren Fox. I just

think he has a couple levels up to go. Donovan Mitchell, I guess, could be in here, but I don't really feel like he's a point guard. I feel think he has a couple levels up to go. Donovan Mitchell, I guess, could be in here, but I don't really feel like he's a point guard. I feel like he's a... I just don't think of him as a traditional point guard. If you want to throw him in there, he's a good inclusion too. I don't really feel like... I feel like that's why they got Mike Conley,

because Donovan Mitchell really isn't a point guard. But Fox, to me, is like the old-school point guard that combines a lot of different guys that I like. There's some Westbrook athleticism with him. There's some Chris Paul run the game, doesn't really care about his stats kind of stuff going on. I think he's incredibly unselfish and he's just a top of the line awesome teammate. And I just like that guy. When you think about how

Phoenix could have taken him fourth and put him with Booker and instead they took Josh Jackson. Oh my God. Or Philly could have taken him first. I mean, they wouldn't have but man, some teams kicking themselves. JP in Des Moines wants to know you guys have danced around this on multiple

podcasts, but haven't zeroed on the perfect new nickname for Kawhi. Kawhizer Soze. So, I guess I'm down with this. I don't know what the deal is with Usual Suspects. Have we canceled Usual Suspects? Is it done? Because of Spacey?

Are we not allowed to have fun with that movie anymore? I don't know. I need a ruling from the outrage police. I like Kawhi's or Soze, but I don't know if Usual Suspects is just out because Spacey is the key character in it. I assume we just kind of send that to the Pacific Ocean and don't think about it again, but I like Kawhi's or Soze.

Speaking of movies, Hartley wants to know, if you do the rewatchables for The Town, which, by the way, we're doing next month, he says, the whole movie hinges on Jon Hamm extracting the Fenway robbery plot from Blake Lively. Why would Renner's deadbeat sister know the intricate details of their next heist? She's a total liability, and this is the not fucking around the crew. Even if she knew they were up to something, how would she know enough to spoil it? Didn't make sense. She would even have the info. Ruins and otherwise, great movie for me. It's a hole. I got to think about it some more before the rewatchables. It's tough. If anybody can come up with a good explanation for this, please help.

The mailbag at theringer.com. It's tough. I also think, man, I don't want, can I, is it, I can spoiler the town, right? It's been 10 years. Yeah. I just think the bank teller gets arrested, Rebecca Hall. I think there's just overwhelming evidence that she was colluding with these guys, even though she wasn't.

And then Ben Affleck leaves town at the end and leaves $5 million with her or whatever it was. And then she goes and does this ice skating rink. What does she just drop the money off? There's a lot of nitpicking stuff there. But I think at some point, John Hamm's like, you were in on this bank robbery all along. Where's your cut? And she's just in jail.

And they're just trying to get information out of her for five years. Well, we'll find out more of the rewatchables next month. Me, Chris Ryan, Ryan Russo. Last question is from John Allen, Scotland. Shout out to Scotland. He says, sad but true, the 2020 Lakers are basically the Pelicans from two years ago. Just replaced Drew Holiday with a 35-year-old LeBron, Miritich with Kuzma, and Boogie with a fragment of his former self.

They even still have Rondo. It's pretty good. I mean, as you know, I'm pro-Laker bashing on this podcast. The most confusing thing for me, I was thinking about their team, and I'm the same person who genuinely believes Davis is a good MVP pick at 8-1, and I think he could just solve any problem they have just by being incredible and kicking ass for a season with LeBron as the 1B to his 1A. If those two guys are aligned to kick an ass, as Kevin O'Connor pointed out on TheRinger.com on Monday, the rest of this stuff doesn't totally matter.

But it still does matter because we see in basketball every year, you need seven, eight guys. And you need Fred Van Vliet, and you need J.J. Barea and Eddie House and James Posey. You need all these dudes, but you also need a happy team. I'm looking at the Lakers. I can't shake the fact that LeBron and Davis succeed at the same position, the four, and if they're going to play together, ideally you'd want Davis to play the five.

Well, he doesn't want to play the five. He wants to play the four. So then you sign JaVale McGee and Boogie Cousins. They're going to split time. Can't play those guys together. So now I'm going to have LeBron and Davis and Boogie Cousins or JaVale, the three of them playing together. That seems a little weird because you basically have to have Davis

defending the other team's best offensive forward. The other two guys aren't going to do it. Well, where do Kyle Kuzma and Danny Green play then? All right, maybe you could play Danny Green in two guard. I can't play Kuzma there. I also have KCP and Jared Dudley. Those guys are, you know, two. They're small forwards or they're a two.

But then I also have Rondo, Bradley, Quinn Cook, and Alex Caruso. I just can't figure out. They have one, two, six, eight. They have 12 guys. I think at least 10 of those guys are going to be expecting to play. And their best lineup, if you just said who are your best five guys, is probably LeBron, Davis, Boogie, Kuzma, and Danny Green with LeBron at point guard.

So who's guarding Dame Lower? Danny Green? I can't wrap my head around this roster. And I feel like there's one more trade coming with Kuzma. Now, people think Kuzma's going to sign with Clutch, and people have thought that's going to happen for a while, and he just got rid of his agent. And it seems like Kuzma is in on the Clutch wagon.

But I can't. Like, Bradley was one of the worst offensive players in the league the last two years. Rondo really has not been reliable for five years. Quinn Cook, okay, I guess. Is your 11th man, maybe? Caruso. Advanced metrics were pretty good on Caruso

playing in meaningless games, but I'm not a KCP fan. I just can't figure this team out. And if you're playing LeBron Davis and Boogie, then Kuzma's the odd man out at that point. And Kuzma's playing for, I think, a contract extension or no, not a contract, a year from now contract extension, but I don't know. It's a weird team. I have the same feeling about it that I did with Philly last year, where it just seems like there's a piece missing or they're one move away from being more interested than they are now. All right. If you want to email any mailbag questions to us, do it, do the mailbag at the ringer. All right. So this Kevin Costner pod, I really wanted to go two hours of them. I made the mistake of not seeing how much time we had beforehand.

And it turned out, I think we had like 75, 80 minutes, something like that. So I'm going to have to bring him back. Yeah, as you'll hear at the end, he's going to have to come back. But he came on to promote Yellowstone, which is just a juggernaut. I think it is the most watched show of the summer. It's season two. It's happening right now. You can watch it.

You can catch up on old episodes, but he's on it, and he's obviously the biggest star on it, and he's one of the biggest stars of the last 35 years. I've been dying to have him come on. You'll hear all the stories of our background, and man, this is great. Kevin Costner right now.

Been waiting for this for like five years. You even came to a Grantland anniversary party. Yeah. And I was like, I got to get you on a podcast. You seemed mildly, relatively interested. Not really. Then I saw you last year and it seemed more realistic. And now you're here, Kevin Costner.

Well, it was. Yeah. The first one was a party. So you're kind of going. Let's say I also understand. I was like raised with wolves because it's like, what's a podcast? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can tell at the anniversary.

I don't know if we're going to like drink something. I don't know. What's a pod? I mean, there's a whole bunch of nomenclature with stuff. Yeah. And you go, I'm here to meet my kids. What is that? So podcast was really, I'm not sure. You basically did a podcast at my house at the anniversary party because it was like five of us and we were just asking questions.

And then at the end, I was like, this is what a podcast would be like. We just record this. Well, that was worth it. That was worth it. No, and the dinner was, I knew we were headed for each other. Yeah, it was going to happen. It was bound to happen. And you live outside LA, so you don't come in that often. You've been with Santa Barbara like forever? Yeah, I went out there 15 years ago. You know, I married a second time.

And, you know, sometimes women, they really help you with things. It was a beach pad. And I bought it between Revenge and Field of Dreams. I had a nightmare experience up there. You know, I had four days in between these movies. Long story. But where I stayed, my kids were in rose bushes. There were all kinds of – it was like this wasn't relaxing at all.

And I kind of made my first movie star thing. I called up a realtor and I said, hey, I got to – I need to see property on the beach. And the guy goes, I want to see houses. And I said, I don't want a railroad. I don't want a road. I want to like walk on the beach. And they go, when do you want to see this? And I said, I'd like to see it today.

And they said, well, we can't do that, but, but, but let me look at some listings. Can you go tomorrow? I said, yeah, we'll go tomorrow. I bought that place, uh, that same day and, uh, looked at five and bought it. Just, it was, I could flex where I never could flex before in my life financially. I said, I need this and started to go ever since. And when I finally met my second wife, we would go up there and she did this really simple thing. She said, why are we going back to LA on Sunday night? Why are we doing that? Yeah. I go, well, because I work. She goes, well, do you have work tomorrow? I said, no, but I have to do meetings.

She said, what kind of meetings? And I'm going, well, you know, I have like a, I got to keep things going. She goes, don't you think those same people would come up here? Oh, yeah, because you're pretty powerful at that point. Well, but, you know, your power is always in if you think that's what you think. I mean, I never felt like I could flex.

Suddenly now I can flex. I kind of hate that personality to begin with. Yeah, yeah. You know, I don't like that to begin with. I always thought I kind of had power, just the power to say no. But the thing that she did coming into my life was, you know, if you're conservative, you think you have something to do on Monday. When, if you're brought up in a blue collar background, why I go to work. And she goes, she just kind of opened my eyes. Like the scales came off and she did it real gently. And it was like, why are we going back? She goes, just because you think you're supposed to be back

on Monday. Cause I grew up in a family where he had one week vacation. And then my dad worked there 20 years and he got the second week and you're going to back to work on Monday. I remember that. I go, wow, we're in Yosemite. Why are we going? But we had to, because that's what my dad did. And she looked at me and she goes, why don't we stay till Tuesday? And we did. And we started where she kind of, I mean, I should have been old enough to think for myself, but it took her to kind of do that. And then, and then when we got married, we moved up there and we've been there for 15 years and I wake up on the ocean every day. I was flipping channels two weeks ago and Night Shift was on with Michael Keaton and Henry

Winkler, which is one of my favorite eighties movies and was the movie that made Michael Keaton a star. You're in this movie. You're in the morgue. There's a big party in the morgue after they have all these call girls. And there's Kevin Costner. Right. One of the frat guys helping somebody do like a beer chug or something. This was like 1982. It was. Was that your first break?

It was. Well, not so much my first. I tell you, my first break was when I finally started to listen to myself. And when you come from a conservative background, you're always kind of in a pleasing mode. You know, rock the boat. My brother was in Vietnam. Last thing I wanted to do was be a pain in the ass. So I kind of grew up playing by the rules, playing by the rules, going to go that particular direction.

And one day I thought I really needed to think for myself. Now, most people listening as a GCAP, we all think for ourself, but I didn't sometimes. I wanted to please. And I knew I needed to get out of that business and chase my own thing. So that was probably the biggest break I ever had in my life was I actually had an internal conversation with myself. I said, you can't just be pleasing everybody the rest of your life. You have to do what you know you can do and go that direction. Did you know you wanted to be an actor or you were just a handsome guy who knew you should do something? No, but I knew I was a storyteller.

And if I kind of retrace the breadcrumbs of my life, I see, you know, I grew up doing music in the Baptist church. I grew up doing poetry. I grew up writing stories. So if I look back, but the reality was I never, I thought people that were on the screen were born on the screen. I didn't compute that you could just do something. I also came from the background that if you're going to do something, you'd have been taking drama in high school. And I said, well, the people that did drama in high school were nerds. I didn't like that department. I didn't want to hang out of it. I went to Cal State Fullerton. I found myself want the breadcrumbs again. I wandered into that theatrical department. Everybody was barefoot. Everybody smoked cigarettes. Everybody sat cross-legged on the floor. It was a very bohemian

thing. And I thought, I'm not interested in that either, that kind of, you look the part. And so I kept brushing up against it, being pulled back away from it. But finally, when I looked back, I said, I can do this. I like this storytelling thing, and I'm going to burn my ships. I'm burning my ships. I'm Cortez. So the big show was then your next big break, but then you get cut out. I'm going to burn my ships. I'm burning my ships. I'm Cortez. So the big show was then your next big break, but then you get cut out. You get cut out. But I want to go back to that thing you mentioned about— Night shift?

Night shift, because there's something kind of interesting happened there. Yeah. I was asked to go down and read—there was a movie being cast in Hollywood, and I was a stage manager at Raleigh Studios. And I was asked if I could go. And I said, well, you know, I said, and they go, look, you'll get your SAG card. I was having a hard time getting my SAG card. So they said, if you go read, it was for Flashdance. I read every girl in town that was up for that role, the most beautiful girls, young girls, and girls that we all know today came through there. Demi Moore, Sean Young, all these different people.

I mean, you just keep going right down the list. And I read opposite, but what you have to understand is I was glad I was doing that every day. It was a scene where I was getting slapped the shit out of. And Michael Nuri ended up playing the part. I was never intended to play the part. But the big deal was I got $325. It was scale. I'd never made that kind of money.

I was working at Raleigh Studios for $3.50 an hour. And so I got my SAG card, the thing that I had been wanting. And it's really funny in life. If you get your SAG card, everybody goes, well, do a commercial And it's really funny in life, you know, if you get your SAG card, everybody goes, well, do a commercial. I was like, well, it's not that easy. You have to do it. Actually, it was Francis where I got it. But the reality was because I had my SAG card, I could do that reading. And then right after that, somebody said, they just saw me and they go, hey, we need some extras and we got to pay him SAG.

I did the Netflix thing. I did the Night Shift thing. And then a day later, they were shooting Francis with Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard on the same lot. That's a big movie. And they needed another SAG that maybe he's going to say something, maybe he's not. I don't even know my own biography anymore. But the reality was within five days, I had done Night Shift, Table for Five, and Francis all for SAG.

And I just kept going, 360 bucks, 360 bucks, 360 bucks. It was like four days of it. And it was a big deal for me. It was a really big deal. Did you think the big chill, you thought you were going to be in that movie with flashback scenes and stuff, right? Which you filmed. Yeah. I thought I would be. And at the end of the day, it didn't make it. I think you lived on in YouTube. I think there's some deleted cost. But everything happened for me in that particular movie that needed to happen. I was around the right guy and the right actors at the right time.

Wally Nesita, probably the most important, not the most important, that's a weird title, but she's a casting director. She's tough, really tough. I didn't figure a person like her would even like me, but she was a force of will for me. And Lawrence Kasdan had just come off the body heat. figure a person like her would even like me but she was a force of will for me and in laurence kazan had just come off the uh body heat and now he's doing the big chill and um you know a lot of times a studio has to approve everybody larry was gonna it had any didn't he write raiders too like he was he was he wrote continental divide raiders and Empire. Yeah. So his trajectory is like this.

But he was it. And he really was incredible. And so now he's doing Body Heat was just blew people away. It was so good. Yeah. Now he's doing The Big Chill, and he's casting all the young actors that are really out of New York, out of Juilliard. And he had to run those all by the studio. But there was one part that he didn't have to run by the studio.

It just could be him. And at least that's what I was told. And Wally kept saying, this guy, this guy. And he gave me the part. And everything I kind of based a lot of what I do came out of that experience. So not being in the movie, people don't understand. I didn't look at my movie as a one and done situation. I mean, I guess if I was in some state and a movie came in, like the circus, and they

said, hey, do you want to do these lines on the street corner? And now I take everybody to theater and that line's not in there. Maybe my career is never. But I had a bigger idea about what was going to happen. And when I was cast in that movie, I actually knew at that moment everything had happened. Yeah. Regardless of what happened with that movie. Everything that needed to happen for me at that point did.

Well, more importantly, Kasdan liked you and decided to put you in a movie. He did. He put me in a second one. He put me in Silverado. But it was the moment I got the part, I knew my life had changed. Not the moment I filmed it. Yeah. Not the moment I went down the red carpet.

Not the moment. It's like, listen, people can look at a game and tell when it's lost. True. People can look at a season and tell when it's over. People can look at a moment moment and I kind of choose to look at things really athletically. I even direct with a chalkboard sometimes.

If I get into a big action scene, I get a chalkboard out. And so you've got to be here when this explosion has happened. This is where you've got to be. You're like Belichick. Yeah, this is where you have to be. Because most people when I realize when you're looking at them and they're giving you chin boogies, their heads going up and down, they're really saying,

quit looking at me. Don't talk to me. I don't know what you're saying. Right. But they're doing that. And so when that bomb goes off and they don't go and you think, what the heck happened here? I was really clear with them. So I thought, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm getting a chalkboard. When that goes off, you're here. Yeah. And then when his head goes up and down, there's a visual. He's not frightened. But a lot of times, young actors or whatever, they're doing this, but they're not getting, they're just thinking, don't look at me anymore.

Yeah. And you move off. They move off. So Silverado, I remember that one, but the one when I, the first movie I remember seeing you in was American Flyers. Yeah. People think Breaking Away is the best bicycle movie ever. That's a whole—it's the consensus.

I'm an American Flyers guy. Interesting. I just love that movie, and it was on cable for like two straight years, and that's how I saw it. It was just on HBO and HBO2 over and over again. And when you're on detention and being kept in a room, you're like Papillon when you walked out of there. Remember when he took that extra step? Oh, yeah. Remember he went one, two, three, four, and then he went five?

That was a great moment in that movie, that thing. That's like one of those things when a writer hits something so perfectly that you can't explain life in prison. And then taking that extra step was like, you know, I love the poetry of stuff like that. So you were like the, one of the best bicyclists in the world was the gimmick, but you were, you were dying. Yeah. Yeah.

And you were like in crazy shape and the bike scenes are like incredible. And there's, what was it called? Like the hell on the something. Yeah, hell on the west. Hell on the west. They're shooting helicopter shots. And like you're doing all those stuff and you're in like crazy shape. And that was, that movie was successful.

But I think coming out of that, people are like, all right, that guy's somebody. I'm a breaking away fan. I mean. Yeah, it's a great movie. I'm a breaking away fan. I'm like, you know, it's like I thought that was great. But the writer was the same writer, the same writer who wrote Breaking Away. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And what was his name? Steve Tesh. Tesh. Tesh. Yeah. And and we lost him right away about two years after that. But that guy, I think, would have been a friend for life.

There was something about him that was really I really liked him. He was a real deal. Well, when people, you know, you're obviously the goat for sports movie actors. You've been in what, six? Could be, yeah. American Flyers always gets left out. They always go. Draft Day gets left out. Yeah. You've been in like six or seven. Pancake eating. Well, Draft Day came around because they actually, I want to talk about that a second no way out was when it all took off right no way out was a movie right after silverado i had been called by orion they want to have a meeting with me so i went and talked with a guy named eric pleskow yeah it was four guys that really ran orion mike medavoy bill bernstein

arthur creme and and eric pleskow they'd seen Silverado, which was a catchy movie. Yeah. I had a scene-stealing kind of part. You can see it on paper. It's like a lot of people go, oh, that person stole the movie or whatever. That can happen on Broadway a lot with really cagey actors. In film, it's on paper already. Yeah.

You can see, unless you're just a dummy. You go, you can steal this movie. But you're not supposed to steal it. You're working with everybody. You can tell what the flashy role is. Silverado was all of that for me. Did you think about that when you started writing stuff, creating roles like that for people? No. Yeah, you think about it. You just know it. But you want that to happen. When I'm a leading man, I need people to do the dance. I've always embraced the idea of somebody stealing or seeing stealing things because I know where I stand. I know how it works.

But that particular movie I knew had that kind of juice on it. And so I get a call from Orion. So let's come. We'd like to talk to you about movies, you know. And they pointed out some movies to me and all of them I didn't really, really care for. And I said, but if you really want to do something, I did read a movie that I liked. And they said, what was it? And I said, it was this movie over at Warner Brothers called Finish with Engines.

And they said, what? And I said, it's really good. I said, I'd do that movie with you. And so they read it and they said, what? I said, it's really good. I said, I'd do that movie with you. And so they read it and they liked it. Finished with engines is a naval term for shutting down the engines. You know those, you see on the Titanic, you see all that full ahead,

one third of those brass things? Yeah. Well, at the very bottom of it in the naval terms is the last thing. It says finished with engines when you turn them off. That became No Way Out. Oh, wow. So it was a movie I had found

and said to them, I'll make this movie. And so they did. And that movie came out really well, but they did an interesting thing. That movie was shot before Untouchables. And so I went right from No Way Out to Untouchables. And what happened was Orion was not, it was called a mini-major, kind of smaller movie, although they were making Oscar movies. Yeah. They didn't have the kind of dough that the big studios had. And so they looked at it and they go, we're going to let Untouchables come out first. And then I came out, they held it, and then came out about two months later.

Oh, wow. I don't, I feel like now looking back, I always thought No Way Out came out first, but I guess you're right. It was shot first. Yeah. But they, but they played, and I,

and I was thinking, what's going on here? Well, they, well, they're going to let that go. All right, well, I like No Way Out. I think it'll work. But they played that

and used the, the drum roll that came with that movie and rolled into No Way Out. So they played a, they played an interesting chess game with that movie. And No Way Out's one of those movies.

It's always on cable still, even all these years later. Yeah. It's just one of those movies that is always going to work. Yeah. The spy thing with the twist at the end. And it's just somebody getting murdered. I met Sean Young on that Flashdance thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I met Sean Young, and I thought, this girl is classically beautiful. This girl looks like a girl from the 40s. You know what I mean? Like, you know, those black and white traditional headshots. She looked like that. And I remembered her. I mean, people thought she was going to be an A-plus lister at some point.

She was a little too wacky, right? Didn't always go the way she probably wanted. Yeah. But she was perfect for us. And she was perfect in that movie you know so but i but um and then in untouchables you're in with de niro and connery and all of a sudden you go from four years you get cut out of big chill and now you're in a movie with de niro and connery yeah that's pretty crazy yeah that was that was and and then then at that

point i knew i was going to direct and you know people were – I didn't direct yet, but I was already headed that way because I worked at Raleigh Studios down here on Bronson, you know, right across from Vermont. That's what I knew I was going to do. And sometimes people said, well, you know, you're moving kind of quick. And I'm thinking, what are you talking about? I've been waiting forever to do this. Because this happened a little older. Yeah, I didn't emerge as an 18 year old. I, I didn't have that moment, that risky business moment of going across and, you know, being, it was later, but that was a function of me deciding in my senior year in college that this is what I was going to do.

You know, they always say that about celebrities, that the age you become famous is the age you're trapped at. And if you become famous when you're older, it's a huge advantage. I think Clooney said it. I think this is like a Clooney thing. Yeah. Because Clooney was always like the best thing that ever happened to me is when everything hit for me, I was like 29 or 31 or something. That's kind of where it hit for me. And you won it earlier.

Trust me. You think you're deserving of it. You think you're better than everybody else that's out there. You can't figure out why. It's not whatever. But it's a bigger thing. But as I was working at Raleigh, I was always thinking I'm going to direct. So what happened was as this kind of my trajectory was moving the way it was moving. I had, that was in my mind.

You're thinking like, this is all leading to me getting to direct my own movie. Yeah. What was your experience with fame? Is it like ballooned all of a sudden? You went from, you're just walking down the street. Yeah. And now all of a sudden you're like this guy people are staring at. You know, it's funny.

One of the first things I went to, I was asked to by Mike Medavoy. He said, I'm going to go to this lifetime. He'd have to go to all these functions around. I didn't even know the terms of things. In fact, on the night of my Oscar, I didn't go to Spago's or any of these places. And I think I pissed a lot of people off. But I had no idea that you were supposed to. People have no idea that I didn't really even know about the world except that I just wanted to tell stories.

Yeah. I didn't know the culture of it. I didn't know the whole thing that you make the rounds. I didn't know what was going to happen with our movie. So I got a restaurant with 100 people that worked on the movie and got 60, 70 tickets for the Oscar and said, well, we'll be together. So I never made the lap. And people were like, that fucking cost? Yeah.

What a prima donna. I had no idea. I was sure they weren't going to let my 50 friends in. Right. But I didn't know that that was a thing that you did. And so, you know, it's really, really, really strange. I forgot where we were at. We were basically like when the trajectory just flipped.

Well, you know, I think maybe what George was saying too is like I wasn't that impressed. I was just anxious to keep working. Yeah. That's where I was playing. That's how I played myself out. But the first time I was saying that I went to a function, Mike Medavoy asked me. He said, hey, I'm going to go to this Lifetime Achievement Award. I had no idea even what that was.

I must have lived in a cave, like I was saying. So I go to the Beverly, not the Hilton or something, right? Yeah. They do a lot. Golden Globes. And it was for Gregory Pack. And, yeah, I knew who he was. Yeah, yeah.

I loved who he was. And I remember walking in and the bulbs going crazy flashing i mean blinding and i walked in and and uh i don't think no way it out had come out yet and not a camera went not a camera went but i went in and watched one of the great ones one of the the greatest of all for sure uh he really is. And that was impressive to me. And four or five women who'd worked with him during the course of his career stood up and talked. And that part, I'm kind of in love with the poetry

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Because everybody has that run when they become red hot. Were projects just getting thrown at you? No, they were being thrown. You didn't know which one to do and all that stuff? Well, listen, I postponed Dances because I didn't have my ending right. Yeah. I didn't have it right, and I didn't have my ending right. Yeah. I didn't have it right and I didn't want to shoot. And so the movies I put in front of it were Field of Dreams and Revenge.

And because I waited, because I knew that the ending wasn't right, I watched really, really carefully, much probably more than I was. I was always educating myself. But in a way, the gun had gone off, and I go, I'm going to be directing this time next year. Yeah. And I really was watching close. And so people were saying— We skipped Bull Durham, though.

Huh? We skipped Bull Durham, though. Didn't it go Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Revenge, and then Dances? Yeah. But I really focused on—yeah, the Field of Dreams wasn't supposed to happen. I, you know, it just wasn't supposed to happen. It was a movie that was going to go the same time as Revenge. And basically, Revenge just kept getting postponed, postponed.

And I finally, you know, I just said to them, look, I read this little movie about the corn and I really like it. And if you don't sort this out, I'm going to do that. And it was a Ray Stark, a legendary producer, a tough guy said, I'll sue you. And I said, I know, I know that's, that's kind of what comes out of your mouth. And, uh, and, and, and, and reminded him at some point that he was a smart guy. Aren't you a smart guy? Yeah. And I said, you need to figure this out because you stretched me too much. So I did both of those particular movies, and that's when I came to dances.

And again, we've woven a tale, and I think I've forgotten the kernel of what fostered this whole. Well, I thought all the choices were really cool, though. What's that? Just the movies you picked. Oh, you said about getting any movies... All of them complement each other. You said movies anyone you wanted.

Yeah. Because you do two baseball movies in a row, which... That wasn't supposed to happen. People didn't think that was a very good idea on my part. But they were undeniable to me. Yeah. They were just undeniable. And I believe... I'm a script guy

and I don't believe in the elements. I believe in the script. So when you read the Boderm script, you must've gone nuts. It was, we didn't change a word. I've had about 10 scripts like that where we didn't change a word. There were just probably maybe eight more than most people. They're always manipulating them. I've read some – I've been a part of some things that just didn't change because they were written and written and rewritten. And I guess that's what written and written means too. Yeah.

You need to catch me if you can. We'll edit that out. But the idea of doing anything I want, yeah. And I remember – so I postponed Dances. And then I got – now those two movies were over and now I was prepping this movie. Couldn't get the money. Found $9 million overseas. Both movies, two American movies I made, Open Range and Dances with Wolves, I couldn't get them made at first here.

And the first money came from overseas. Dances did, Open Range did. What's crazy is you couldn't get Dances with Wolves. I couldn't get them made at first here. And the first money came from overseas. Dances did, open range did. What's crazy is you couldn't get dances made. You'd had like seven hits in a row. Yeah. They didn't want to make it, so it was like, okay, I'm going to make this. What were they just thinking like that? Like, no, we're 1800s, westerns, it's not happening.

The problem was me because I did tell them that it was going to be long. I told them ahead of time. I said it's going to be three hours. I told everybody because I went through the system twice. Finally, on the last one at Warner Brothers, when they said, we'd really like to do this, but when you did the subtitles and they go, it's going to be long, it's going to be three hours, and it's going to be subtitles. We'd really like to do this with you, Kevin, but we really, we don't think we can. And two guys who are my friends to this day and were really helpful in my career,

they said no to me. And I said, just before I walked out the door, I was in with Jim Wills, my partner. I said, oh, I probably should let you know about one other thing. And they said, well, what's that? I go, I need to have Final Cut. And I got up and walked out. And as I walked out my producing partner, if that was the door and this big round table and wonder, but as soon as we got another side of the door and I use this for

inspiration and in 13 days, actually, um, as soon as we got outside the door, the door shut and he goes, what was that about? Yeah. And he had to talk like that, because I'm like, what was that about? And I go, what was what about? He said, the final cut thing. Yeah. Why would you say final cut? And I said, well, didn't you hear him? And he goes, what? And he goes, they don't know that the

subtitles are really important to the sense of humor. I said, and they don't know that the length is really not intentional, it's just how long the story goes i said how can i let my film go to this place if we don't have final cut yeah and then we walked down the hall i mean you had there's 17 ways that film could have gone wrong if you didn't have final cut right they could have said hey we took out a half hour listen it all could have gone wrong with me because i was the only one that could ruin it once I decided to make it because I had a great script.

Now I'm thinking, this is a great script, but I don't have a lot of experience here. So, you know. And you had to also be the lead actor in it. What's that? You had to be the lead actor and direct it. Yeah, exactly. I'm always amazed when anyone can do that. Yeah.

It's just really hard. I don't know. To remember what you're performing. Bill Hader's, I'm friends with Bill Hader who's doing that now with Barry where he's directing a lot of the episodes, he's writing them, but he's also performing in it. And he said it really took him a couple episodes

just to figure out how to just become these different people on the set where I'm in charge, but now I'm acting. My problem was I give myself too few takes. I kind of like do it, and then I start to move on, and finally my producing partner says, you need to give yourself more takes. You're not rushing anybody else except yourself.

Oh, that's interesting. You know, don't rush yourself. So you need like an offensive coordinator to just get you to do a second take. Give yourself another, you know, whatever. Don't rush yourself. Because I was like, sometimes a scene wasn't over i go that's great we got that and it was like i realized the camera was on me i'm looking at everybody else well you also you'd hit this point and i want to go backwards to talk about the two baseball movies in a second but you would hit this point heading into that movie where people were like

ah fuck this guy he's gonna direct a three-hour Western. Yeah. And you could— Well, none of them knew it was going to be three hours, but they were saying, fuck this guy. For some reason— He's going to direct it? And what does he know about directing? Wait, that goes back to your core question. You said, could you do anything you wanted?

What happened was right after Field of Dreams and Revenge, I get offered Hunt for Red October. Oh, seriously? Yeah. Oh, you'd been good in that. And I had to say no. And they go, seriously? Yeah. Oh, you'd been good in that. And I had to say no. And they go, what? And Mace Newfield, who I got No Way Out made, he was the guy.

But that movie wasn't getting made. It was in turnaround. He was the producer of, I think, of Hunt for Red October. And they said they'd pay me $5 million. That was like $4 million more than I'd ever been paid. That's like $4 million more than I'd ever been paid. It was also, I was also in the hole with having put my own money in dances. So I'm thinking to myself, yeah, I'd like to do Hunt for Red October 2. I'd like to have $5 million.

I get it. But I gave my word I'm doing this movie. And that set off some weird drum roll that I turned my back on that. And now I'm out there doing some movie that's just going to tank. That started the drum roll from somewhere. I don't know who did it, why. But it was me being arrogant enough to say no to 5 million. But I wasn't saying no to that.

I would have said yes to that 100,000 times. But I had already said yes to something else. And I wasn't posting. I didn't realize you put your own money in Dances Wolves. Yeah. Most people try not to do that. Well, I know. Listen, I'm- I like it. I'm a big bet on myself guy.

Yeah. One more good deal and we're both out of business. Probably. I've had to do that and I did that there. I mean, that movie cost $16 million. Yeah. It was a lot, but i didn't have to put in 16 it's funny that era of so late 80s early 90s was this era of movie coverage you had premiere magazine spy magazine was out there you had new york magazine was writing about stuff it was and i remember reading all the stuff being in college and it was the first time i was aware of like the different narratives not never knowing what was true and one And I remember reading about like Costner's making this Western. He's directing it.

And I remember like the kind of snark that came with it. And then it became obviously way bigger than we thought. The good news was I didn't hear about that until I came home. I was out in South Dakota for 108 days. Jesus. Most movies are like 50, 60 days. Well, I was, this movie was taking it. You know, it was like I had to, you know, I only went like 3% over budget, even though I went over all those days.

You've really been in a lot of states. Yeah. Like you've been to Iowa, South Dakota, Colorado. You probably have the most interesting map of where you film movies. Well, if you do a sequel, you go to the same state. If you do those things, you're going to end up in the same places. Wait, let's go backwards a second to Bull Durham. Yeah.

Was Crash Davis, how much of Crash Davis was Crash Davis, script Crash Davis, and how much of it was Kevin Costner taking the Crash Davis DNA. Yeah. Well, Ron split that up. But the point was I never changed the dialogue. Because it always felt like that was like kind of alternate universe Kevin Costner in that movie. Like if you had just been a minor league baseball player, that was you. Yeah.

Well, you know, the one thing I got from Bull Durham, I bought that car. Did you really? I have it in my garage, that green Shelby Cobra. Seriously. I got that. Put that thing on eBay. You could make Hunt for Red October, too. Just fund it yourself. We could make some dough.

That's so funny. Yeah, I wonder what that thing is worth. Oh, my God. Well, especially if it's the Bull Durham car. Yeah, it is. I would say that's worth like $700,000. Yeah. I won't make a movie these days. No, especially if it's the Bull Durham car. Yeah, it is. I would say that's worth like $700,000. Yeah. That won't make a movie these days.

No, it won't. It's indie. It won't make a movie. But Shelton, you know, he's this toughest guy you'll ever want to meet, and he's just got this heart of a poet. And, you know, he played with gritch and baylor and the and the baltimore yeah organization but you know he was always kind of right in the back of the bus and um and he wrote that he wrote that thing and it was just letter perfect and it was um it was i you know like field of dreams i knew that was great but no one was going to make that either

because i'll tell you what happened. We tried to make it. We were like a couple of hookers on Santa Monica for a month trying to – I was going to everybody. I didn't go to Orion where I'd already made two movies with. Why? Why not go there? Well, there was a couple of reasons. One, they had two other baseball movies.

They had Dangerfields, The Scout, and they had 8-Minute. Oh, yeah, that didn't work. 8-Minute was good. But the point was they're eight that didn't work that was good and but the point was they're not going to take on a third movie so i didn't want to kind of push my friends into it i thought oh so we went around and um no one would do it no one would do it uh finally fox was going to do it but they they'll do it for four million that's what they we needed six million dollars to make this movie but they had worked it so low that million. That's what they – it needed $6 million to make this movie. But they had worked it so low that Ron was just looking at me. Then I get offered Everybody's All-American, which I really liked.

And I said to Ron, I go, Ron, you know, I like this movie, although it changed. And there was parts of it that I didn't like anymore on paper. But I wanted to do Everybody's All-American. But I said, I'll stick with you, but we can only go through this a little bit more. So we still didn't have any success. I decided I called the guys at Orion. I said, listen, this is a baseball movie. I said, it's Thursday.

I said, it's great. I know your foreign guys said there's no upside in baseball movie. I said, it's Thursday. I said, it's great. I know your foreign guy said there's no upside in this movie. I said, I think it's great. And I said, but you're going to have to tell me tomorrow at noon on Friday. That was Eric Kleskow, the same guy that I talked to about Silverado, right? And about five minutes to noon, he called me and said, we'll do it. And they took Bull Durham. I mean, that's purely we want to stay in the Kevin Costner business,

I would guess. Yeah, I mean, maybe I should have led with that, but I kept saying that movie's great. That movie's great. And they're going, movie, movie. Well, it was great for you because it was a great part. It's become an iconic sports movie, but more importantly

you got to show off your baseball skills yeah and that was an era where before before that movie most times when people were in a movie

it was usually an actor they were shoehorning into a sports movie who couldn't actually carry it everybody was so impressed like you looked like a catcher I had a

yeah I had I had a thing happen on you know he went out and cast all the teams and that we would play against and they were all like double-A, triple-A players. Yeah. And they all came to the park, Bull Durham Park.

And so there was 60 guys up there, and, you know, they were dividing things. Everybody established that they could play, but they were all having hitting practice. And I was really ducking my turn. I was just thinking, Jesus, I was just kind of ducking my turn. And it was a big part. Grady Richardson, who actually coached the Atlanta. Yeah.

And he was the minor league guy. And he was in, in. So you felt like a ninth grader at varsity baseball tryouts or something. I just didn't want to go up there. I, you know, I hadn't really even worked out,

but I, I, I remember finally, I was like, wow. And I, and it finally got to the point where I did, and nobody gave a shit who was hitting. but when i went up there i could feel everybody kind of just stopped

talking because there was 15 guys and right there was six guys here or whatever and they're like oh here comes the big shot something happened that never happened to me before number one i i went up there i was really really nervous That's not what never happened before. But I was really nervous. And I remember the first pitch came, and I fouled it. I fouled it straight down, but I fouled it, which was the inspiration for me to just dribble that ball out in Field of Dreams. It just dribbled out.

Oh, yeah, that's funny. Yeah, I remember telling the director on Field of Dreams, I said, wouldn't it be better that I said it's really hard to miss a ball when you throw it up in the air. It's one of the hardest things to do is miss something on purpose. I can drop something, legitimately drop it, but to drop something on purpose, even Olivier can't do that. It looks like you dropped it. I said, but if I hit the ball and it went, as the guy playing with Shoeless Joe Jackson, you want to hit it out there for him. You really want to, and I, so I said,

rather than miss it, what if I top this ball and it just dribbles out six feet where I have to go get it? And he goes, you can do that? And I said, yeah, I play streetball a lot. I can do that. So I did that. That was the inspiration. But that same thing happened to me right there in Bull Durham. I take a swing and I hit it.

And where I should have been humiliated, I wasn't. I was thinking, shit, man, at least I, okay, I just tipped it. And it was like my first cut, I tipped it. So the second pitch, I hit what only could be termed as the softest line drive you'd ever want to see. It just had nothing on it. It kind of, it wouldn't even have bent the grass if it hit it. But it went to the shortstop out there. There was three or four shortstops because everybody was hanging out.

He just kind of put his glove up and it was kind of limply. It had nothing on it, right? And I stepped out of the box and I go, what is wrong with you? Same talk I had with myself in college that I'm going to do this. I'm going to take control of my life. I had right there. I said, I'm the only guy here has a job. Are you kidding me? I'm making over a million dollars. I'm the only one here has a job. And I stood back in there and something happened that never happened before and didn't really happen that day. I hit it over the fence at like 365. Wow. I'd never hit a home run in organized baseball and all the baseball I ever played. I

was never a home run here. I had a couple in the side, the park, never hit one in Little League, in Babe Ruth, in high school, never hit a home run. I'm 28 years old, 29 years old. I hit my first home run right in front of all these guys. And then you have to act cool. Well, I was. I didn't have to run. If I had to run, I would. But I hit a home run. That's amazing. And I've had these kind of moments in sports, and that was a moment.

Yeah. So that was it. You had the confidence after that. Yeah. Well, I had the confidence when I had the talk. It wasn't the hit that did it. See, are you taking notes, Kyle? This is what you need to do.

Just take deep breath. Remember who you are. The talk was the thing. Next time you play sports. The talk was the thing. Yeah, self-talk. Okay, that thing was what everybody else saw. Me driving down the freeway after getting the part in Big Chill, my career had changed. Yeah. In the freeway, it had changed. I know when I've talked to you about when the momentum of something changes, you feel it. Yeah. When I had that talk, that's where it happened. The swing was what the swing was, what the world gets to see. But it's not always defining who you are.

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Tarantino Week, let's go. All right, back to Kevin Costner. Did you click with Susan Sarandon right away? Pardon me? Did you click with her right away? Yeah. How does that work with actors? Like sometimes it's there. Let me tell you what, you want to see a heavyweight fight. There was a heavyweight fight there. And I'll tell you what it was. This part was as good as Crash's part. Yeah. Her part was as good as Crash. Nuke had a fabulous part. But that was a career-changing part for someone. And it came down to two actresses.

And I'm not going to tell you who the other one is. Oh, come on. No, I can't. It's been 30 years. No, I can't. Because the reality is it broke my heart because I knew. And the person that went up for it was really good. Yeah. Really good.

Sexy, smart actress. And I thought, these two women both, if you were a beginning actress, you don't even stand a chance against them because what was on the line there was a second half of a career. Yeah. A second career.

And Sarandon came in and Ron had to choose between two great actresses. And Sarandon got it. And she was. And you're right. It's her next eight years of her career. But it's so weird. Everybody's looking at who got it.

And for some reason, I'm looking at this and I'm thinking the other actress. I'm thinking. Because Sarandon went on a Sean Connery run. Yeah. Like, you know, where's Sean after Bond or something? She was always a great actress. She had a really great career. There was this, like, little middle ground,

and then Bull Durham came along, and she just showed everybody who she was for the next 25 years. Yeah. That was that big a role. And so I kind of go through this business looking sometimes not at what everybody else is looking at. Well, she's somebody who won. I'm liking, I'm looking at like, look who lost what. Yeah. You know what I mean? I see a different narrative a lot of times and what I see. She's somebody that almost like an athlete

was like a lottery pick. Like she had been in a couple of really good movies a little bit earlier. And then as sometimes happens with actresses, sometimes you get a couple of the wrong parts. There's less parts in general. You can go five years and not have a good part. Exactly. But that was a, that was a, that was a complete, so I'm always cognizant of that when I'm giving parts, that you change lives. Because remember Atlantic City with Burt Lancaster? She was like—you left that movie. You're like, all right, she's a star.

That's right. And then sometimes you don't get the part for a while. But that girl felt like a best friend. Can you explain the Tim Robbins throwing motion to me? So did he throw out his arm? What happened? It's the flaw of the movie. Listen, he, you know, I don't think.

It's just hard to buy that he's throwing 99 miles an hour. No, no, of course not. Yeah, of course not. You see that perfectly. But that's what's so interesting about sports. Yeah. About things. Because understand something.

Olivier, if he can't really pitch, he might be the greatest actor that ever lived. He ain't going to make it in a baseball movie. And even the non-athlete can look at somebody who is not an athlete and can tell. There's something undeniable about that. Tim played the role. But you can't really always fake baseball. You just can't do it. There's a reality thing there.

But Ron totally supported him, and he was everything we needed him to be. But you're not wrong about what you see or what you saw. It's hard to throw a 90 anyway. I threw 84. What did you throw in for love of the game? 84. That was 84? Well, you were older then, though.

Yeah. Were you 40 at that point? You must have been. I was over 40. Yeah. Ricky Green was the umpire. He's the one that told me. Ricky was a national, he was a professional baseball ref.

Yeah. And umpire. And I happened, you know, I tried to be careful with all those young guys because they were out of the farm system too. I, I had brought my friend Augie Garrido in to play the manager of the Yankees. Yeah. And then he would also go pick the other athletes that would play in the movie that weren't have, didn't have really speaking roles.

So Augie came and, and, and, and he did all that. And I was real conscious because a lot of these guys, you know, had an opportunity at careers, you know, and the last thing I needed to do was hit them because I was getting revved up in front of a crowd and throwing and hitting them. How many people at the, at those, at For Love of the Game? Did you have, how many extras were in there? They probably three or 4,000, 5,000, sometimes, maybe not that many. We moved them around. There's a couple stories there that you can't believe.

Maybe we'll get to them. But anyway, with that thing, I was throwing about 200, 300 pitches a day for about 18 days. It's one of the great pitching performances in the history of baseball. I don't know how you didn't blow your rotator cuff out. I was in pain. And Rich Chili Davis came back, and I was in a thing. He goes, good God, what's happened to this guy? He just came back from the World Series. And I was in there and

the blood was pumping at my heart on everything. And I finally just vomited. The pain was so great. And Chili goes, what are you guys doing? And they were doing everything wrong. We ended up getting the actual trainer for the Yankees. And I hope I'm not talking out of school here, but the reality was this guy came to my rescue. I started having to take a little bit of stuff. Yeah. I had to start to take a lot of stuff. Some recovery.

Well, just to get through the day. There's no recovery. You weren't getting suspended. That was my point to him on the last night, and I'll tell you that story. I used David Cohen. And so I was throwing that many pitches and I was also getting kind of juiced up too. Yeah. And on the last day we decided we were going, not decided, we knew we were going to do it. We were going to simulate the whole game day into night, starts in a day, end of night,

six cameras, all the same cameras that the TV at that time was actually covering Major League Baseball, all the same angles. So it was like a real, real game. I actually think it's some of the best baseball footage ever done in a sports movie. And by that time, thanks. And by that time, everybody knew the game. Everybody knew the pitches. Everybody knew what each batter was supposed to do.

But I was going to have to go out and pitch for about five and a half hours, six hours. And so I get the trainer and I said, hey, man. You're like Cy Young in the 1800s. I said, I got him and I said, hey, look, what if you had a player who was never going to play again? David Cohn, this is his last game. He needed the game. You didn't want to do certain things, but David says you need to do it. I need to do this thing. I said, I'm not going to get through this. And I said, whatever we've

been doing, how this dose has been going up, we have to go higher. I said, I have to, you know what I have to do now, because he didn't even know how a movie worked. By now he'd seen what I'd been going through. I said, I can't get through this. I said, we have to, I said, I need a couple of green ones. I need the blue ones. And I said, I need one that you haven't brought out yet. I need whatever you haven't brought out yet. Look, Kyle's taking later. And because this isn't a day. And I looked at him, I was serious. I said, I need to do this because I can't not go anywhere. There's six cameras. We're going through the night. And Steve looked at me and he's like, okay. And so we took him.

He put a bunch on my arm, wrapped my arm, was going to start in the daylight. And I start to go up the steps. And the last thing he says to me as I'm walking up that steps, he said, you're going to growl at a few people. And I'm thinking, how hyped up am I going to be? But that was his words to me. I'll never forget him.

You're going to growl at a few people. And I remember that scene where I almost hit that guy. Yeah. In the one pitch. I almost blow the perfect game by throwing at him. And he starts complaining. I come off that mound. I was like, if you ever look at that thing, it was like he said something.

I don't know what stuff snapped at me. I came about 15 yards or 10 yards down the mound. When you're dead serious about something, you walk off the mound and you're like, I just meet somebody and then the guy throws me the ball here and I just catch it here. I never stopped looking at it and go back to the mound. But you're going to growl a little bit was what happened with that movie. Unbelievable. I mean, the most amazing thing about that is that nobody in charge of that movie thought, hey, is it a good idea to have Costner and throw 200 pitches a day for 18 straight days?

How does real baseball work? Like, where was the baseball consultant? I knew how baseball worked I just kind of looked at August the one who's like going you know August like you know I mean this guy's getting world-class athletes to come to Texas you know yeah and it's like it is what he is but um it's just what it was it's just what it was and I never had a a better time and and in fact I had this one crazy moment in that game where the cameras, like you asked how many extras were. We moved them around. And those extras out there, they were outrageous.

They had gambling going on. They had prostitution going on. Because they were there all night long. You know, they used cardboard cutouts to make the crowd look bigger. They'd cut holes down where their deal was. Oh, my God. And they would be there and their deal would be out, you know. And, you know, no one really saw it, but that's what they were doing.

Jesus. They were out of control. There were people that basically said, hey, do you want to make $150? And on anybody in the street, and they all go, yeah. And they were the ones that were in the stand. And I had been really good to them, really good to these people. I was throwing balls in there constantly. I fungiled them up.

I'd throw it up into the upper deck to them. I was doing all this stuff. I was a little bit cranky too. And other people were stiffing them. But for 18 days, I kept those people happy. I really did. And now, for whatever reason, in the simulated game, I think it was that night, I think it was, a guy hits a big pop fly down the third base line between the dugout and the line.

And I start to move on it because you just move on a ball. In big leagues, they let the third baseman get it. They let the to move on it because I just, you know, you just move on a ball and big leagues, they let the third baseman get it. They let the catcher get it. I kind of went this way and none of those guys go after it. And now I'm kind of in this middle ground. So I just kind of run over a little farther and now I'm about 10 feet from the dugout and all the crowd happened to be right there. They weren't over here. They weren't over here they were they were right there i catch the ball and it's like you know i get i i get a little tennis clap because i catch it i'm i shouldn't it's not going to ever be in the film because uh it wasn't it wasn't part of that guy that batter's thing so i start walking back and as i walk back somebody in the crowd says you know you know and there was something in

me like they said they yell the yeah yeah yeah yeah and it was like i was almost stepping over the line like burt lancaster go back and pitch and i stopped and i turn around and i walk right back to these 5 000 people who all kind of go, what's going on? Because I heard the guy say that. Now I'm right at the base of the dugout. And I go, I said something like, yeah, I said, you know, and everybody was like really quiet. And then it was kind of like a bummer to the whole thing, 18 days. And I go, you know, and they were real quiet. Now I turn to go back to the mound and they all turned on me really bad. Now I'm like, you know, if this and there was real quiet. Now I turn to go back to the mound, and they all turned on me really bad.

Now I'm like, you know, if this was a Coliseum, it's like, fuck you, Billy Chappell. Fuck you. Fuck you, fucking Billy Chappell. And I'm thinking, I'm walking back, and I go, why did I even go over there? What the hell did I do? 18 days just like washed out. Fuck you, Billy Chappell. Fuck you.

You know, that whole thing going on. And I'm thinking, wow. So I get back on the mound and look over there. I throw a pitch. Same thing happens. Big pop fly, a major league pop fly right over in that same place. I take off running again there. I'm not even thinking.

Now the third baseman catcher, they don't move either again. Now I'm in the middle ground. I really can't back out. The ball's coming down. They're going, fuck you, Billy Chapoper. And I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, oh my God, I'm right here in front of these people again. And I go, catch it behind your back. And I think, I can't do that. I haven't done that since high school. Just catch it behind. And if I do that, they're going to be miserable. I put my hand behind my back and the ball went in. It went into the glove. I kid you not.

10 feet from this crowd right at the thing. I don't even know why I did it because my chances of being humiliated were way greater than catching it. I'm just telling you. But it was that 10 second, it was that talk in college. It was that thing. You got a job at Bull Durham, get up there.

And it's like, you know, whatever. I go, just up there. And it's like, you know, whatever. I go, just do it. And I went like that and it went in. The oxygen went out. No one said a thing. I catch the ball. I just look at them. Look at that guy.

I turn around. I walk back and all the crowd turned on him and go, fuck you, that's Billy Chapo. You fucking, you're a, you know, they're calling him these vulgar, vulgar names. They just turn on this guy who was like this. And I'm walking back. And it could have gone just as.

Unbelievable. It was a weird moment. And it was more like, what do you care? Stick your glove out. And it went in. Well, and then they're filming the movie in sequence, basically. And you're actually dying on the mound like Billy Chappell. And then Vince Scully's going, there's Billy Chapp billy chapel he can barely throw it and they're cutting to you

and you look like you're dying on the mound because you actually are bill vince gully when i went to see him do that he's amazing in that movie let me tell you that's kind of his best performance ever other than like a kofax though hitter i went saw him come narrate, and he narrated the last inning because they didn't do it at that point. And he was down there in Santa Monica, and I went in with the director, and the director was like, okay, we're going to want you to do kind of this, and it's kind of like this. Take a look at this.

This is how long the inning is. And he said, well, let me see it. So they kind of showed it to him, and it was like probably a seven-minute sequence or whatever. And Vin goes, okay, well, let's just run it now. Billy Chappell, 40 years old. And he's ad-libbing. I'm telling you, he, you know, will he live?

Will he go on his life or his life itself? And he said, don't tell anybody that Fordy doesn't believe it. He's like going there, right? He gets to the end, and he looks at the director and goes, you know, how was that? And we're like, how was, and the director, I remember Sam Raimi looked at him and he goes, that was unbelievable. And he goes, well, do you want to do another one? And Vin goes, what? And he goes, well, maybe you just want to do another one.

And it was a fair request. But Vin is like an artist. He's sacred. He's like, well, what? And he goes, well, maybe we'll just get something different. And Vin goes, of course. And he did it again. And there was these

other things that came up and um that's you know i can't believe you made him do it i met him two times you know i i met him really early in my career before i even maybe had one credit it was at lakeside at the golf course yeah and there was a bunch of men out there and like i didn't really play golf and and i maybe once a year with the father-in-law and he was in that thing. You're not going to let me be late for Kimmel, are you? No. What time do you go to Kimmel? Cool. What time? I don't know. I don't care about Jim anymore. I don't care about Jim anymore. This is so much more fun. So anyway, I'm out there playing golf and he's in this foursome, fives i made it odd but no one's saying anything right i mean they're all playing and i'm just struggling doing the best i can but the third hole i'm just

being really quiet i've known him my whole life and way grew up with him yeah and he looks over at me he goes sure put kevi put a y on my name. It's your cut, Kevi. That's never happened before, I'm guessing. My dad. Okay. It's your putt, Kevi. And I went like, he just made me feel so great. And then I wanted him to do this. And then he asked me to speak at his retirement. Which you just said yes to immediately. No, I said, I said, no, no, no. I don't know if you ever saw it. It's at Dodger stadium. Yeah. Did you see it? I did. You weren't in it? No, I did. I spoke for about 10 minutes. How do you turn that request down? Because you don't, if you have your shit together, you don't even think there's 50 other people that should be

talking here. I mean, it was going to be like three people. It was going to be Koufax, me, and Gibson. And I said, there's got to be- There's three Hall of Famers. You're asking me. I'm telling you. I said, no. I was turning it down. I said, no. I said, no, there's no. And it came back with, will you be the emcee? And I said, no. I said, if you want a great emcee, get Costas. I don't do that either. And they came back and said, no, Vin really wants you to do it. And, um, and I said, well, and they said, well, look, you just get up there and you'll do two minutes. And I said, I said, I'm not your guy. You know, I make three hour movies. I said, I'm not looking to talk long,

but if you want me to talk about Vin Scully, I'll talk till I'm done because I'm going to talk for everybody. And they went like Steve Young, no, no, Mike Young. Yeah. When he worked for the Dodgers, that guy was great to me. He said, you do whatever you want, man. You do whatever you want. And I said, really? And he goes, yeah, whatever you want. And so I was able to talk about him. But those were my three times of really knowing him. All right, let's take a break to talk about WGU. It's an online university that's changing lives by changing higher education. It's an innovative, competent-based learning model, can't speak, was designed specifically to fit in the lives of busy adults. WGU is nonprofit and surprisingly affordable, offering bachelor's and master's degrees in business, IT, teaching, and nursing.

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like Microsoft, Amazon, even the government. Get your $65 application fee waived at wgu.edu.bs. That is wgu.edu.bs. That is wgu.edu.bs. Well, the best thing I've seen you do in that front, the Whitney Houston thing was incredible. Well, that was an interesting moment too.

You know, that was, I've had some interesting moments. You know, that was, you know, that was interesting. It seemed like i had no idea that you guys were close like that well we weren't close like or like that you had a connection we had a real connection we had a real connection and it was it kind of started with the baptist church and it started with me seeing how how nervous she was and tired those stories about her makeup and having changed it between the time i say yeah you're gonna be okay and then she changed her makeup and just and then looked in the exact opposite way that she would have wanted to look so i was able to come at that from that perspective you know that's an interesting movie it's. It's a very 90s movie. It has

one of the great endings of all time. And I don't know. It's just different. I don't even know what the 2019 equivalent would be, who the actors would be, but it feels like it belongs to a specific era. That was Lawrence Kasdan's first script. Really? Yeah. That was the first one he sold to Hollywood and it sat on the shelf for 16 years. And I said, I'm going to make this movie for you. And roll the dice with Whitney and hope she can act. And she was getting it. I, I, I felt, I felt that she wouldn't be tasked, taxed too much on it, meaning she had to be good, but it wasn't all riding on her. I, you know, it'd be like, it'd be like taking an athlete and putting them in the wrong spot where they can't succeed.

You just go, you ask too much. On the other hand, in this way that worked, if we watched her close enough, she would be great. But if we would have tipped the scale and added some more scenes, she wouldn't have been great. Right. So it was, you had to like, you have to look at everything and see how it fits. It's like, you just,

you just have to make, you have to, you have to win with a team you either create or have. Yeah. And you gotta, you have to look at the reality of that.

We didn't talk about Field of Dreams, which just had its 30th anniversary. Field of Dreams, 30th anniversary was this year. Yeah. We have a podcast that people like called The Rewatchables where we broke it anniversary. Field of Dreams. 30th anniversary was this year. We have a podcast that people like called The Rewatchables

where we broke it down. That's funny. The Rewatchables. Well, that's like the ultimate Rewatchable. That has certain parts of that movie where you're like, oh, he's going to get James Earl Jones. I'm in. I'm going to watch these next 20 minutes.

And it has all these hits. It's not a gun. It's funny to watch. Figures a gun. I mean, it's such a good movie. What's interesting about it is it belongs to this era when we still believed everything good with baseball. And then over the next era, you hit the late 90s,

they had the strike, the lockout. Didn't think about that. And then you have the steroid era. I never thought about it that way. And then it's like, because James Earl Jones has that speech about baseball is a part of us amongst the time, and he does the whole thing. It's good and could always be good.

Yeah. So you watch that now in that prison, and it's like, oh, remember when we felt this way? It's so adorable. Yeah. But that movie. Gil Hodges these names yeah

Mickey Mantle never thought of him as like anything other than just like the handsome center fielder on the X you know

I heard that Ron Shelton was in the airport and he saw Mickey Mantle and he told me this story and

I forget who told me this story but he sees Mickey Mantle and he told me this story and I forget who told me this story but she's Mickey Mantle and he goes he goes Ron did you go up to him he goes no no I mean that's sports guy no I don't do that yeah the old school is just what it is no I don't who would could love Mickey Mantle any more than somebody like Ron? Yeah. But no, no, no. And he goes, you should have. He was on Letterman last night. And I think that's how the story went. I said, what are you talking about?

He goes, he's on Letterman, and I could be getting this all wrong, but this is what Ron told me. And he was going off about the movie Bull Durham. And he said something like Letterman was trying to, well, no, it's funny. And he goes, no, it's sad. He goes, no, it's funny. You know, Dave was. Yeah.

And finally then Dave, I guess, didn't try to turn him. He goes, well, what do you mean? Because he had a lot of deference to athletes in a way. Yeah. He really did. I mean, he didn't suffer fools, but he also wouldn't try to make Mickey feel weird. Yeah. And he goes, no, that was sad.

And what do you mean? He goes, well, that guy could really hit. And he goes, there's a lot of players that never made it into the National League. They just sat behind guys and organizations just kept him. Especially in his era. In his era. And I know part of the reason that Ron modeled Crash Davis was a player that sat behind Brooks Robinson

and won the Triple Crown in the minor leagues like five years in a row. Right. And they weren't going to give him up. That guy now, you know, is like, you know, they're— Did you think Field of Dreams was going to work? Yes. I mean, it was super ambitious.

But not massively. Yeah, it was ambitious. And for a little movie, it was ambitious for one reason. It was like I had a real short intake of breath when I said, Dak, we have a catch. I had to remember that moment forever because that's how I make decisions about, am I going to do a movie? And I go, yeah, if we can get to that moment and take that moment where the hair on the back of your neck stands up and where you begin to weep and you don't even know why, that means we're going to have to do all these scenes that are almost dopey correctly.

They're dopey, but we didn't try to wink at it. It was real. It was that way, and that's what made that movie dangerous, hard, because it always bordered on dopey to begin with. Yeah, he's like a borderline lunatic. And then that's your big ending? That's your big ending? Let's have a catch?

And Phil Robinson, you know, I get so much credit for this, but Phil Robinson was the guy who wrote that, adapted. I never would have done that movie based on a pitch. I did it based on the script, and I knew the script had gold dust on it. I didn't know, obviously, that it would become part of the vocabulary. I didn't know that 30 years later it would find its way into the hearts of people the way it did. But it found its way into my heart, and that's why I challenged Ray Stark on Revenge and said, I'm going to do this movie in the corner. You know, we had like an eight-minute argument when we did the rewatchables pod about why they didn't carry the choking little girl onto the baseball diamond so Burt Lancaster didn't have to become Burt Lancaster again.

Why didn't— So she's choking. Moonlight Graham has to decide whether he wants to cross the line to help. You need that long walk. You need that long walk. No, I know. That's where we settled on. But I was like, couldn't he have just carried her

in the field and then he could have stayed in the game? No, it's a good point. You just, you know, and listen, movies are filled with those moments

and only the best of them, you know, you're doing it honorably when you're laughing at it. Especially if you see it 30 times. He should be doing handsprings in no time at all. Right, right, right.

You know, he struggled. You had a couple scenes with him. He struggled in an iconic scene and he was struggling that last night. He says, is there enough magic up there for you? Round third, wrapped your arms around the things. He was struggling that night. Struggling because he

was old or? Whatever it was. He couldn't get the lines. He was struggling and he was getting embarrassed and it was at night and it didn't look like he was going to and it was at night it was and and it didn't look like he was going to get it and he and he and he went over and he kind of whispered that he was kind of hoping that i would leave the set because i think he was embarrassed oh and i said no i said this is almost perfect we've got it we've got it perfect yeah i just said and i'm staying right here this is fantastic and the director hung in there and burt finally did it man this guy really

talked with his hands yeah son wrapped you know a lot of actors they said he was very histrionic yeah he would use his hands and he and hit it, and I knew it was perfect. I wasn't going to go anywhere. So now I'm right here. We're going to get through that, you know. So, you know, tell me, Mr. Kinsella, is there enough magic in the air? One of the things in the research was you had like 10 minutes to film the final scene with the way the light was and all the cars.

And the guy, you're throwing to your dad, and he's got some glove from like 1910. Right. He's got to catch everything in this like car. And he's kind of, it was kind of, I'd say in the Tim Robbins thing. Yeah. Of things. Didn't have a great throwing motion. He was a catch it and bring it down and incredibly,

and has carved out a great career over that movie. I read his book. He wrote a book about it, Dwyer Brown. And I had no idea the hardships. But he has traveled the country the last 20 years, 30 years talking. And he deserves every bit of it because he's such a humble guy. But that career, that moment for him, he has made the most of it. And not in an exploitive way.

It's just he's had a hard upbringing. And I'm so glad it was him now. You know, that was another one of my nitpicks after seeing the movie 800 times. How does Ray not realize sooner his dad's the catcher? What's that? How does he not realize sooner that his dad's the catcher? You've just spent too much time on this movie. I know.

This is the whole point of the rewatch. You're like, this is the whole point of this interview five years later. They're playing a five-hour game. You're pinning me back with my ears. He can't. He hasn't realized his dad's the catcher? Come on, Ray. Bill has thought more about this than you have, Kevin, and it's clear.

This is the point of that podcast. Wait, we got to do 10-cut quick. You're seeing, what is James Earl Jones saying? You're seeing an army of therapists, aren't you? Yeah, yeah. Oh, no question. That's to you. You've broken this down so beautifully.

That movie's been on for 30 years. Listen, I got flack about Leota not hitting left-handed. I remember that. It was like, and you know who I had out there? They had out there for the consultant, the baseball consultant, Rod Dato. Really? Yeah, Rod was out there. And hey, Tiger, you probably met him.

That's he called everybody Tiger and you know he was like oh man Kevi me and you are both gonna get killed for this him hitting right handed

I said I got it I got it and I got it but you know what they would do now they would just flip the the mirror

they would just flip the mirror and you'd never know or they would do some CGI thing or something I'm surprised you weren't drilling me on that one no cause that's already been people know that one it beat me up on that no that people know that one i love i love the we had to give i love the why not just

carry the child out because in a real in a real movie you would do that but in this thing we needed and no that music killed us oh my god you said don't across the line. Oh, my God. You said, don't do it. And it's like, oh, my God, you can't go back. Oh, my God. We didn't talk about Tin Cup. So you go, you do dances. You do a whole bunch of movies in the 90s. Yeah. And then you get sucked back.

You got to leave soon. So we got to concentrate just on sports movies. No, I didn't. No, Cup was the same thing. Cup was, you know, I'd just come out of Waterworld. I'd just come out of a divorce. And I was pretty beat up. And I said no to Tin Cup.

Beat up more from the divorce or from Waterworld or both? It was hard. It was really a 150-day shoot, 57-day shoot. It was hard. It was really one 150-day shoot, 57-day shoot. It was a lot. And I couldn't – I just – I loved it. But I go – I got to – I said I'm just not going to go on to another movie. This is one of the times where an agent really went – and not even my own agent – went out on a limb and called me um there's a woman over at ca and she says kevin i feel like this is a movie you actually need to do yeah me you know

emotionally get with your friend ron who'll protect you who will be with you get with him i don't want i don't want to see anybody else play this guy. And, uh, she was right. She, uh, there was some extenuating circumstances. She, she, she understood what I said. She came at me like a really soft backboard and I was able to wrap my arms around going off and do that movie. And I'll be forever thankful. Do you stand by the 13 to end the movie? Was it a 13? What's that?

What did Roy have on the last hole? 12. A 12? I always thought that should be our poster. Greatest 12 in history. Greatest 12 in history. It's funny. I didn't like it the first time I saw it that it ended with the 12 because I just assumed he was going to win.

We're conditioned the hero is going to win the sports movie. But now I'm glad it played out the way it did. The 12 was better. Glad you turned around on that. You have to go. You just have to come back another time. This was fun though, right? We have so many other things we could talk about.

Is this your first podcast? Have you done one before? No, I did one others. Who? This is bullshit. No, no. God, I'm dropping it. Who? This is bullshit. No, no. It's, God, I'm dropping it. A friend of mine.

Oh, well, this is. Jimmy Kimmel's best buddy. They did the man. Oh, Corolla. Oh, that's right. I wasn't mad about that. Yeah, yeah. No, I've had Adam out to the house.

Yeah, I wasn't mad. You guys like cars. Well, he likes cars. When I told him I had the car, I don't know cars. I just know I wanted that car. Corolla, on the other hand, that guy is special. I really like him. He's the funniest person I've ever met.

I had him up to the house, and he's such a solid dude. Yeah. All right, so you have to come back. This was great, though. I'm glad we finally did this. We at least did the sports movie. We didn't talk about draft day, but we can do that next time.

Because now the Browns have basically taken draft day and they made it the real movie. I mean, it's unbelievable. They went and got Baker Mayfield. They turned it around. It's like you're the GM.

Yeah, first they got, what's this? Mansell. Yeah. That was the bad version of draft day. But that was that, that's what draft day avoided. Right. That's what. Yeah. That was the bad version of Draft Day. But that's what Draft Day avoided. Right.

That's what he avoided. They obviously didn't watch Draft Day. Yeah, so it got Baker. But listen, I will do this. Thank you. All right, this is great. Thank you very much, Kevin Costner. All right, thanks so much, Kevin Costner.

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slash BS. Don't forget about two rewatchables, Top Gun, Reservoir Dogs, both up there. I'm going to be back on this podcast next week. Hopefully more sports stuff will happen. Until then. I don't have On the wayside