Kevin Costner might not always be the easiest person to interview, and a New York Times columnist has a story to back this up. On March 11, Maureen Dowd released “Notorious: Portraits of Stars from Hollywood, Culture, Fashion, and Tech,” a 400-page collection of her most infamous celebrity profiles, including stars such as Uma Thurman, Elon Musk, and Kevin Costner.
In one vignette, Dowd opens up about a time in 1991 when she interviewed Costner in New Orleans.
“Things got off to a bad start as we were walking through the French Quarter to his hotel for the interview,” She wrote. “A group of sweet seniors shyly asked Costner to pose for a picture with them as he waited at a red light, tapping his cowboy boot in irritation.”
Costner’s patience was apparently running thin at that moment. Dowd recalls the Hollywood star snapping at the elderly women, harshly responding, “OK, but can’t you see I’m being interviewed?” Dowd said the incident was so off-putting that “it was like watching someone kick kittens.”
Later on, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist recalls Costner asking her with “cocky assurance” if she was going to play the interview tape for her friends. But an unimpressed Dowd wrote, “I told him starchily, ‘I interviewed Paul Newman and didn’t play that tape for my girlfriends. So I think I can refrain from playing yours.’”
This isn’t the first time that Costner has been called out for catching a bit of a ’tude during an interview.
In January, he did an interview on “CBS Mornings” with Gayle King, and during their chat, there was a little tension after King kept prodding Costner about the rift between him and “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan.
Costner, who was the star of the show, just about had enough of King’s questions after she brought up the allegations regarding Costner’s scheduling and compensation demands.
Asking him about it, King said, “But the characterization of you isn’t necessarily flattering. You made demands; you want to have a certain schedule, you want to shoot at a certain time, and you want certain money. If it’s not that hard, why can’t the two of you be able to work it out? People would love to see that.”
With a swift response, Costner said, “It’s not therapy, Gayle. We’re not going to discuss this on the show.” He continued, “I’ve conducted my life in a pretty straightforward way. I’ve never missed any obligations in my entire career.”
He left the show last year, announcing that he wouldn’t be returning for the second half of the fifth season.
Costner’s departure from “Yellowstone” appears to stem from scheduling conflicts. He even pleaded his case about the issues with Sheridan in an interview with GQ. Defending his commitment to the show, he said not only did he renegotiate his deal from filming three seasons to shooting seven seasons instead, but he also paused on filming “Horizon” to film “Yellowstone.”
But “Yellowstone” wasn’t consistent with their shoot schedule, and there were delays in completing the scripts. So, Costner was just waiting. He even offered different solutions to get the second half of season 5 done. Eventually, Costner was in a sticky situation because he had obligations and a contract for “Horizon” that he needed to fulfill.
When it got to the point that he only had a week left to work with “Yellowstone” before focusing on “Horizon,” he thought of another solution, which was for his character to be killed off. He told GQ, “I said, ‘Well, if you want to kill me, if you want to do something like that,’ I said, ‘I have a week before I start. I’ll do what you want to do.’ ”
Costner said that is how a rumor got started. “And somebody picked up the idea that I only wanted to work one week,” he said. “And that has been a carryover thing that I have seen in magazines: that I’ve only wanted to work one week.”
The 70-year-old said what really bothered him was that no one who worked with him on the show came to his defense.
