Kevin Costner knows who his audience is.
The Horizon: An American Saga star and director said on the Thursday, June 27, episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast that he is aware that his movies skew more toward men, but he insists on having “strong women” in them too.
“I make movies for men. That’s what I do,” Costner said during a live recording of “Happy Sad Confused” with his Horizon cast earlier this month.
“But I won’t make a movie unless I have strong women characters, and that’s how I’ve conducted my career. I think that’s why I have a good following,” Costner, 69, continued. “I thank you women for dragging your men here — it was a Western after all. I just can’t conceive of a movie without having [strong women].”
Costner added that while working on his planned four-part Horizon film saga, he “couldn’t conceive of a scene that didn’t involve a woman.”
The first part of the Horizon saga costars Sienna Miller, Jena Malone, Abbey Lee and Ella Hunt.
In the past, Costner has worked with powerhouse talent like Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard, who he has said he wouldn’t have made the movie without.
Earlier this month, Costner said on The Howard Stern Show that there was once even a script for The Bodyguard 2 which would have featured the late Princess Diana.
Costner said the sequel would have seen his former Secret Service agent, Frank Farmer, visiting Hong Kong to look after a prized racehorse when he is drawn into Diana’s orbit.
Costner said he was introduced to Diana by her former sister-in-law, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, in the 1990s after The Bodyguard came out and he pitched her the movie. At the time, Diana was separating from and divorcing her husband, King Charles III.
“I said, ‘I’m going to do Bodyguard 2 and I think I can build this around you. Would you be interested?’” Costner said. “She goes, ‘Yes … My life’s about to change.’ I thought I understood what she’s saying: ‘I’d like to open my life… I think I would like to do this.’”
Following Diana’s death, Costner felt the movie was no longer viable. “I could not replace Princess Di,” he said. “Kind of like, if I couldn’t have done Bodyguard with Whitney, I don’t think I was gonna make it with anybody.”
