Kevin Costner wants you to forget one movie he's absolutely not proud of: "I wish I was..."
Kevin Costner was once best known for playing the confident gunslinger Jake in Lawrence Kasdan's Western movie 'Silverado'. The role was a way for Kasdan to make up for cutting Costner from his earlier film 'The Big Chill'. Costner had played Alex, the deceased character at the center of the story, but test audiences didn’t respond well to his performance. Other actors had made Alex seem so important that Costner, then little-known, couldn’t meet those high expectations. Although 'Silverado' gave Costner some exposure, it wasn’t a big hit when it came out in 1985.
So when Costner got the role of Eliot Ness in Brian De Palma's 1987 gangster film 'The Untouchables', Paramount Pictures went all-in to promote him. The studio wanted to present the 32-year-old actor as a rising star. In the movie, Costner wears stylish Giorgio Armani suits and speaks sharp dialogue written by David Mamet. With Sean Connery and Robert De Niro as his co-stars, and De Palma directing, the film seemed destined to make Costner a major movie star. Most viewers agreed that Costner succeeded in the role, but Costner himself feels he could have done better. He believes that he lacked the one thing his more experienced co-stars brought to their performances— years of acting practice, as reported by Slash Film.
In a 2024 interview with GQ to promote his upcoming Western epic 'Horizon: An American Saga', Costner shared his thoughts on 'The Untouchables.' Though the film is now considered a classic and earned $76 million in the U.S. (ranking as the sixth highest-grossing movie of 1987), Costner admitted he felt unprepared at the time. He explained, "'The Untouchables' was a really well-written script. David Mamet had written really a very perfect script, and so I wanted to be a part of it. Brian de Palma directed it, and of course, Sean Connery was in it, you know, Robert De Niro, and it was a good moment for me to be in that movie." Still, he felt his inexperience showed. "I actually didn't think Sean was the kind of guy that was gonna like me," Costner admitted. "I don't know why, but he did. He was good to me. And I learned a lot because my eyes were open. I wish I was a better actor when I did 'The Untouchables' but I was where I was at."
When 'The Untouchables' was released, some critics were tough on Costner. Roger Ebert wrote, "The script doesn't give him, and [Costner] doesn't provide, any of the little twists and turns of character that might have made Ness into an individual." However, this criticism may have missed the point of Costner’s performance. It wasn’t concerned with the real-life Eliot Ness, who later struggled with alcoholism and job troubles. It’s a work of fiction, full of exaggerated moments like a Canadian-border liquor raid with Mounties.
Ness, as written by Mamet and directed by De Palma, is a straightforward hero because that’s what the story needed. Costner played the role as it was intended. If he had been more experienced or confident, he might have challenged De Palma’s vision, which could have disrupted the movie’s balance. De Palma cast Costner at just the right moment in his career.
