Summary
- Kevin Costner has starred in over 10 sports-themed movies, with baseball being his most frequent focus.
- Costner’s sports movies are not just about the sport itself, but aim to evoke emotions and connect with viewers on a personal level.
- Despite his success in baseball movies, basketball is actually Costner’s first sports passion, and he has yet to star in a sports movie about it.
Kevin Costner is a renowned movie and TV star and an Oscar-winning director, but he is also the king of sports movies. Before the actor got to play iconic roles, such as Jonathan Kent, Superman’s adoptive father in Man of Steel, and John Dutton in the western drama Yellowstone, he kept a powerful relationship with baseball, and although this career as a player didn’t work out, he managed to bring his passion for the sport to the movies.
Costner starred in a variety of baseball movies between the ’80s and the early-2000s, becoming a familiar face in the sports genre. His career is marked with versatility, ranging from action flicks to historical westerns that Costner himself directed, but his frequent presence in sports movies led the actor to gradually achieve an unparalleled status in the genre. Here’s how he became the king of sports movies.
Kevin Costner Has Starred in Over 10 Sports-Themed Movies
Ever since Costner made his film debut in 1981’s Malibu Hot Summer, he has starred in a variety of movies that revolve around sports, either directly or indirectly. The first was Chasing Dream, centered around the sport Costner would most often return to: baseball. Released in 1982, it’s a fairly obscure underdog story about a farm boy who wishes to become a baseball player. Costner stars as the hero’s older brother, but it wouldn’t take long until he appeared in the lead role in a baseball movie.
After his big break in the 1985 western Silverado, Costner went on to play one of his most iconic roles yet: Bull Durham‘s Crash Davis, a veteran catcher sent to put some sense into the head of the promising pitcher of the Durham Bulls. The film would be succeeded by Field of Dreams, a highly inspirational story that not only turned out to be an instant classic, but established Costner as a baseball star; just not on the actual field.
Apart from these three movies, Costner went on to star in two other baseball-themed films: For Love of the Game and The Upside of Anger. Of course, Costner’s status as a legend of the sports genre isn’t limited to baseball, but rather encompasses a variety of other sports and a dynamic set of roles. Released in 1985, American Flyers was Costner’s second sports film, where he plays a sports physician passionate about cycling, using it as a device to bring his estranged family together.
Following his successful ’80s streak of sports movies, Costner went on to star in: Tin Cup, where he teams up with Bull Durham director Ron Shelton to play a former golf prodigy; Play It to the Bone, a film about boxing, where Costner makes a cameo appearance as himself; NASCAR: The Ride of Their Lives, a documentary about auto racing narrated by Costner; Draft Day, directed at NFL fans with the actor playing a general manager trying to rebuild his team; McFarland, USA, following a real-life team of athletes; Fastball, a baseball documentary narrated by Costner; and Molly’s Game, the black sheep in Costner’s career, simply because it doesn’t cover sports in the traditional sense, telling instead a controversial tale of poker and gambling.
Baseball Changed Costner’s Personal and Professional Life
What all of Costner’s sports movies have in common is that they’re not simply movies about sports. They all share a highly inspirational note distinctive of movies that wants the viewers to actively feel something, regardless of whether they push it too hard, as in the case of McFarland, USA, or address the matter with a welcoming subjective tone, as in the irreverent Bull Durham. The majority of successful sports movies try to portray their protagonists as heroes in order to reach a wider audience. The viewer might not connect to the sport in question, but might as well feel related to the main character’s humanity.
That’s how sports movies guided by a character-driven appeal do numbers, such as I, Tonya, or Moneyball, two movies that made it to the Oscars. In the case of Costner’s sports movies, the baseball ones in particular, there’s a differing approach given how comfortable these stories are in the context of the game. Here, the inspiration lies in the field, and the power of succeeding or losing lies in the hands of Costner’s characters, the player, or in some cases, the veteran. He’s an enabler, and what makes his set of competitive roles feel so emotionally powerful is Costner’s talent to effectively display how the sports connect him on a personal level.
By watching Costner’s baseball movies, one doesn’t even need to look up whether he played the game before. The answer is crystal clear on the screen. Though he never made it to the professional level, Costner used to play baseball at Villa Park alongside promising wannabes such as Dennis Burtt, Minnesota Twins’ former pitcher in the Major League.
What’s funny in this whole story is how baseball wasn’t really Costner’s first sports passion. While baseball was the sport that launched him into stardom, a landmark in his ’80s career, the actor has always been fascinated by basketball. In an interview for The Guardian, Costner says, “I would stay out late playing basketball until the street lights came on and my father came looking for me.” There’s no doubt that Costner’s legacy as the king of sports movies lives on, as he’s yet to star in a sports movie about his first love: basketball.
