The Big Issues 5/99

In Message in the Bottle, which is based on a best selling novel by Nicholas Sparks, Costner plays Garret Blake, a sailboat builder, who is grief stricken after the death of his wife, Catherine. A solitary man, virtually his only meaningful human contact is with his father Dodge (a wonderful Paul Newman) who is understandably desperately worried about his son's inability to get over his tragic past and move on. Garret is a man of few words. He has, however, pouted his heart out in a passionate love letter to his late wife which he placed into a bottle and cast out to sea. When the bottle is washed up on a beach and picked up, by newspaper researcher- Theresa Osbourne (Robin Wright Penn) it sparks a chain of events that will eventually bring them together. Theresa, a young divorced mother who is nursing her own emotional scars, is deeply moved by the anonymous writer's words and begins to search for clues to his whereabouts. When they eventually meet they are attracted but Garret is still in love with his wife and finds it terribly hard to leave the past behind even though he knows that Theresa represents hope and the possibility of a new love in the future.

For 44-year-old Costner, an Oscar winner for Dances With Wolves in 1990 and the star of hits like The Bodyguard, Waterworld, The Untouchables, JFK and Field of Dreams, Message in the Bottle represented the chance to make "a very beautiful, simple and very romantic story that hopefully will touch people".

It seems the dream of all actors that when they make it big they may some day get the chance to act alongside their role models. Costner's current movie gives him that chance to act beside his role model Paul Newman, so what was it like to work with Paul Newman'?

"Absolutely fantastic, I wanted Paul to play my father in The Bodyguard but he couldn't do it and I'm glad now because this was a much better part. He's just great, I've been a fan of his for years and to finally get to work with him was a big high, and actually, I think we're a good match physically, I think he looks like my dad."

The big deciding factor for Costlier to play the character of Garrett Blake in Message in a Bottle was he felt the story was "honest and true". "I can understand how people who are bruised, emotionally, come together that way. And I can understand how one seems more ready for the situation and knows what's right. And this other person Garret isn't quite ready, and I loved the letters. I thought they were simple yet beautiful. He is very emotional."

Adding to that Costner really enjoyed playing the part. "Garrett has not got over that love he feels for his wife. That's great stuff for an actor, to play. Garrett is not me. He is a high school educated guy, and that's not a knock, who was very content to stay in the community where he grew up and was very happily married to a woman that he truly loved. And then she was taken away from him. The question is, can he get another chance when Theresa shows up'. It's like his father Dodge (Paul Newman) says to him 'you choose - the past or- the future. Pick one and stick with it'."

Kevin Costner not only loves making movies but also can't get enough of going to the cinema. "Somebody was saying the other day that Americans go to the cinema an average five times every year. Well, I go once a week. I love the movies and I used to go with my parents and now I take my own children (Annie 14, Lily 12, and 11 -year-old Joe) We go to see all sorts of films and they really know a lot about the cinema now.

While Costlier has attracted some incredible praise and received awards for some of his movies. Others though, have been singled out for criticism, especially Waterworld and The Postman. Waterworld unfortunately, will always be remembered for the small profit it made from the trouble-plagued $170 million production, the costliest in history up until Titanic.

The postproduction of Waterworld happened alongside the collapse of his 16 year marriage amid reports of a hula girl and other unsavory innuendo and gossip.

Negative public-relations continued, with controversies ranging from tribal complaints about his plans to build a resort in Dances with Wolves country to a paternity test confirming he fathered a child with socialite Bridget Rooney.

On the exterior Costner does not seem irked by controversy. His smooth voice, he acts like an average talkative, pleasant and more than average looking guy.

But surely criticism on such a major and critical scale must bother the actor.

"You know, I loved doing those movies. I thought those movies came out really well, I would know in my heart if a movie wasn't any good, that's just something I have in my own mind, I shut off the noise of the box office to decide if something is good or bad. And I don't need a magazine to tell me what a great movie is versus what a bad movie is. I can make up my own mind. I like movies that I've done and I would do them again. I would make the same choices."

Is it true that there was an idea to ask Princess Diana to appear in a sequel to The Bodyguard?

"I didn't mention it at the time of her tragic death but a reporter, who in fairness did a very good job, found it out and when he asked me about it I didn't feel any reason to deny it. She was so sweet and she was intrigued by the idea. Princess Diana was very classy and very honest."

For his next venture Costner is hitting base, so to speak, with a baseball movie. Costner's big breakthrough came with a brace of baseball films in the 80s, released within months of each other: In Bull Durham ( 1988), the actor was a minor-league ballplayer and in Field of Dreams he played a farmer who constructed a baseball pitch in his cornfield. This began a stream of successes before he was blighted with bad publicity. So what's this one about'?

”It’s a film called For the Love of the Game with Kelly Preston. I play a baseball pitcher and in a way, I guess the character is very close to me. It's very personal in that way. When you see it you'll have a better understanding of that." Hopefully this baseball movie will be his lucky card leading back to success.