Kevin Costner Quotes

If I get lucky and I can choose, I would always choose a really good story and screenplay, even if I don't know the director. If there's a good screenplay, there's a chance that something good is going to happen.

I will always choose to work in a movie based on whether I would want to watch it - if I would be willing to spend money in a theatre on it. The script and the people you will work with come after that.

I would say that it's mainly about the director. It's a hard quality to find, but I always know whether I want to do something or not. The character is important to me, as is getting to work with people that I feel like I can learn from and make a great movie with.

Because I was in the business of translating the 'X-Men' from the very successful comics, and taking the most popular book of the 20th century in 'The Lord of the Rings,' and making it into three movies, I hope people realize I wouldn't get involved in anything I didn't think was really going to be worth their while.

'Black Mirror,' I read that, and I had another offer for a movie at the same time that was a bigger movie, an actual film as opposed to TV, but I said, 'No, it has to be Black Mirror.' And it hadn't been sold to Netflix, hadn't gone abroad at that point - but it's just good work - that's all there is to it.

Every film I do, I'm involved with from the very conception of the project.

My pay packet is reasonable. But I prefer doing films where I have a meaty role. The set-up of the film and the filmmaker also matter to me. For me those are vital issues that help me decide on a film. You never sign a film only for money.

Many times, what's in the script doesn't make it to the film these days, and when you choose a job, you take it based on genre and whom you're going to work with, if you believe in them.

Finding one good script is a huge challenge. So I do a film whose script comes and grabs me. Once I finish that, I look forward to the next movie.

The way I pick movies is, first, if the script is any good. Then, if the script is good, who else is in it, the director, the producer, all that. If you have all that, there's a chance the movie will be great. If the script isn't right, or the director or cast isn't right, you've got no shot in hell.

When I look at the work, if it speaks to me, I'll say 'yes' and if the work doesn't resonate with me, I'll politely decline.

If I don't have a script I adore, I do one I like. If I don't have one I like, I do one that has an actor I like or that presents some technical challenge.

I like movies that interest me and stories that interest me, I don't think about how much money it's gonna [cost] to make the movie, I don't think about any of that. I think about certain aspects like who's making the movie and who's gonna tell a story that I wanna be involved in, but I don't have that choice and I never have.

Movies take a lot of time to make, so when I sign onto a project, I ask, do I want to dedicate a lot of time to this world? And more so, I look at what I need for me. Do I want to make a comedy? Do I want to make a drama? What do I need? Am I in the right headspace to do this role? And then politics come into consideration, too.

Sometimes, you can feel or see how a movie can... how you can do it. Sometimes it's just like seeing, "Can that work? Will people buy that? Can we do that?" And all those checkmarks.

Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't. I never know how successful a movie is going to be - when you make a movie you're always hoping for the best.

There's always the pressure to make the movie good.

I have to say I was very lucky in this [movie] business. I was in the right place at the right time when I first got started.

Writing and directing just sort of fell into my lap.

Everything that I've done was prudent and never has anyone gotten hurt in my films - not a single actor, not a single extra, ever.

When someone like Steven Soderbergh asks you to do a film you know you're in good hands. You know it's going to be slick, and it's going to be intelligent, and it's going to have a kind of style to it, and I would probably have done anything to be really honest.

I'm not the kind of actor that gets crazy with [directors'] names, what draws me toward a project is the material itself.

I think I did fifteen long features and fifteen documentaries, or something like this, which is very little when you think of people making a film every year. Some people have done fifty or sixty films.

What I learned is that I should probably read a screenplay every once in a while before I said 'yes'. You could make bad film out of a good script, but you're never going to make a good film out of a bad script.

The beauty of my profession [architecture] lies in its randomness and surprise. And don't think I can choose my projects. I have to build what's offered to me.