Kevin Costner Explains Why 'Horizon’s' Story Is Four Chapters, And What He Wants To Portray In His Western Epic

Horizon - An American Saga - Interview with Kevin Costner

Transcript

00:00What would you say is the one character or story that you feel best benefited the lengthy production time or the long trail it took to get here?

00:09It's not a character as much as it is the West was not a land in Disneyland.

00:15It was 300 years to try to, you know, people were making their way out there.

00:20And I'm talking about from sea to shining sea.

00:23The West we're looking at was, you know, that people were out there for 40 or 50 years engaging with an indigenous population.

00:32And it was a struggle.

00:35No one wanted to give it up.

00:36Why should they?

00:38And the white people wouldn't stop coming.

00:41So it was a recipe for disaster.

00:44And so I think it's not so much what character gives at length.

00:49But number two, I saw it yesterday, and it's arguably as good as this one, if not better.

00:56It gets harder for them.

00:58So it doesn't get easier.

01:00And three, it gets harder.

01:02And what you've realized is people who are scratching it out, who are barely holding it on, you see moments of bad behavior.

01:10You see nobility in other people.

01:13You see a level of courage and grit.

01:15And that's what I wanted to portray, is about a 12-year period, and just to see that not much changes.

01:24Then ultimately in America, at least for the Native Americans, there was a tipping point where they were destroyed.

01:34And some of these towns, if they were set properly, would take hold.

01:39Here's a level.