Clint Eastwood Kept Kevin Costner's Ego In Check Behind The Scenes Of This '90s Thriller

Kevin Costner was one of the biggest stars of the 1990s. He kicked off the decade with his directorial debut with "Dances with Wolves," a monster hit at the box office that also earned him Best Director and Best Picture Oscars. He followed that up in '91 with two more box office smashes when he played the mythical bowman in "Robinhood: Prince of Thieves" and a conspiracy-minded district attorney in Oliver Stone's "JFK." And, in '92, he teamed up with Whitney Houston for "The Bodyguard." With so many successes under his belt, Costner may have started to believe he had the Midas touch when he showed up to make '93's "A Perfect World" with Clint Eastwood, who co-starred in and directed the film. And that kind of thinking apparently didn't sit well with the Western icon.

In the movie, Costner plays an escaped convict who takes a young boy hostage and goes on the run. Costner and the boy form a bond while driving across the American West in the early 1960s, with Eastwood's Texas Ranger hot on their heels. Appearing on Dax Shepard's "Armchair Expert" podcast, Scott Eastwood, son of the legendary actor and director, discussed how, while filming the movie, Costner was perhaps feeling high on his horse one day, and how his dad brought the star down a peg. 

As Scott tells it, his dad was ready to start filming a scene, but Costner was still in his trailer. Clint, known for being a director who shoots fast and has little patience for grumpy actors, learned that Costner wasn't ready to work just yet, and, according to his son, said, "'Well, send him home, then.'" Costner was surprised by the move and, per Scott, "the next day he was on set, ready to go."

Kevin Costner made a career playing affable, if stern, figures. But behind the scenes, he often finds himself at odds with the people he works with. Costner had a long working relationship with director Kevin Reynolds, who cast the then-struggling actor in his 1985 film "Fandango" and worked with him again on "Robinhood: Prince of Thieves." It was during that production that the two started to have issues, leading to Reynolds walking away from the picture when the studio recut it to meet Costner's wishes. Still, they managed to patch things up enough to make "Waterworld" together in 1995, but the same issues arose, and Reynolds once again quit during the editing process.

"Waterworld" became an albatross around Costner's neck and the beginning of a lull in his career. For the next 20 years, he would have the occasional hit, but he never hit the highs he experienced in the 1980s until he made the move to TV. And almost as soon as he did, Costner was back to arguing with his co-workers.

In 2018, Costner became the biggest name on TV, starring in Taylor Sheridan's "Yellowstone." As the show became a runaway success, the two men began fighting over the path of the series, with Costner encouraging his fellow actors to throw away Sheridan's scripts and film scenes the way he wanted them done. This, along with frustrations Costner reportedly felt over Sheridan spending time working on his other shows and turning in "Yellowstone" scripts late, led to the actor leaving the show. He then went on to make his 2024 movies, "Horizon: An American Saga Part 1" and "Horizon: An American Saga Part 2," the first installments of a planned four-part series.