EXCLUSIVE: How Kevin Costner is 'America's New John Wayne' — Why He Keeps Cowboy Spirit Alive, His Favorite Western Movie and How Prayer Made His Dream Come True
Kevin Costner has now earned the label of 'America's New John Wayne.'
April 22 2025, Published 3:45 p.m. ET
Kevin Costner is no stranger when it comes to the Western genre having appeared in notable films including Silverado, Wyatt Earp, and Open Range – and that's a big reason why he's being labeled the new John Wayne.
The movie star admitted how it was one of Wayne's most famous projects that reeled him into the American West, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
Costner's love of Western films has made him the new John Wayne.
“I don’t know what the other kids did, but I never moved, not once, not even during intermission when the other kids went out for Coke and popcorn," Costner said about his first time watching Wayne's four-hour film How the West Was Won – which also starred other big heavyweights including Jimmy Stewart and Gregory Peck.
He continued: "When the curtain opened, and Spencer Tracy’s voice came on setting the scene, it was like God talking to me, like the scales had fallen from my eyes. Coming across this lake that didn’t have a ripple in it, like glass, was Jimmy Stewart in a birch-bark canoe. He got out, and he showed no fear, and went about his business at a trading post. I wanted to be like him. I loved Westerns then and I love them now."
"If you think my movies are long, you can blame it on that movie," Costner joked, as his most recent western, Horizon: An American Saga, sits at three hours long.
Wayne's four-hour film 'How the West Was Won' made Costner fall in love with the Western genre.
Despite his box office misfire with Horizon, the 70-year-old is not planning to stop making Westerns anytime soon, using his latest to honor those that came before him.
"We see great heroism, we see a level of cowardice, we see a level of love and compassion," the Hollywood star said of his Western films. "For as phony as movies are, there’s really a lot to learn from them. We learn who we want to be and who we don’t want to be.”
Costner noted how a "good Western creates all the dread and threat the Old West had to offer, when you’re in a place where there’s no law, where if someone is bigger and stronger than you (they) can take everything you’ve worked for in a wink of an eye..."
"I see the West as a place of freedom and opportunity, where people could forge their own lives... the character of America was in the land itself,” the Dances With Wolves director said.
Costner, who was raised in a Baptist household, admitted his life and career has been guided by prayer and his faith.
"The thing about prayer is, it’s not on your time. You can pray for what you want, but it comes to you when it comes to you,” he said. “That’s the difficulty of being human, of being mortal. You want things right now, but that’s not the way it works. “I just kept working towards what I’ve wanted to do."
The movie star credits prayer and his faith for his success.
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Costner – who was recently involved in a brutal divorce battle with ex-wife Christine Baumgartner – added: "I don’t want anything to keep me from a life where I feel I’ve answered the call to my own dreams. And I want the rest of the world to take that ride with me through my movies, to dream that big dream and measure ourselves against the odds."
"When the lights go out and the movie comes on, my feet have never hit the floor since the day of that birthday party when I was seven," he said.
