Kevin Costner. “I felt that Horizon wouldn’t be interesting if the female characters weren’t interesting.

It’s the lifelong project that 69-year-old Kevin Costner dreamed of long before his success. Dances with Wolves (1990), or: Bodyguard (1992). The actor was finally able to direct and act Horizon. American saga, a four-part western, the first of which will be released on July 3 and the second on September 11. The story. In the still wild America of the early 19th century, the heroes, immigrants or natives, gather in a small town called Horizon, risking their lives, their values, their possessions. To bring substance to this ensemble film, Kevin Costner enlisted a host of actors from Sienna Miller to Luke Wilson, including Sam Worthington and Abbey Lee. And couldn’t hold back the tears during the presentation, out of competition, i Horizon At the 77th Cannes Film Festival. The first of his films for which he climbed the stairs.

Madame Figaro: How do you feel about the idea of ​​presenting? Horizon: American Saga – Chapter 1 In Cannes?
Kevin Costner: I always wanted to come here to present my own film. It is a project that started in 1988. at that time I had written the first part but could not carry it out. Today, the fact that I was so into it that I invested my own money in it, and that Cannes accepted it… I’m very happy to be here. You know, I made this film for you. I’ve done it for women. I did it for men. This is not just a shootout movie. Other things are happening there.

There are especially many female characters in this first installment. What did you want to portray through them?
That they were as much a part of the West as the men, and that they were never shown to be so. I felt like the movie wouldn’t be really interesting or authentic if their characters weren’t equally authentic. Their dream was not to go to the West, to leave the few possessions they had in the East to go and live in the dirt. It was difficult for them, and I wanted to show it.

THE: westerns often say something about the era they come out in… Is this it? Horizon ?
What I do know is that at that time America was making a kind of promise to the rest of the world, provided we would cross the ocean safely. many people never made it there alive. And if you got there, there was nothing like Europe. It was an unrestrained country, you had to live there by different rules. There was no king, no queen, no ceiling that could not be surpassed. Everything became possible in America. It just depended on your luck, your toughness, your resources. It required men and women to be smart, and many died along the way. However, their children got there and did better. It remains a very young country.

And a violent country, as we see in many scenes of the film. What did you want to express through them?
We were very alone there. Even the people we were traveling with in the caravan, as we see in the film, didn’t really know each other. Then strange things began to happen. women could be deprived of the simple fact that they have a little privacy to wash themselves; water was rare, and by making this gesture they were breaking a new rule without knowing it. So yes, Westerners are cruel. But Dances with Wolves was too. Meanwhile, people consider it a very gentle film.