Kevin Costner Honors the Spirit of John Wayne With Horizon — A Lifetime Dream Forged in Faith, Freedom, and Fierce Storytelling

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Screen star Kevin Costner‘s profound love and admiration for the American West and the courageous pioneers who gave everything to forge a new life for their families is what makes him our country’s new John Wayne.

The star — who’s appeared in “Silverado” (1985), “Dances With Wolves” (1990) “Wyatt Earp” (1994), “Let Him Go” (2020) and megahit series “Yellowstone” — wants to show the bravery, the fierceness, the sorrow and the joyous victories that went into settling an unknown land.

His passion began as a child, he says, when at age seven, “I was invited to a birthday party. It was at the Hollywood Cinerama Dome — a showing of ‘How the West Was Won,’ ” a four-hour, star-studded 1962 extravaganza starring John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck and George Peppard.

“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, now 70, says the movie began with an image he has never forgotten.

“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.

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“If you think my movies are long,” he adds with a laugh, “you can blame it on that movie.”

In Westerns, which Costner intends to make until his dying day, he says we see people facing incredible odds, “we see great heroism, we see a level of cowardice, we see a level of love and compassion. 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’s unwavering commitment to storytelling and his reverence for the pioneering spirit have culminated in the realization of a lifelong dream — “Horizon: An American Saga,” a project that has been over 30 years in the making.

This epic Western endeavor — that will eventually be four movies long — gives us, the viewer, the essence of frontier life, highlighting the courage, faith and perseverance that defined an era.

Through “Horizon,” Costner also aims to honor the immense challenges faced by those who ventured into uncharted territories, confronting the unknown with unwavering determination.

“A good one [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,” the actor, director and producer says of “Horizon” and its characters. “That was tough. That was hard. The truth is it gets harder for them. Things don’t get easier for them. And I prefer it that way because it makes them lean in to the truth.

“I see the West as a place of freedom and opportunity, where people could forge their own lives,” he says, adding that “the character of America was in the land itself,” because the vastness and beauty of the American West played a huge part in its attraction.

“I feel good about the movie. When I look back, I’ll know that I’ve invested in every detail. And I’ll feel good that it’s a complete document that’s fun to visit, and I’ll feel good to have it part of my legacy.”

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Beyond his cinematic endeavors, Costner’s personal journey has been deeply influenced by faith and prayer. Raised in a Baptist household, he has often acknowledged the role of spiritual belief in guiding his life and career. He also believes faith was what inspired America’s first cowboys and pioneers.

“Faith is what guided people out there to the unknown,” he says. “They just leaned on it.”

Prayer plays a big part in his life too. “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,” says Costner. “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. Then I looked at all the wonderful things that I was able to acquire in my life, that were external to my being able to survive, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll risk those to do that.’ 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.”