“Hot man in town,” shouted a woman in the crowd as Kevin Costner stepped into the War Memorial Gym to a standing ovation on Saturday, Oct 18, strutting through the crowd before coming on stage and greeting Brenna Malloy, a USF alum and legacy, for the latest segment of the Silk Speaker series.
Costner, a two-time Academy Award winner, is an actor, director, producer and musician known most for directing the hit series “Yellowstone,” the American classic “Field of Dreams” and starring in “The Bodyguard.” He was the event’s keynote speaker, stepping in at the last minute for Nicole Kidman.
Malloy, also an award-winning director, most known for “Law and Order,” “9-1-1” and “Chicago Fire,” moderated the interview as she had done in 2024 when Viola Davis came to campus.
Costner had the crowd smitten as he spoke about his humble beginnings as a second-generation blue-collar man. Working and paying his own way through college at California State Fullerton and the beginning of his post-grad career as a deep-sea fisherman, he took any chance to audition or show people his writing. As he exclaimed, “I’m a storyteller…. I knew what I wanted to be.”
Speaking to the students in the crowd, he said, “Be curious, ferociously curious. You’ll find your way.”
As Costner spoke about his life, he emphasized the hardship he faced coming from a family in a more traditional line of work and having a wife who depended on him, whilst simultaneously striving to achieve his dream. “There were sad moments for me… because my wife was seeing my contemporaries get ahead, and I was just hoping for an opportunity. I knew I needed to stick with it,” he said. A true embodiment of the American dream, Costner won his first Emmy only a couple of years later, inspiring students to never give up on their dreams and to not “count yourself out.”
Costner accredited his commitment to perseverance. “They can teach you how to grow up, they can teach you what you want to be…we know who we want to be and movies show us that… I was only seven years old and I didn’t move an inch when I watched,” Costner said.
Through his four-decade-long career as a filmmaker, Costner aimed to leave the audience with the same impression he had as a young boy: a message, something to relate to and something to believe in, as he did growing up.
As when referring to a scene in “The Field of Dreams,” Costner said, “It’s a normal moment, think about how you reached the highest point in your life. And no one is around you whom you love. And you will weep…you show what means something and what’s missing,” alluding to the power of film.
Later in the conversation, Costner referenced the current political moment and the “No Kings” protest that took place just hours before. “What’s going on in this city, how great is that, that people are flexing today…at least we are still able to flex…You can’t shut the door on something you don’t want,” he said.
