On Tuesday evening, The Late Present with Stephen Colbert’s chilly open was a bit uncommon. In lieu of a skit ridiculing Trump’s newest bout of chaos-agenting, this system aired a mock trailer for the re-release of Kevin Costner’s 1997 movie The Postman. “In its day, a critical and box office disaster. But today, chillingly accurate,” the voiceover mentioned. “Looks like somebody owes Kevin Costner an apology.”
As destiny would have it, I used to be scheduled to interview Costner the next day to debate HearHere, his new storytelling platform/journey app offering, “A hands-free experience that delights, informs and entertains by fostering a deeper connection with the people, places and histories of the land you are traveling through.”
Costner hadn’t seen the Colbert sketch, although chuckled once I introduced it up.
“Stephen Colbert said that?” he mentioned. “I liked making that movie! I did.”
The Postman was a post-apocalyptic Western set in a 2013 America ravaged by plagues and a murderous white-nationalist militia, led by Nathan Holn. These “Holnists” have stripped the nation of each final vestige of democracy and freedom, reworking America right into a totalitarian state. Costner performs a drifter who finds a U.S. Postal Service uniform and mailbag, and conjures up hope for a “Restored America” by, effectively, delivering the mail. The movie was savaged by critics and made simply $20 million in opposition to an $80 million funds.
However now, given Trump’s systematic dismantling of the U.S. Postal Service in latest months—that he’s overtly admitted is being achieved to cease mail-in voting, and thus affect the end result of the 2020 presidential election—Costner’s movie glorifying the U.S. Postal Service seems to have been reasonably “prophetic,” as he places it.
“Listen, a movie is what it is when it comes out. It has a chance to be revisited, and I was always kind of proud of it,” Costner tells The Day by day Beast. “I thought that I had made a mistake not starting out the movie with, ‘Once upon a time…’ because it’s kind of like a fairy tale. ‘Once upon a time, when things got really rotten, the only thing that could stand the test of time was the post office. The only thing people could count on.’ I didn’t say that, and I should have. Because it is like a fairy tale you’d read to your children at night. That’s how I did the movie.”
As for Trump’s ravenous of the U.S. Postal Service, which has already precipitated large delays within the supply of life-saving medicines to aged sufferers and the distribution of pension checks, amongst different issues, Costner doesn’t mince phrases.
“It’s terrible. It’s terrible,” he says. “Nothing is surreal. Everything is highly real, and it’s dangerous. And it’s shameful.”
The 65-year-old display icon campaigned for Pete Buttigieg in the course of the Democratic Major, and although he identifies as an unbiased, having voted for each Democrats and Republicans previously, he says he’s alarmed by what he’s seen from the present White Home occupant.
“History will judge you,” says Costner. “When you look back at [Joseph] McCarthy, when you look back at black-and-white footage and see people who were beating on those who were marching for freedom, you don’t want to be that person. And there’s a lot of people where, when you look back ten years, they’re going to see themselves.”
That’s why the star of Area of Goals and The Bodyguard is urging all People to get out to the polls in November and train their constitutional proper.
“What you have to try to lean on is that every four years we get to decide whether we’re going in the right direction or we’re not,” he says. “And we now, because of the way the country is set up—which is beautiful—we have that opportunity. And anyone who would interfere with that process in a deliberate way to have an outcome—that’s criminal. And it spits on 200 years of freedom.”
“So this is what you do: you wear your mask and you go vote.”
Keep tuned for The Day by day Beast’s full interview with Kevin Costner—operating on Sunday—the place we talk about his deliberate Bodyguard sequel with Princess Di, the legacy of Dances with Wolves, the removing of Accomplice monuments, why he turned down Django Unchained, and way more.
