I'm not afraid. I don't walk through life like a daisy 
Kevin Costner used to be one of Hollywood's biggest superstars. Having established himself as a huge box office draw as an actor, he went on to win Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for Dances with Wolves in 1991. His stardom may now be diminished, but as latest directorial effort Open Range shows, the man still knows his westerns.
Why have you returned to the western at this point in your career?
Well, it's nothing calculated. I felt like the last couple of movies I did had not realised their potential. Not in box office terms, but from what I thought they were in the script. I thought, I don't want to do that again, so I'm going to find the best movie I can. I didn't see any movies that I wanted to act in, so I just began to develop two westerns side-by-side.
But why a western? It was considered a dying genre even when you did Dances With Wolves...
It still is now. It's not in vogue. I'm not in vogue. But tough s***, it's a real genre. It's just real hard to do it right. Most people when they make a western, they make them dumb. They're also not relevant, and when a movie is not relevant to you, you're not going to enjoy it. There has to be something that speaks to you in terms of the characters and what's happening. So even though it's not considered a commercial genre, I don't believe it's not commercial.
How is Open Range relevant?
That could be you and me out there talking about someone that's bothering us. You know, "What the **** are we going to do about this?" The American west is not a fairy-tale place. It was settled by Europeans and they couldn't speak the language. They were told the land was up for grabs, and if you were smart enough and you were tough enough, and you were violent enough, you could have what you didn't have in England or in Italy or in Russia. So it was a rough place out there and it was bloody. And it wasn't that long ago.
The story revolves around a group of so-called free grazers. Can you explain who these people were?
There was a time when there were no highways and there were no fences and people moved freely across the land. But, like all things, smart people, ambitious people, begin to think: "Aha! I'll close things off. I'll put up fences." The advent of barbed wire came, and suddenly little outfits couldn't make do. Suddenly your business and way of life are threatened and whenever your life is threatened, whatever century you live in, you fight back.
You seem to be playing around with the notion of heroism with Charlie [Costner] and Boss [Robert Duvall]. What makes someone a hero in your eyes?
The movie turns on the weather, so I didn't start out trying to make them heroic. I don't even think of them as heroic, although I think they possess a certain moral courage. They don't have a lawyer to stand up for them. They don't have an agent. And they don't have a publicity person that can fix this thing. You look at them and, I think, you admire their choice. Charlie, right there at the end, has met a woman who he could have a relationship with. He doesn't need to go down and fight over this stuff, but his friend is going to. So he risks this relationship that doesn't even involve a kiss for his friendship. I think that you would like to think, and I could be wrong, that you would be that kind of guy.
Do you worry now about how critics, audiences, will react to a Kevin Costner film because of all the publicity surrounding your last couple of directing projects?
I'm not afraid. I don't walk through life like a daisy. I still believe in the movie experience and I believe people are looking for movies like this, not just because it's a western but they're looking for fresh air, for a good story, for something they can share with others - like a good book or a good piece of music. This is one to see opening weekend and it's one to pull off the shelf five years from now too.
Open Range is released in UK cinemas on Friday 19th March 2004.
