by Paul Fischer
by
Paul Fischer
Kevin Costner is at his best
when dealing with America's past: The Untouchables, JFK 
and
his Oscar winning Dances with Wolves. In Thirteen Days,
Costner adopts a Boston accent and the guise of real-life presidential
aide Kenneth P. O'Donnell, in a powerful drama revolving around the Cuban
Missile crisis of the early 60s. It's a change of pace for the Oscar winner,
but one, which he relishes. Paul Fischer reports.
The first thing one notices when watching Thirteen Days, is that Kevin Costner is afforded a chance to play a character, as opposed to an offshoot of his on-screen persona. As historical character Kenneth P. O'Donnell, Costner not only adopts a thick Bostonian accent, but is happy to become part of an ensemble, allowing the actors who play the Kennedy brothers (Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp) to have their moments in the sun. "I play characters a lot at home with my kids and so I know how to act and play characters", Costner explains. "It would be foolish of me, in most of the other movies I have done, to take other roles. The reality is, with those other movies, I've always known those other roles were great, so we can get great actors to play them. But mostly, I've played the role that I should. When it comes to the character part, and I have to develop a lisp or a limp, people go: Oh he's really acting and it might detract from the movie. So I never do. If I see a movie where I absolutely have to don on the character, then I'm happy to do that, but to do that every time just to prove that I can act, would be a mistake." Costner insists that he takes a lot of pride in his acting "and listen, there are a lot of roles I'd love to play, but it's not the smart move, and I pride myself on doing the smart thing, as far as a movie is concerned." Thirteen Days is such a film, Costner adds. "I think Bruce plays JFK better than I could have played him." Costner says he resisted what he calls a "vanity move" and refused "a star turn" by playing O'Donnell, "drift into the background, relax and let everyone look at John when he walks into the room. That's the right move."
In Thirteen Days, the power and peril of the American presidency
is dramatically explored by director Roger Donaldson, who captures
the urgency, suspense and paralyzing chaos of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The alarming escalation of events during those fateful days brought to
the fore such public figures as Robert McNamara, Adlai Stevenson, Theodore
Sorenson, Andrei Gromyko, Anatoly Dobrynin, McGeorge Bundy, Dean Acheson,
Dean Rusk, and General Curtis LeMay. In addition many others-politicians,
diplomats and soldiers-were on the front line of the showdown. In Thirteen
Days, we see all of these people, -- and, above all-P
resident
John F. Kennedy and his brother Bobby, through the eyes of a trusted presidential
aide and confidante, Kenneth P. O'Donnell (Costner). O'Donnell, who served
as Special Assistant to the President, was a key White House insider with
a birds eye view of the crisis. His office was next door to the President's
Oval Office, and he was a major behind the scenes figure in the Kennedy
White House. In the film, O'Donnell serves as a conduit to this gripping
dramatization of one of the most dangerous moments in modern history.
This is the second time that Costner has visited the Kennedy mythology on screen. We wondered what continues to fascinate the actor about the whole JFK mystique. "I don't know that it's that fascinating because I've been inundated with the tabloidization of their lives over the last 20 years, I think there must be millions of people going: What was so great about the
Kennedys,
since so many horrible things are written about them? The reality is,
when you look at those Thirteen Days, you realize how great they
were during that period. There was nobody else on the political landscape
that probably could have done what they did." Costner remains passionate
about the Kennedys, not only because he goes beyond their mythology, but
when looking back at the way the brothers dealt with the Thirteen Days
of the missile crisis, "we remain indebted to them because they
put their own political careers in second place, because they were not
going to be re-elected by going against the military; they were not
winning poles on what the right thing to do was." What is interesting,
is that Thirteen Days is relatively anti-militaristic, but Costner
denies that such a stance makes the film less propagandist in tone. "If
you also check the language of the movie and what I'm proud of, is that
the stuff the military was saying was not wrong. What they were wrong
about, and what Jack Kennedy fought against, was that it was the only
solution. Jack was prepared to push the button, he was prepared
to go to war, but what he was not prepared to do, was let lives
be just chess pieces and just statistics, because that's the mentality
that exists with the military."
Costner
has not always had it easy. While critics may well be kind to Thirteen
Days, his career has been up and down. Yet Costner remains upbeat
about his career, and when asked how he would like a future generation
of movie fans to remember him, the actor says that "they can look
at the body of my work and look at the films that I've been making consistently."
Including the likes of Waterworld, Wyatt Earp, The War or Perfect
World. "None of those films were considered commercial successes
but I would put those films up against anybody else's films that they
were making."
Costner just finished working on 3000 Miles to Graceland, featuring a stellar cast including Kurt Russell, Christian Slater and Courtney Cox. "It's a very commercial movie but I have an entirely different look. He's a bad guy of sorts and fun to do."
Click for Cranky's review of Thirteen Days Click to buy films starring Kevin Costner