Long before he donned a cowboy hat, a checkered shirt, and a gun holster for Westerns like Yellowstone and Horizon, Kevin Costner was doing the same in his childhood home.
The actor turned 70 on Saturday, January 18, and marked the occasion on Instagram with a rare throwback to his youth: a black-and-white photo of him as a kid, dressed in a cowboy costume,
“Thank you guys for the birthday wishes,” Costner wrote in his Instagram caption. “If you can believe it, this is me. I was chasing the cowboy life just about as soon as I could walk, and here I am doing it still. Here’s to another year of keeping our sights set on our dreams.”
Costner’s milestone birthday comes amid career uncertainty for the Dances With Wolves Oscar winner. He left Yellowstone midway through the Paramount Network hit’s fifth season amid a rumored falling out with EP Taylor Sheridan over scheduling issues as he tried to shoot a four-part film series called Horizon: An American Saga.
But then Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 debuted to middling reviews and worse box office, getting a 51% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes and only $38.2 million at the worldwide box office against a reported price tag of $100 million.
After those disappointing results, Costner’s Territory Pictures and distribution partner New Line Cinema opted to postpone the release of Chapter 2, which was due to arrive in theaters in August 2024 and is currently off the calendar.
Warner Bros.
Chapter 2 did get a screening at the Venice Film Festival in September, however, and Costner said at the time that he was still planning to shoot the final two films in the series, including what he called the “devastating” third chapter.
“I don’t know how I’m going to make 3 right now,” he told reporters at a press conference at the film festival, per Variety. “But I’m going to make it.”
He also sounded off on Chapter 1, saying, “It didn’t have overwhelming success. I’ve had a lot of movies that way, that have stood the test of time.”
He added: “Sometimes when things don’t come to us easily, we want to just step away. But there’s something in me that only increases my desire when something is not working. It’s a story, it’s a piece of entertainment that I think can stand the test of time. When I feel rejection, unlike anybody else, when I open my eyes from my disappointment, my desire is only increased.”
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
