In this 2012 interview, which THR labels “the softening of Kevin Costner,” the “Yellowstone” star himself details how “terribly lonely” working on film and television can be when it keeps you away from family for weeks on end.
Call me crazy, but a man doesn’t have to be “soft” to love his family. In fact, it’s a fierce love of family that has driven most men in history to do great – or terrible things. On the “great” side of that list is Kevin Costner, who is a family man to his core.
At the time, almost a decade before “Yellowstone,” Costner was filming another Western staple for television. The History Channel miniseries, “Hatfields & McCoys,” proved a hit for all involved. But that wasn’t what it’s leading man wanted to discuss. Instead, he focused in on how the grueling filming process kept him away from his family for all but 10 out of 85 days. In Romania.
“I had already been on the road for a month with my [country rock] band in Europe,” says Costner, who was 57 at the time. He speaks, of course, of his band Kevin Costner & The Modern West, with whom he still tours to this day.
“Basically, I went right to Romania, started filming at the end of September and went into December and only had 10 days when I came home because I was just starving [for family love],” the future “Yellowstone” star continued.
‘Yellowstone’s Kevin Costner Gets ‘Terribly Lonely’ Away from Family
Costner, who has been married twice and has seven children, would make sure this never happened again on any set. At the time, the icon and his wife, former model Christine Baumgartner, had three children all under the age of 5. With so many little ones waiting on him, his Romanian stint took its toll.
“You get lonely. You get terribly lonely,” he says with emphasis to THR.
The pair have had another child since, and seem as happy as any married couple ever has been. And for “Yellowstone”s grizzled lead, this all comes down to putting family – and traveling together – first.
“You’ve done something when you’ve traveled with your children,” he notes in a recent interview for his travel app, HearHere. “You’ve lodged a memory unlike anything that could happen over a ‘really cool weekend’ at home.”
For Costner, traveling equals imprinting. It equals true bonding and relationship building. “When you can combine that with, sometimes, the fun of getting to know facts about a place that you wouldn’t have otherwise known… There’s something special.”
