Kevin Costner Won a SAG Award for This Surprising Movie Role
To this day, Kevin Costner’s string of hit movies in the 1980s and 1990s remains impressive. The actor made his film debut in 1981’s Sizzle Beach, U.S.A. and ended the decade as one of Hollywood’s most popular leading men. However, despite his many hits — and even Academy Award wins — Costner didn’t win a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award until much later in his career. Here’s the film that earned him the coveted SAG Award.
Kevin Costner was one of the 1980s and 1990s biggest stars
Costner spent most of the early and mid-1980s in small roles and ultimately as part of ensemble casts. His 1985 Western Silverado — which co-stars Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, and Danny Glover — helped establish the actor as a major player in that genre. He’d later star in and direct the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves and 2003’s Open Range. But in addition to his directorial efforts, Costner became an A-list leading man.
From 1987 to 1992, Costner’s filmography reads like a list of all-time classics. The Untouchables, No Way Out, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, the aforementioned Dances with Wolves, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, JFK, and The Bodyguard all hit theaters during this period. Even after Waterworld disappointed, Costner still headlined several hit movies and even popped up in the DC Extended Universe as Jonathan Kent in Man of Steel and other films.
The actor won a SAG Award for his role in an ensemble cast
But Costner surprisingly didn’t win a SAG Award for any of those movies. Instead, he took home the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture trophy at the 23rd SAG Awards for Hidden Figures. In that movie, Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe star as real-life mathematicians who play key roles in the U.S. space program. Costner plays Al Harrison, director of the Space Task Force, who defends Henson’s Katherine Johnson.
During the 2017 awards season, Hidden Figures received quite a bit of attention. All three leading ladies received critical raves and nominations, with Spencer even securing an Academy Award nomination. That nod for one of three Oscar nods the movie received. Spencer lost Best Supporting Actress to her The Help co-star Viola Davis, and Hidden Figures lost both Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay to Moonlight.
Kevin Costner currently stars on the hit TV show ‘Yellowstone’
Although Costner won a SAG Award as part of the Hidden Figures cast, it wasn’t the first SAG Award he had received. In fact, the actor returned to the Western genre again for the TV mini-series Hatfields & McCoys. And in 2013, he won Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie for his role.
Nowadays, Costner is again focused on bringing Westerns to television. Since 2018, he has starred on Yellowstone on the Paramount Network. For his role as John Dutton, Costner received the third SAG Award nomination of his career. But Yellowstone lost Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series to Succession.
