The day Clint Eastwood humbled Kevin Costner on the set of ‘A Perfect World’

Clint Eastwood, 96, and Kevin Costner, 71, were already film legends when they shared the screen in the 1990s — a collaboration that happened only once. Together they shot A Perfect World (1993), a film directed by Eastwood, who is known for fast, efficient shoots with just one or two takes per scene, that stay on budget and on schedule. He was not expecting Costner to become an obstacle to his directing style. The actor had just starred in and directed Dances with Wolves, a runaway success that boosted his fame — and his ego. So during the shoot Eastwood did not hesitate to teach one of his stars a lesson in humility and replaced him with a stand-in for a scene.

Costner was ”sort of going through maybe … a rise to fame, and maybe [had] a big ego,” recalled Scott Eastwood, the director’s son, during his appearance on the Armchair Expert podcast on Monday. “Apparently, Kevin wouldn’t come out of his trailer for some reason,” he said, explaining that his father wasn’t into that sort of thing because what he likes is to “just be on set.” “He always told me [that] as a kid. ‘You want to learn how to make movies? You want to learn how to do this? You stay here with everybody else and you make the damn movie,’” he said about his father, who during Scott’s childhood kept his authority while remaining calm and composed and never raising his voice.

The problem began because Costner refused to leave his trailer when it was time to shoot a scene with Eastwood himself in this crime drama. Costner, somewhat of a perfectionist, told the crew he wasn’t ready. To avoid confrontations and with the cameras already rolling, the director used the same authority technique he used with his children and, without raising his voice, simply shot the scene without him. “So he sent him home and I guess they just went to Kevin and said, ‘Hey, you’re going to go home for the day.’ … He said, ‘What do you mean, I’m in the scene?’ [And they said], ‘Well, I guess you’re not anymore.,’” Scott Eastwood, who is also an actor, recounted about the episode. “the next day, [Costner] was on set ready to go,” he added.

Instead of shooting the scene with Costner, Eastwood finished it with his double. This fact was revealed by Jack Green, the film’s cinematographer — and back then a regular on Eastwood’s crew — to Esquire in 2012. “Find his extra and put a shirt on him,” Eastwood said, Jack Green recounted. Costner later walked out of the trailer to shoot the scene, but it was already too late. The director simply told him: “Never mind, we’re moving on,” Green recalled. Costner, furious, answered: “You shot the scene with my extra?” and Eastwood replied: “I get paid to burn film.”

“If one take, great. If ten takes, that’s what it has to be. Artistically, though, I like to see the person the first time the situation ever crosses their brain and the first time it goes through their eyes and the first time the words come out of their mouths. I’ve seen great actors do amazing things on the first take,” the director told Esquire, adding that instead of saying “cut” he simply says “let’s move on.” “You have to beg him for a second take. I did once, and he said, ‘Why, so you can waste everybody’s time?’” said Matt Damon, the star of two of his films: Invictus and Hereafter.

“I’m a fast shooter, as fast as anybody. But that’s because I started out with moderate-budget pictures. I didn’t have the luxury of big budgets. Kevin was very fortunate--he had a lot of time on his first picture (as a director, “Dances With Wolves”). I never had that luxury. And then I got used to it,” Eastwood himself told the Los Angeles Times in 1993.

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