USA: FILM PREMIERE OF KEVIN COSTNER MOVIE "THIRTEEN DAYS" ABOUT THE 1962 CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

Record ID: 578003

  • Title: USA: FILM PREMIERE OF KEVIN COSTNER MOVIE "THIRTEEN DAYS" ABOUT THE 1962 CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
  • Date: 18th November 2000
  • Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (NOVEMBER 18, 2000) (REUTERS) SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) BRUCE GREENWOOD SAYING "Yeah, well the way the script is, he's a heavy participant and you can't just throw on the tasseled hair and, you know, glint into the setting sun or, you know, walk down the beach with your daughter at your hand. I mean, that's not what this is about. This about these young men, in this harrowing fortnight, trying to avoid the end of the world."
  • Embargoed: 3rd December 2000 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: VARIOUS FILM LOCATIONS/LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA59LC5AHOBV9US298D5EMG0Q96
  • Story Text: Actor/producer Kevin Costner revisits the Kennedy's and the Cuban Missile Crisis in "Thirteen Days."
    Costner takes on the starring role in the political thriller as Kennedy confidant Kenneth P. O'Donnell, through whose eyes the story is told, and is joined by an ensemble cast led by Bruce Greenwood, as President John F. Kennedy, and Stephen Culp, as Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
    Few who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 will likely forget the feelings of fear and anxiety surrounding those 13 days in October when the fate of the world lay in the hands of Jack Kennedy.
    Actor/producer Kevin Costner is hoping those feelings and the Kennedy mystique are enough to catapult his latest big screen offering "Thirteen Days" into the money this winter.
    The film, which looks at the crisis through Kenneth P.
    O'Donnell, Special Assistant to the President and a major behind the scenes player as events unfolded. Costner tackles the role of the Bostonian and his insider relationship with the Kennedy brothers as he presents audiences with just the latest adaptation of what many historians considered to be the boiling point of the Cold War.
    " The truth is not a lot of people know what happened. The people that do have their version of it," said Costner. We've tried to deal with what exists out there - both people that are alive and things that were written. But, we were honorable to this story." said Costner."
    Moving from bitter debates within the White House to low-level reconnaissance flights over Cuba, not all of the films scenes and sequences could be extrapolated from fact.
    Costner accepts that there will be critics, but says this film is not stamped by his own perspective of history.
    "We're good stewards of our history. We're careful people that made this film," said Costner. "We understand the obligation that what we make is now going to be seen as truth.
    And, with that came a responsibility that we accept."
    Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood leads the ensemble cast as President John F. Kennedy. Like the Crisis itself, Jack Kennedy has been the subject of numerous films, books and articles, but there was more to it than simply portraying an image this time around.
    "He's a heavy participant and you can't just throw on the tasseled hair and, you know, glint into the setting sun or, you know, walk down the beach with your daughter at your hand," said Greenwood. "This about these young men, in this harrowing fortnight, trying to avoid the end of the world."
    Director Roger Donaldson is no stranger to Costner. The Australian-born filmmaker last teamed-up with Costner on the highly successful 1987 action-thriller "No Way Out."
    This film, said the director, is the stuff careers are made of.
    "Here was a movie that could embrace dialogue like a movie like "Twelve Angry Men", you know exciting drama around people just talking around the table," said Donaldson. "But, it also had the potential to have those sort of action sequences that would be out there like "Top Gun."
    Time will tell how this movie is remembered, but Costner insists there is no political spin on history in his film.
    "It's not like my mission to educate the world or go you've got it wrong world," said Costner. "I think we've got these men wrong and I'm really glad to tip my hat to them.
    And, I think we've done it in an elegant way without building it up more than it was. How could you build it up anymore? These guys saved the world. End of story."
    "Thirteen Days" opens in wide release across North America in January.
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