The Life of All-American Actor Kevin Costner

In 1989, he starred as Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, a farmer who hears a mysterious voice and builds a baseball field in an Iowa cornfield. The producers reportedly had not first considered him because he had just made Bull Durham and might not want another baseball movie.

Costner read the script anyway and responded strongly to its emotional pull. He later compared its feeling to It’s a Wonderful Life, seeing it as a story about faith, family, regret, and healing, just before his career took an even bigger leap.