StudioLA's Jim Ferguson interviews Kevin Costner Star of Thirteen Days

Kevin Costner takes the hot seat with our own Jim Ferguson, and talks about his role in Thirteen Days .

Jim: Kevin, good to see you and congratulations. "Thirteen Days", I don't know how the most terrifying thirteen days in American history can be told any better than how it is in this film, congratulations.

Kevin: Thank you.

Jim: Would you agree with me Kevin that, understanding the seriousness of that situation, that the Kennedys and your character, Kenny O'Donnell, were facing, that our audience should have a little background of the Cold War and Bay of Pigs of what preceded that?

Kevin: Well, I don't think they have to have that in order to enjoy this movie.

Jim: Oh, no. That isn't what I meant.

Kevin: What did you mean?

Jim: What I meant was that, the seriousness that built up to the thirteen days, it just didn't happen overnight. It was a Cold War.

Kevin: Well, there was a gigantic chess game that was being played with millions of people's lives. It was a political game between the Soviets and the Americans for the dominance of this planet, which is ludicrous. But yet we are the pawns in such kind of power brokerage type moves. And these moves have been in a sense from Korea on. Since we shut down, since we split Berlin, the world had felt like it was a chess game. It led up to these thirteen days that brought us to the brink.

Jim: I think as John Kennedy once said that it was, "high stakes political poker at its very highest".

Kevin: And at it's ugliest. And the implications were kind of unfathomable.

Jim: John Kennedy wrote a series of articles of heroes of American history called "Profiles In Courage." I think if he had lived, he may have written one about your character, Kenny O'Donnell, because he was an interegal part of the plays being called as he was a former quarterback at Harvard University, he was one of the leaders of the so-called Irish Mafia, agreed?

Kevin: Well, that's what we understood, but more than that we wanted to identify Jack and Bobby in this golden terrifying moment where they really came into the surface and kept us in great...gave us a legacy of peace.

Jim: Do you think it was good idea to tell the story through the eyes of Kenny O' Donnell?

Kevin: I think it was the best idea. You know a lot of times when everything seems to go well, everything seems to fall well. Since the thirteen days everything seems to have fallen correctly. And that was absolutely the right choice. Because, if you do the Jack Kennedy story, or the Bobby Kennedy story about the thirteen days, what you are going to do, or what it will do will be diminished by pundits, by those who will say "oh, they are trying to resurrect their image" you know, when it's been torn down in a tabloid way. Because it's Kenny talking about them and watching them suffer, and watching them excel, and watching them deliberate, you know, there's more of an authenticity to it. And it takes the onus off it.

Jim: When you see the film, it makes you realize how wise the Founding Fathers were in the Constitution, to make the Commander-in-Chief a civilian.

Kevin: Right.

Jim: Because if it had been the other way around, we may not be sitting here right now.

Kevin: Well, clearly we couldn't have been, okay. That's for sure. We would have been a statistic, either you would have made it, or I would have made it. But there would have been statistics as we found ourselves at this millennium, when people were celebrating around the world, we would also actually have to look back on a hundred to two million dead. Which is staggering. When think about Vietnam, when you got the fifty-six thousand men and women who died in what we now believe is a senseless cause. And that's fifty-six thousand. Imagine the legacy of looking a two hundred million. And that's if cooler heads prevailed.

Jim: Exactly. I'm out of time Kevin. But I want to plead to all, I'm sure most people who lived through it will go see this movie, like I did, but I want to plead to the younger audience, that they should see this movie so they can better understand detente. And what thirteen days meant to their history. Thank you.

Kevin: I think that they can also learn is the role that leadership can also play, not just based on polls, but based on your heart and your philosophy, and your love of mankind. And not your political aggrandizement.

Jim: Beautifully stated. Don't miss it. Thank you.

Kevin: Thank you.