Chris Hemsworth Failed to Convince Kevin Costner to Cast Him in Film

Chris Hemsworth is sharing his disappointment over not getting to work with Kevin Costner. 

While attending CinemaCon 2024, the Thor: Love and Thunder star, 40, revealed he was turned down by Costner, 69, for a role in a Western he directed — as the Yellowstone actor took the part for himself.

“There was a movie, a script that I’d read and loved and was like, ‘I want to get that,’ and then someone said, ‘Kevin Costner has that [role],’ ” Hemsworth told Entertainment Tonight at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on April 11. 

“I’d love [to have] him as a director. I was like, ‘Goddamnit!’ [I spent] an hour the other day trying to convince him and he was like, ‘I’m doing it, kid.’ Didn’t work. I didn’t get the part,” he explained. Hemsworth described the project as an “abstract” love story “about a man and a woman.”

The actor’s wife, Elsa Pataky, also wanted to see him in the film. “There’s horses involved, he’s a horse wrangler, and my wife read it and loves horses. We have 10 or 11 horses back home and so she’s like, ‘You’ve got to do this.’ ”

Despite losing out on the role, Hemsworth admitted the project is “better seen in [Costner’s] wheelhouse for sure, as far as the kind of Western environment.”

While also attending CinemaCon at the Warner Bros. Pictures presentation last week, Costner told ET in response to Hemsworth’s story that the Marvel star would have to “wait his turn.” He added, “as long as I’m still young enough to play it, I’ll play it.”

Costner however had nothing but praise to give to Hemsworth. “He’s so handsome and he’s so good,” he continued. “He’s going to have to go find his [own] love story. [But] I’m glad he likes this one.”

All hope isn’t lost for Hemsworth on working with Costner either, as the acting veteran said, “If I reach a moment where I [don’t] think I could do that, I would [reach out]. He’s certainly one of our great leading men right now.”

Costner directs and appears in the upcoming Western film Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1. The first chapter of the project is released on June 28 and the second chapter will be released Aug. 16.  

Hemsworth, meanwhile, next stars alongside Anya Taylor-Joy in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the prequel to 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which is released on May 24. The actors provided a preview of the film, along with unveiled details, as part of a presentation at CinemaCon on April 9 as they were joined by writer-director George Miller.