Kevin Costner in Molly's Game Image via STX Entertainment By Mitchell Brown Published Oct 13, 2026, 11:51 PM EDT Mitchell Brown is a Wisconsin-based writer, film fanatic, and graduate of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who has written for various publications covering film analysis, reviews (both classic and contemporary), and movie news. He's also a screenwriter, having written multiple spec scripts. When he's not watching movies, writing movies, or writing about the films he's already seen...no, that about covers it. Sign in to your Collider account Add Us Add on Google Preferred Source Google Discover Like Like follow Follow followed Followed Listen Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap Kevin Costner is a distinguished leading man, but you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who considers him a chameleon when it comes to inhabiting a role (though, if you want to start randomly asking strangers their opinion on Costner's acting, we won't stop you). Costner is an actor where the roles he takes — especially in his '90s heyday — usually work around him, rather than the other way around, and it leads to him carrying the material, rather than elevating it. Having said that, there is one exception, a film where he delivered the most impact with the least amount of screen time: Molly's Game .
Released back in 2017, the film cuts between the real-life career of Molly Bloom ( Jessica Chastain ) as she builds an empire out of an elite and highly exclusive poker game she oversees, and flash-forwards to her ensuing legal problems, which she goes over with her attorney, Charlie Jaffrey ( Idris Elba ). When dramatically relevant, the movie cuts back to her childhood, when she trained to be an Olympic skier under the tutelage of her cold and overbearing father (Costner).
Kevin Costner and Jessica Chastain as Larry and Molly Bloom in Molly's game, with Molly touching Larry's shoulder solemenly. Image via STX Entertainment Molly's Game saw the directorial debut of Aaron Sorkin — wonder what he's been up to lately —and put Costner in the rare position of appearing in a movie, but not as the lead. Instead, he clocks in at around 10 minutes of screen time in a movie that's nearly two and a half hours long. But much like Darth Vader in Rogue One , Christopher Walken in True Romance , or a third example that your brain will naturally fill in here from your own favorite briefly-shown characters , the time that he does have is put to excellent use.
There was a period in the '90s where Hollywood seemed deadset on making Costner an action star; the problem was that as an actor, he can command authority, just not in a physically imposing or intimidating way (this is on top of the fact that in the late '80s/early '90s, he looked like the stock image of every dad from every commercial ever made) . That's why he worked better in everyman roles, playing family men and blue-collar worker-types — because he just looked like some guy . That's why people always reference something like Field of Dreams as one of his standout movies; in it, he's genuinely charming as an earnest, hardworking man who's trying to achieve a dream that he doesn't fully understand. I don't buy that he would take on the mob— outside the legal system —and go face-to-face with Robert De Niro (not even Al Capone, I mean Robert De Niro). But I do buy that he'd be afraid of Ja…