Academy Award-winning filmmaker and the star of hit TV show Yellowstone Kevin Costner has paid an emotional tribute to the woman who gave him his first big break in Hollywood.
At the 26th annual Art Directors Guild Awards this weekend, Costner’s longtime collaborator, Ida Random, received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Costner said if it wasn’t for Random, he would not be where he is today.
“For six years I’d been trying to break into Hollywood, and despite all my best efforts, I was just unable to get a SAG card,” Costner said.
“I’m singled out among the extras by casting director Elizabeth Leustig, who would later go on to become my casting director on Dances With Wolves.
“She walked me up to Ida, who I couldn’t help but notice on the set having been there for three days.
“She was really Annie Hall before there was Annie Hall, if you know what I mean.
“She always seemed to be around the camera and without notice, she would move into the set as if no one was watching, pick up a book and move it.
“In fact, she would pick up anything – lamps, ashtrays, pictures.
“Anything that seemed to be bothering her she would just move it, maybe inches.
“Suddenly I find myself standing in front of her, and she’s looking at me, and it’s safe to say that I had gone from thinking she might be in trouble for moving things to now wondering if I was.
“She looked at me in a very real way, and I don’t know how else to describe it.
“I had no idea what I had done or what she was looking for.
“What she couldn’t have possibly known as I waited for her to speak was how shamefully desperate I was to be seen as an actor.
“After a long moment – an Ida Random moment, you’d have to see one to know one – she turned to Elizabeth said This works.
Because he fit in Random’s aesthetic vision for the scene, Costner got to deliver a single line – “Goodnight, Frances” – “and it would change the trajectory of my career.”
“I’ll never forget you, Ida. You changed my life that night.
“That’s what Ida does: She changes lives.
“She makes things better, sometimes by inches.
“She’s the director’s best friend and confidant.
“She’s the actor’s biggest cheerleader as she walks them through her perfect sets.
“You’re a filmmaker in every sense of the word, adding your most personal touch to the movies you call your paintings,” he said.
Great night last night. Thanks to the @SAGawards for having us. pic.twitter.com/kqeulXy1p2
— Kevin Costner & MW (@modernwest) February 28, 2022
An Emotional Kevin Costner Pays Tribute To Production Designer Ida Random, The Woman Who “Would Change The Trajectory Of My Career” https://t.co/V0NphRk4X6
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) March 6, 2022
