Kevin Costner talks coffee, his perfect morning ritual and more with 'GMA'
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Kevin Costner wears a lot of hats in his career: Actor, director and producer, to name a few. Now with his longstanding partnership with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and his signature Horizon blend firmly cemented, he can add "coffee connoisseur" to the resume.
"GMA" sat down with Costner on Zoom ahead of National Coffee Day (Sept. 29) to discuss this partnership, what makes his surprising perfect cup, and what he thinks some of his most famous characters would add to jazz up their morning brew.
The perfect cup of coffee with Kevin Costner
After reading prior interviews Costner had done with other outlets, one thing felt surprising given the actor's tendency toward the ruggedly handsome, cowboy archetype.
"I don't know that I fit the part of the black coffee guy," he admitted. "What happens is I actually have to find that taste before I doll it up with cream and sugar. That was really what I was going for -- 'How does this taste? When I put cream and sugar into it, do I still have that good coffee thing going on?'"
Even more important than the taste, however, is the ritual of having quiet time in the morning to slow down and enjoy your beverage.
"My perfect cup is when I, quite honestly, when I'm not going to touch the phone, I'm not going to look at my computer, and look out and drink it without interruption," he said. "And that doesn't happen very often! Doesn't that seem simple?"
Kevin Costner on becoming a later-in-life coffee drinker
Costner wasn't always so consistent about his coffee intake, only becoming a daily consumer around 10 or 15 years ago.
"I bounced around with it up until then in my life, but I don't know what created the kind of addictive moment," Costner told "GMA" of his transition from infrequent coffee drinker to daily imbiber.
"But the addiction is pretty under control!" he added. "It's one cup a day, but for some reason, I just have to have it."
He acknowledged that he's starting to experiment with a second cup in the afternoon, often indulging in a new habit for him -- iced coffee.
"I'm such a late bloomer," he joked. "I'm never on the cutting edge of anything. I make cowboy movies and movies about baseball!"
How Kevin Costner became a coffee connoisseur
While looking into Costner's promotional spots with Green Mountain, we noticed a pattern of the multi-hyphenate leaning into musical analogies to describe an ideal brew. We asked him to expound on that concept and to dig into what, to him, merits the connection between songwriting and the perfect cup.
"You know when you hit the right note. You know when something's going together," Costner explained, noting the first sip says so much about the quality of the cup. "You can tell when it's not right, and you can tell when it's in the pocket."
Coffee by the character
When it was time wrap up, we asked the actor how he thinks three of his most famous characters take their coffee.
"Black, with sugar," he said of Lt. John Dunbar, his character from 1990 epic Western "Dances with Wolves." Costner cited a scene in which Dunbar introduces the Lakota tribe to coffee and convinces them to partake by sweetening it heavily.
For Ray Kinsella, Costner's character from 1989 baseball-meets-magical-realism film "Field of Dreams," he immediately told us it's "cream and sugar."
"He came out of the pressure of the 1960s, out of Berkley schools," he said. "And I think he would have graduated away from black coffee just to make it pleasant."
For his character Frank Farmer from "The Bodyguard," Costner said he'd keep his coffee simple.
"I think he would have it black," he said, citing a bodyguard's need to always be at the ready in the morning with no time to go searching for "little packets" to jazz up his brew. "I don't think he could be bothered."
Whether you already have your favorite cup perfected or want to experiment with new flavors, try Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Horizon Blend Coffee by Kevin Costner. It's a dark roast sold on Amazon in 60- or 96-Keurig cup quantities, and with the holidays on the way, it makes a perfect gift for the Costner and coffee lover in your life.
Need a Keurig? Check out some of these deals for National Coffee Day.
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