Kevin Costner’s new movie contains connection to 30 year old Western classic

Kevin Costner’s new movie, Horizon: An American Saga is set to kickstart the Western into new life, and fittingly, it apparently has an accidental connection to one of the best movies in the genre: Dances With Wolves.

Horizon: An American Saga is undoubtedly one of the most ambitious movies at Cannes this year. Kevin Costner‘s four-part historical epic is finally coming to life after three decades of work, serving as an expansive study of the American West and how it came to be.

But Dances With Wolves is Costner’s magnum opus, the Western epic that scored seven Academy Awards and was credited with reviving the genre, and there’s supposedly an accidental link within his new movie to the 1990 classic.

It all comes from one of Costner’s Horizon cast members, Wasé Chief, who plays Liluye, a woman who becomes caught between the battle for territory between the Indigenous community and the approaching settlers. According to the actress, her father previously had a role in Dances With Wolves — a connection that even Costner didn’t know about.

“My dad was actually in Dances With Wolves and Kevin didn’t know that until way later,” she said [via Deadline]. “Each character has such depth to them, and especially how he’s always portrayed Native people, I just knew I was going to be in good hands with him.

“There’s been times when I had to turn down jobs because I was like, I don’t feel good about this the way it’s portrayed. But Kevin makes sure to make all the Native cast feel really comfortable and he just gets it. It’s like he’s just an honorary Native.”

While there’s no information online regarding who her father is or who he played in Dances With Wolves, this would make it a neat Easter egg for any fans of the ’90s Western drama if true.

Horizon: Chapter 1 will be released on June 28, 2024. For more, check out our guides to Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2 and 1923 Season 2.