Kevin Costner remembered his Dances With Wolves co-star Graham Greene following the actor’s death on Monday. Costner shared a clip of the 1990 film, which he also directed, on Instagram along with a tribute to Greene.
“A few things come to mind when I think of Graham Greene and our time together on Dances With Wolves,” Costner wrote. “I think of how willing he was to learn the Lakota language. I think of my joy when I heard that his work on the film was recognized with an @theacademy Awards nomination. And I think of this scene in particular, when he was able to establish so much about the relationship between Dunbar and the natives with so few words. He was a master at work and a wonderful human being.”
He added, “I’m grateful to have been witness to this part of his lasting legacy. Rest in peace, Graham.”
Costner cast Greene as real-life Lakota Sioux medicine man Kicking Bird in the film, a epic Western adapted from Michael Blake’s novel. The performance earned Greene an Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actor and helped to launch his Hollywood career. He subsequently appeared in films like Thunderheart, Maverick, Die Hard with a Vengeance, The Green Mile, Molly’s Game, and Twilight Saga: New Moon.
More recently, Greene appeared in high-profile TV shows like Taika Waititi’s FX series Reservation Dogs, hit series The Last Of Us, and Taylor Sheridan’s 1883 and Tulsa King. He also starred as Skully in Marvel’s Echo series on Disney+.
The Canadian First Nations actor died in the hospital on Monday after a long illness, according to his agent Michael Greene. “He was a great man of morals, ethics and character and will be eternally missed,” Greene, no relation, said in a statement (via The Hollywood Reporter). “You are finally free.”
Although Greene became famous for portraying an indigenous character, the actor made efforts to embrace a variety of roles. After making Dances With Wolves, Greene told his agents to pursue other types of projects to ensure he wasn’t pigeonholed as a performer.
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“I tend to move along in my career and take roles that are unique and different,” Greene said in 2021. “I’ve played God twice. I’ve played judges, lawyers, doctors, police officers, and detectives. The diversity of roles is what I like to play. I don’t like to be pigeonholed as one thing because you get stuck in one role. Jack Nicholson is hired to be Jack Nicholson. I don’t want that, and not being able to experience the other workings of what’s going on in a writer’s head and taking a script and lifting a story off the page and telling it your way.”
From Rolling Stone US
