Kevin Costner has scored some really epic projects throughout his decades-long career, with Field of Dreams (1989), Dances with Wolves (1990), and Yellowstone (2018) ranking among his top bests.
But while he has achieved a lot of success and stardom through the same, it seems like not all of his co-stars shared that pleasant experience while working with him.
This stands especially true while talking about his 1989 sports/fantasy masterpiece, considering the minimal but interestingly not-so-nice things Costner’s younger co-star and actress Gaby Hoffmann had to say about working with him.
In comparison, she had a ton of better things to say while gushing on and on about working with Ray Liotta, who was another one of her co-stars in the film.
Gaby Hoffmann Didn’t Have the Finest Experience with Kevin Costner
In Field of Dreams, while the then-34-year-old Kevin Costner played the role of Ray Kinsella, the film’s main protagonist who is an extraordinary baseball fan as well as a farmer in Iowa, his younger co-star and then-7-year-old Hoffmann played his daughter Karin Kinsella.
But as iconic as this father-daughter duo was onscreen, similar feelings were not felt offscreen — especially when it comes to Hoffman’s memory of the time. In fact, the actress even claimed that she felt “a lot of paternal energy” on the sets, but ostensibly not around Costner.
During an interview with Business Insider, the now-42-year-old actress expressed her feelings about the same in as minimal words as possible, saying:
I didn’t feel paternal energy from Kevin Costner. We’ll leave it at that.
As can be understood from the bare minimum and not-so-nice things she had to say about him, it is inevitably evident that what happened onscreen in the movie actually stayed onscreen and was nothing more than just a staged performance by both Costner and Hoffmann.
At the same time, surprisingly enough, Hoffmann had a lot of fine things to say about her other co-star from the film: Ray Liotta.
Gaby Hoffmann “Just absolutely loved” Ray Liotta While Working with Him
While the Now and Then actress apparently didn’t have the most pleasant work experience with Costner, she most certainly enjoyed it to the core while hanging out with the late Liotta on the sets, who played the character of Shoeless Joe Jackson in the movie.
During the same interview, she couldn’t help but gush on and on about how much of a fatherly figure the Hannibal actor proved to be for someone like her, who “didn’t have a dad growing up.” Talking about Liotta, Hoffmann said:
I just absolutely loved Ray. I was convinced he was in love with me, too, which, of course, he wasn’t, but he was just such a sweetheart.
In fact, she was so enchanted by the charmingly handsome young guy’s presence that she even jokingly told him how she had a “big crush” on him.
As Hoffman continued to heap praise on him:
I sort of jokingly said I had a big crush on him, but I think I was really drawn to a kind of fatherly, protective energy that he had in spades. What a beautiful actor he was, too.
However, sadly for her, that movie was the last time that she met and hung out with Liotta before his devastating death in 2022, considering how she admitted that she “never saw him again” after shooting that movie.
All in all, Costner may have immaculately played the role of her loving father for the screens, but when it came to behind the scenes, it was Liotta who truly stole Gaby Hoffmann‘s young heart with his incredibly alluring “fatherly, protective energy.”
You can watch Field of Dreams on Prime Video.
