Kevin Costner Takes On A Killer Role

"Thank God for golf," Kevin Costner says. "I just wish it wasn't 18 holes!"

Even on the golf course he's a star — the 52-year-old Costner is the one they all come to see, playing in a charity tournament in Greenville, S.C. As for his reputation as one of Hollywood's top golfers?

"On the Internet, I'm a pretty good golfer," he told CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Rita Braver. "But in real life, I'm the people's champion, 'cause I hit in the sand, I hit it over here. Once in a while I give the people something to cheer about."

Not just on the golf course, but especially at the movies, whether it's playing a golfer in "Tin Cup" (where he did his own trick shots), a baseball player in "Bull Durham," or a former Secret Service agent in "The Bodyguard."

"I probably play quintessential Americans, that's kind of what I do. I'm an American."

But now in his new movie, "Mr. Brooks," Kevin Costner is a very different kind of American — he plays a serial killer.

"Well, you kinda just gave it away, didn't you?" he joked. "You just put it right out there. I know this is obviously between us."

Don't worry: Costner wants everyone to know that he is playing Earl Brooks, family man by day, compulsive killer by night.

Even the writers and director of this film said they think it plays against type.

"Well, they don't follow me home, they don't know exactly how evil I am," Costner said, smiling.

Mr. Brooks is definitely evil. And Costner didn't want to wink to the audience suggesting the characters wasn't. "I wanted to play him all the way, but hopefully could infuse a sense of humanity into him."

"You feel sorry for him at the same time you despise him?" Braver asked.

"Exactly. And we have to also realize that there's people outside [the movie theater] that are just as bent as he is."

Costner personally recruited Demi Moore to play the detective who ties to hunt down the serial killer. He also invited William Hurt to play Mr. Brook's imaginary alter-ego, the voice urging him to kill again.

"I just called him up in the middle of the night when he was foggy, and said, 'Hey, man, I got a piece of dessert for you. You know, it's a role, it's really good. If it speaks to you, it's yours."

But as much as Costner loves finding challenging roles — for his friends and for himself — he did not grow up dreaming of life in the movies

He got a college degree in business, but by his senior year realized he wanted to act. But it took a long time to become an overnight success.

He was 30 by the time he got his big break, in the buddy western "Silverado," playing Jake, the kid.

Costner had always wanted to be in Westerns, but not in this kind of role:

"This guy that was swinging from the bars, kissing girls, in trouble — I remembered having that moment like, 'You mean, I don't get to play John Wayne?'"

But if "Silverado" launched his career, it was "No Way Out," where he played Sean Young's lover, that really showcased his sex appeal.

"Is it true that you never thought of yourself in that way?" Braver asked.

"I didn't. You know, I think I really dated in my life twice, and I married both those women! I was not, no, I wasn't cool. I've never been cool."

"Look at me, I make baseball movies and cowboy movies."

Indeed, he does: Three films devoted to baseball alone, including "Field of Dreams," with Costner as Ray Kinsella, an Iowa Farmer who believes he's meant to build a ball park in his corn field.

But the film he may have fought the hardest for, when studios were dubious, is the one that earned him Oscars for both Best Picture and Best Director: "Dances with Wolves," the top-grossing western of all time. He plays a former Army officer who becomes an honorary Sioux Indian.

The film's success gave him a lot of clout in Hollywood.

"Yeah, but I've always felt like I had a lot of clout, because I always felt I knew what I would say 'No' to. I wasn't walking around like a dumb ass saying, 'Oh, I have a lot of clout!' when I didn't. But I always felt that I had myself, and I felt like I had my taste, and I felt like I had the audience on my shoulder when I selected a movie."

He says that even applies to his much-disparaged "Waterworld," with Costner starring as a mutant who fights for survival on a planet where the polar icecaps have melted.

Costner laughed: "I really liked 'Waterworld,' and people around the world talk to me about it, 'We even like 'Waterworld.'"

But all those films took a toll on Costner's personal life. In 1994, his first marriage broke up.

Ten years later he married Christine Baumgartner. They have a new baby.

He says she told him, 'No kids? No relationship,' while they were on a romantic getaway.

"And it was everything you might imagine. You can make it X-rated, whatever, it was incredible. I can conjure it up even now — and my face is as red as your shirt — and as we were flying back she said, 'You know, if we're going to have more weekends, if we're going to have anything, you need to know that children's a big part of what I'm about.'"

Costner is close with his three children from his first marriage; his youngest daughter Lily came to watch him at the golf tournament.

But as busy as Costner is making movies...he still makes time for yet another passion:

His band, Modern West. Costner has recently started performing with some of the same musicians who were in a band he played in when he was younger. He says he knows that people may be skeptical about his music because he's a movie star.

"But the music kind of has to pass a test for me in order to want to share it, and I kind of, in my own mind, made up that the same way I do about the movies. I made up my mind that the music could hold them."

The music (and Costner) held them for two-and-a-half hours.

And the more you watch him, the more you begin to realize that whether it's music or movies, Kevin Costner is a born performer.