December 9, 2004 7:34 PM
Behind the Scenes at “Open Range”

I thought today would be a good day to share a "war story" from the film business. This one took place on "Open Range." Like any period piece, this movie was a tough one to make. Sometimes it seemed liked nothing was going right. The costume budget alone was driving our investors up the wall! So the last thing I needed to hear one morning before we shot a particularly crucial scene with tons of extras was that the craft services team had run out of beef! They had simply not calculated just how many people were going to be involved that day. Now, normally the last thing on a director's mind is the catering but the fact is, a hungry cast is an undirectable cast. Even good ol' "cool Kevin" was in a panic. Then I remember something. In my trailer, I had a refridgerator stocked with 150 lbs. of frozen bison steaks! I grabbed my co-star Bob Duvall, and together we hauled one big mess of buffalo back to the craft servies people. They ended up cooking all of it. We didn't tell anyone that we had used bison instead of beef - and when we were done shooting that day, every person involved stopped by to tell me that they had never tasted better steak in their life! The look on their faces when I told them they had actually eaten bison meat was priceless. Priceless! It may have been the first bison meat they'd tasted, but from their satisfied smiles I knew for a fact it wouldn't be their last!

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