Happy Birthday Kevin Costner

Not a delinquent, but a daydreamer, Costner said, who preferred wandering the California countryside to studying. I guess my parents thought I fibbed a lot because I told a lot of stories to get in trouble, to get out of trouble.

I did a lot of laboring jobs before acting, I was a carpenter for a while and do a lot of work building and repairing on the ranch. I m just an average carpenter but Im a very good laborer, he told Cinema.com. Hes held onto some of those skills; he even helped build the house he lives in today.

When Costner was younger, married to his first wife, he found himself on a plane with the actor. He recounted the story to Roger Ebert: "I told him, 'I was hoping to become an actor, and, well, you're a celebrated actor, but you're a brawler, you've had a lot of marriages, a lot of things ... I just want to know, does that kind of life follow an actor? I want to have a life that's not filled with drama.'

"And Burton looked at me and he said, 'You have green eyes. I have green eyes.' And he goes, 'I think you'll be fine.'

I've tried to hold on to my normalcy, my life, my children and stuff, said Costner. Speaking of children, he has seven; three are with his current wife Christine Baumgartner. He also has three kids with first wife and college sweetheart Cindy Silva, and one with Bridget Rooney, whom he dated after his divorce.

Not surprising, considering how many of his films have involved the sport: Bull Durham, Chasing Dreams, Field of Dreams, and For the Love of the Game. Costner is even part-owner of a team, the Lake County Fielders, from Illinois. The fielders part of the name is a reference to Field of Dreams.

In fact, hes narrated a documentary about NASCAR, and been Grand Marshal of the Nextel Cup Series Auto Club 500.

In fact, his oil-separation machine business recently became famous, after BP used the machines to help clean up after their spill this summer. Unfortunately, former co-owner of the company and fellow actor Stephen Baldwin is suing him over the deal, claiming he was excluded from a meeting with a BP exec. Ouch.

Costner, whos an Independent, has backed both Democratic and Republican candidates for office. "I grew up in a Republican household, and I heard [my] father go, 'Damn that Kennedy,' and when you're 12 years old, you're probably thinking, if you love your father, yeah, damn that Kennedy. My family was very staunchly Republican. I had to evolve and that took time for myself. I moved very quickly as a 20-year-old. I have very conservative roots, but my evolution allowed me to make 'JFK' and '13 Days' and those kinds of movies. I've always felt too limited by both parties," he told Roger Ebert.

Costners said, several times, that he wont act in a sequel and that hes not a fan of the way Hollywoods going. He prefers the films of, say, the 70s, and thinks Westerns are underrated. He told IndieLondon, I think a movie really has to wrap itself up in entertainment and a Western is a very hard thing to do because most people think of it as a simple art form.

Recently, in 2008, Costner took up music again. He had sung in choirs as a child. He and his band The Modern West, have released two albums and gone on tour twice. Their first tour, unfortunately, was marked by tragedy: a collapsing stage killed one person and wounded 40. The second tour, in Europe this year, went much better. So far their albums havent crept too far up the charts, but well see. In the meantime... happy birthday, Kevin Costner!