Kevin Costner loved John Mulaney’s Field of Dreams gag at the 2024 Oscars.
The Horizon: An American Saga director-actor, 69, who played the role Ray Kinsella in the 1989 film, tells PEOPLE he thought the comedian’s explanation of the movie’s plot while presenting at the award show was “amazing.”
“I couldn’t believe that guy. Amazing. I watched it a second time,” Costner says, adding that he thought Mulaney, 41, was “gifted.”
“What a chance, because there’s always people in the Oscars trying to rush you,” he says. “And he went fast. But what he said, I was very touched by it. I should talk to him because I was really impressed. He was a genius.”
“I loved what he did,” he adds.
Mulaney was presenting the award for Best Sound during the Oscars in March when he branched into a comedy bit about Field of Dreams.
“Or what about that moment in Field of Dreams where we hear ‘If you build it, he will come,’ and then Costner does it, he builds a baseball field,” Mulaney said at one point. “Or I guess he doesn’t build it — he mows down corn, and then there is a field and he’s like, ‘I’m going to watch ghosts play baseball,’ and the bank is like, ‘You wanna pay your mortgage?’ And he’s like, ‘Nah, I’m gonna watch ghosts play baseball.’ ”
Field of Dreams tells the story of Costner’s character, Ray Kinsella, a corn farmer in Iowa who hears voices urging him to build a baseball field.
Costner starred alongside the late Ray Liotta, James Earl Jones, Dwier Brown, Amy Madigan and Gaby Hoffmann in the film.
Following Liotta’s death in 2022 at the age of 67, Costner paid tribute to his late costar.
“Devastated to hear the news of Ray Liotta’s passing,” Costner wrote at the time. “While he leaves an incredible legacy, he’ll always be ‘Shoeless Joe Jackson’ in my heart.”
Costner also shared a clip of Liotta’s character hitting the baseball twice, with the first shot almost hitting Ray Kinsella. However, the second soared high, landing into the cornfield.
“What happened that moment in the film was real,” Costner said of the scene. “God gave us that stunt. Now God has Ray.”