Kevin Costner and baseball movies seem to go together like, well, baseball and apple pie.
In the dramatic movie, "The Upside of Anger," Costner once again takes on the role of a baseball player, though this time around his character's a retired jock who now works as a radio DJ. Joan Allen co-stars as a mother of four headstrong young women who develops a complicated relationship with Costner's character.

INTERVIEW WITH KEVIN COSTNER ('Denny'):

Was this a character you could relate to as soon as you read the script?
I saw it very clearly. It was an American character and a very American movie, with very universal themes of men and women. I thought it was an original voice and it humored me while challenging me. A lot of the humor comes from very challenging scenes. The scenes are funny, but we don?t know if they are funny or if they are just a train wreck, or we just go, ?Oh, God.? There is a lot of laughs out loud and there?s a lot of laughs that are kind of like, ?I can?t believe she just said that to him right now.? So that is kind of a pleasing cinematic experience, and I thought all of those things existed in Mike Binder?s writing and that?s why I wanted to do it.

Is there any giving up of ego for you in doing this because this character isn?t very glamorous?
Well, I?m not that fearful of a person to begin with. Maybe I should have gone through my career a little more carefully to make sure I didn?t make a misstep.

But I haven?t really gone that way.

I had to put 20 pounds on for the movie. He wasn?t about to sit home. He didn?t seem to me to be the kind of character that wanted to lift weights. I?ve played supporting characters before in a movie called ?The War,? and I just played another one again in ?Rumor Has It.? I thought my role was great, but I started off thinking the movie was? There is no use in being the head flea on a dead dog. You can have a really great part and have the movie add up to nothing. They always have that potential. I think Mike [Binder] is very close to being our generation?s Woody Allen and not all his movies are set in New York. They?re just set in Detroit.

How?d it feel working with all these beautiful women?
They were all easy on the eyes and they were all really happy to be working on an intelligent script. Mike handpicked all of them so they all felt they deserved to be there, that he wanted them there. It was fun because even though it was a movie, there were moments that felt very real and very funny.

These movies are all hard to do. This one was equally as hard, but it was fun to watch them. And it will be fun to watch them as their careers?however their careers evolve.

What sort of advice could you give them to avoid the pitfalls of Hollywood?
I don?t think you can avoid those pitfalls and live a real life because those things are just going to come to you naturally. A movie?s going to do well or it?s not going to do well. You have to make sure you know why you?ve done the movie. I think at the point when it doesn?t seem fun to them, or it doesn?t seem productive, I would just encourage them to have the courage to step away as opposed to [making] themselves feel less than they have done because they?ve all achieved something even at this age. So if they walked away and said, ?Yeah, I was in a Hollywood movie once,? and then take their kids to soccer?

Would you be okay saying that?
I am okay saying that. My life is a lot more than just Hollywood. But I?ve always reserved the right to invent my life and to step out of it if I want to, should I want to. I kind of counsel myself. Do I have the courage to do that? There is a lot of dough. You can get paid a lot of dough for doing something you don?t like and that can be the seduction. But it?s also probably the trap, too.

PAGE 2:Kevin Costner on Baseball, Joan Allen, and "Rumor Has It."