Kevin Costner on Being Evacuated During Santa Barbara Mudslides: 'Our Community Has Been Split in Two'

“Extra's” Mark Wright sat down with Costner to talk about the devastation that hit too close to home. Kevin shared, “Our community has been split in two and there's been a loss of life.”

The Oscar winner was forced to evacuate when mudslides struck weeks after wildfires wreaked havoc in the Santa Barbara area. He said, “Everybody in my house has survived. We had to evacuate, we had to pick and choose, my children still haven't been back to school, it's not likely they are going back to school right now.” He went on to say, “In our community, there is no sixth degree of separation, it's about maybe a house over from you. We're lucky — other people haven't been so lucky.”

Kevin's house was spared, so he opened up his home to those in need of shelter, saying, “Other people came to live with us.” Kevin and his band, Modern West, are also set to headline a benefit February 3 in Ventura. “It's a community just trying to stand with itself," he said. "Six or seven bands are gonna play. I'm gonna play and probably say a few words at some point.”

Kevin and his wife Christine have three young children. The actor is balancing his personal and professional life, emphasizing “You have to be the one to drive them to school, you can turn that over to somebody else or you can do it, that 10, 15 minutes may seem like nothing comes of it, but they know you are there… A lot of times it's not what you say, it's being close proximity.”

After winning an Emmy and Golden Globe for his TV miniseries “Hatfields & McCoys,” Costner is returning to the small screen in “Yellowstone," playing a rancher dealing with the problems of the modern world. Director and writer Taylor Sheridan always wanted Kevin for the role, revealing, “It's who I imagined doing this role from the beginning when I wrote it. To have that come to fruition was a career highlight.”

Kevin plays a patriarch whose family's ranch borders Yellowstone National Park, putting the Duttons in constant conflict. Kevin explained, “When people are at the top of the heap, somebody is always pecking at it. In America, there are the haves and the have-nots; this is somebody if you put his life in reverse, you'd realize he didn't have anything and everything he's had that family has worked for and now there is a level of encroachment.”