Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent: Man of Steel's adoptive father and his lesson in restraint

Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent: who is the actor?

Kevin Michael Costner was born on January 18, 1955, in Lynwood, California. A graduate of California State University, Fullerton, he chose to become an actor after a chance meeting with Richard Burton. His early career was slow to take off: bit parts, scenes left on the cutting-room floor. The breakthrough came in 1985 with the western Silverado. In March 1991, he won two Oscars for Dances with Wolves, which he both directed and starred in.

For a Superman fan, his name brings just one role to mind: Jonathan Kent, the Kansas farmer who raises Clark as his own son, in Man of Steel (2013). Don't confuse the actor with the character: the Kent couple has a history of its own, much older than the film, and other actors played the role before and after Costner. Among the actors of the Superman universe, he holds a special place: an award-winning star who agreed to take a supporting role, played entirely in flashbacks.

March 2011: how Costner became Pa Kent

On March 17, 2011, Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures announced in a press release that Kevin Costner would play Jonathan Kent in Zack Snyder's Superman film, which was still called Superman: Man of Steel at the time. Costner was 56. Diane Lane, announced as Martha just before him, had been the first hire after Henry Cavill, who had been cast as Clark.

In that press release, Snyder said Costner would be able to convey “the quiet strength of this rural American man.” According to Wikipedia, he also justified pairing Costner with Lane by pointing to the realism he was going for: he wanted serious actors.

The role also echoes his career. In 1989, in Field of Dreams, Costner had already played a Midwestern farmer, in Iowa; the ICv2 website made the connection as early as 2011. A note for purists: the Kent farm is in Smallville, Kansas.

Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent in Man of Steel: the role

Man of Steel was directed by Zack Snyder and written by David S. Goyer, from a story by Goyer and producer Christopher Nolan. It's the first film in the DC Extended Universe, the DCEU. It was released in the United States on June 14, 2013, then in France on June 19. Costner was 58.

Around him: Henry Cavill as Clark, Diane Lane as Martha, his on-screen wife, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Michael Shannon as Zod, and Laurence Fishburne as Perry White. Jor-El, Clark's biological father, is played by Russell Crowe. So the film has two fathers: one on Krypton, the other in Kansas.

Jonathan only appears in flashbacks. As a child, Clark is played by Cooper Timberline (age 9) and then Dylan Sprayberry (age 13); as an adult, he's played by Henry Cavill. The role boils down to one idea: Jonathan pushes Clark to hide his powers until he's mature enough to deal with the consequences. He's convinced that his son was sent to Earth for a reason.

The school bus and the “Maybe”: a line that rubs people the wrong way

Costner's first big scene follows an accident: Clark's school bus plunges off a bridge into a river, and Clark, still a child, pushes it all the way to the bank. That evening, his father sets him straight: “Clark, you have to keep this side of yourself a secret.” In other words, nobody can find out what he's able to do.

Clark protests: “What was I supposed to do? Just let them die?” Jonathan answers with a single word: “Maybe.” He adds: “There's more at stake here than just our lives, Clark, or the lives of those around us.” And then: “People are afraid of what they don't understand.”

According to ComicBook, that “Maybe” had already shown up in a trailer and stirred controversy before the film came out. Taken on its own, the word is shocking; put back in the scene, it can be read as a father's fear for his son. In the same sequence, Jonathan shows Clark the ship they found him in. When Clark asks whether he can go on pretending to be his son, he replies: “You are my son.” He also tells him about his other father, who gave him a different name.

Don't hit back: the lesson in restraint against Kenny Braverman

Another scene shows restraint even more simply. One day, Clark gets shoved around by Kenny Braverman, played by Rowen Kahn. With his strength, he could seriously hurt him. He takes it without fighting back, then admits to his father that he wanted to hit him.

Jonathan doesn't lecture him. He admits that part of him would have wanted that too, then asks what would have happened next. And he gives him the line that sums up his whole upbringing: “You just have to decide what kind of man you want to grow up to be, Clark.” It's up to you to choose the man you want to become, he's essentially saying, because that man, good or bad, is going to change the world.

Their last conversation is harsher. In the car, a teenage Clark snaps at his father that he's just some guy who found him in a field. Jonathan concedes that they aren't his parents, and that their best may no longer be enough. The next scene is the tornado.

The tornado scene: a raised hand, without a word

On the highway, a tornado bears down on the family. The Kents run for shelter under an overpass, along with other drivers. The dog, Hank, has been left behind in the car. Clark wants to go get him; Jonathan stops him: “Get your mom to the overpass.” And he goes after the dog himself.

Jonathan frees Hank, but he injures his leg and can no longer run. Clark could reach him, but everyone would see him. His father raises his hand and signals him to stay where he is. The tornado sweeps him away. The subtitles give him no line at that moment: everything comes through Costner's gesture.

That choice breaks with the 1978 Superman and Smallville, where Jonathan dies of a heart attack. Here, he sacrifices himself to protect Clark's secret. As an adult, Clark tells Lois about it: “I let my father die because I trusted him.” When she hears this, Lois gives up on revealing his identity. In May 2013, Henry Cavill told Interview magazine that Costner and Lane would come and read their lines to him off camera; for one scene in which only Cavill was being filmed, Costner stood 200 meters away, farther down the road. Cavill doesn't say which scene it was.

A divisive scene: criticism, defenses, and what Costner thinks

Man of Steel got a mixed critical reception (57% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes as of October 2026) and grossed about $670 million worldwide. Costner's performance was praised: IGN called Crowe and Costner “real standouts.” The character himself, however, sparked debate. As early as June 2013, in Forbes, Adam Ozimek wrote about “The Harsh Utilitarianism of Man of Steel's Pa Kent.”

Den of Geek names the tornado, along with Zod's death, as one of the two sequences that made the film controversial. It was widely mocked on social media. John Schneider, the Jonathan Kent of Smallville, said in 2017 that he liked Costner but not that version of the father, whom he criticized, according to ComicBook, for giving self-serving advice. In the character's defense, David S. Goyer pointed out in 2020 that Clark was only about 17 years old. In 2024, in GQ, Zack Snyder explained that Clark lets his father die to protect the very idea his father stood for.

Costner, for his part, talked about it with humor in June 2024, on the ReelBlend podcast: “It's just my luck to be in a superhero movie and be the only person that's normal.” Just his luck: the one normal character in a superhero movie. About the tornado, he said: “I thought it was rooted in doubt. But there was no doubt that he puts his hand up and says, 'Stay there' to his son.” Careful, though: that “Stay there” is his way of describing the gesture. In the film, Jonathan says nothing. He also recalled, in a lighthearted tone, how surprised he was to discover while reading the script that he was playing just a farmer, with no powers.

Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent after 2013: two returns

Costner reprised the role in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, released in March 2016. Jonathan has only one scene there, and it's only a vision: after the bombing at the Capitol, Superman has gone into self-imposed exile, and alone in the mountains, he sees his father appear to him. Jonathan recounts how, at about age 12, he saved the farm from a flood with his own father; his mother called him a hero. But the diverted water swept away a neighboring farm and drowned its horses. You can read it as a continuation of the 2013 lesson: even a heroic act comes at a cost for someone else. That's an interpretation, not a line from the film.

His final return comes through archive material. In Zack Snyder's Justice League, released online on March 18, 2021, Costner is uncredited: we hear him through an archive recording and see him in a photo. Clark, resurrected, emerges from the Kryptonian ship wearing the black suit, over the blended voice-overs of his two fathers. Jonathan's lines come from Man of Steel.

His career in brief, and the other Jonathan Kents

Before Pa Kent, Costner made one film after another: The Untouchables (1987), JFK (1991), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), The Bodyguard (1992), and A Perfect World (1993). Dances with Wolves (1990) won seven Oscars. On television, Hatfields & McCoys (2012) earned him an Emmy in 2012 and then a Golden Globe in 2013; he went on to play John Dutton in Yellowstone, from 2018 through the fifth season. In 2020, in Let Him Go, he reunited with Diane Lane, once again playing a married couple. And in 2008, his band Modern West released a single called “Superman 14,” which has nothing to do with the film.

Other actors have raised Clark on screen:

• Glenn Ford, in the 1978 Superman, where Jonathan dies of a heart attack;
• Eddie Jones, in Lois & Clark;
• John Schneider, in Smallville;
• Fred Henderson, in Superman & Lois;
• Pruitt Taylor Vince, in James Gunn's Superman (2025), where Jonathan is alive.

One last pitfall: Jonathan Kent is not Jon Kent, the son of Clark and Lois. And the film Man of Steel is not John Byrne's miniseries The Man of Steel (1986), in which the Kents are still alive when Clark is an adult.

Conclusion

Kevin Costner played Jonathan Kent in only one full film, one vision scene, and some archive audio. Yet that short role left a clear mark: a father who asks his son to wait, even if it costs him his life. You may find that choice right or absurd; the debate has been going on since 2013, and Costner himself still talks about it.

To place the film within the saga, follow the Superman movie watch order, then find out what became of the Man of Steel sequel.