“I make movies for men,” Kevin Costner said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast alongside members of the Horizon: An America Saga cast. “That’s what I do. But I won’t make a movie unless I have strong women characters. That’s how I’ve conducted my career. I think that’s why I have a good following. I thank you women for dragging your men here. It was a Western after all. I just can’t conceive of a movie without having [strong women].“

Horizon: An American Saga boasts quite the ensemble cast, including strong female characters played by Sienna Miller, Isabelle Fuhrman, Jena Malone, Abbey Lee, and others. Costner added that he “couldn’t conceive of a scene that didn’t involve a woman” while he was co-writing the script alongside Jon Baird. While speaking on The Kelly Clarkson Show earlier this month, Costner explained why women were so important to the story of Horizon.

“This has a tremendous amount of women in it,” Costner said. “They play such a big part of the West and what happened. They were often taken out there against their will and with their children on the idea that there was something great out there. There was nothing out there except a group of people who lived there for thousands of years. Women were drug into the most terrible of circumstances and made it work. And somehow they don’t find themselves in Westerns and in ‘Horizon’ they dominate.“

“In the great tradition of Warner Bros. Pictures’ iconic Westerns, Horizon: An American Saga explores the lure of the Old West and how it was won—and lost—through the blood, sweat, and tears of many,” reads the official synopsis. “Spanning the four years of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, Kevin Costner’s ambitious cinematic adventure will take audiences on an emotional journey across a country at war with itself, experienced through the lens of families, friends, and foes all attempting to discover what it truly means to be the United States of America.”

Horizon: An America Saga will be released in theaters on June 28th, followed by the second part on August 16th. Two more chapters are expected to follow to complete the saga. Opinions on the first chapter were divided upon its debut at Cannes earlier this year, but many praised it as sprawling and absorbing.

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