Costner wields power in ‘Swing Vote’

In “Swing Vote,” which opens Friday, Costner plays Bud Johnson, a single dad who’d rather drown himself in tequila than drive his daughter to school. He is an everyman of sorts, as his name deliberately suggests, but if Bud represents the average American, we’re all in deep, deep trouble.

Bud is coarse, dangerously uninformed and incapable of forming a single sentence without cursing. And through a series of bizarre coincidences, his vote will determine the next president of the United States. It’s a darkly comical premise that seems just feasible enough to cause the slightest pang of discomfort, and Costner wouldn’t have it any other way.

“People have asked me to tone my character down, to make him a more responsible parent,” Costner says. “And as one of the film’s producers, these are questions I have to answer. But I think it would be a mistake to make my character all warm and fuzzy. He’s not particularly lovable, no. He curses all the time. He kicks a beer can at his kid. He makes you uncomfortable, but you know what? He should.”

Costner knows full well that you don’t have to be an unemployed single parent living in a small-town New Mexico trailer to feel disenfranchised, and though Bud’s disdain for the two-party system is partly a byproduct of his own ignorance, that disdain is very real and undeniably prevalent.

It’s what drew Costner to “Swing Vote” in the first place — the chance to make a sharp-witted family comedy that spoke in meaningful terms to the widespread ambivalence that has reduced politicians to popular punching bags.

That said, Costner is unwilling to throw his weight behind Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain — at least for now.

“I’m not in the closet about my political beliefs, but I don’t want to give people sound bites either,” he says. “I’m not interested in talking about politics on the red carpet, and I won’t go on to some talk show where the host uses you to get his point across. That’s not useful dialogue, and I can’t articulate how I feel in two minutes anyway.

“I’ll probably declare for a candidate, but I won’t do it yet because the stakes haven’t been raised high enough. And if I do, so what? That’s who I’m voting for, but you don’t have to. There’s so much information out there, and I don’t have all of it. Who does? When the time comes, I’ll make a decision, and I’ll trust my gut, simple as that.”