A Kevin Costner Classic Still Hasn’t Revealed One Crucial Mystery

You could spend your time scouring the internet for an answer to the question, but you won’t find much.

However, you will find that Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams has made an immortal impact in the realm of sports movies. 

You won’t find too many baseball fans who aren’t familiar with the line, “If you build it, they will come”. The movie was even nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score. 

If you think about it, it’s pretty amazing that Robinson, Kevin Costner, and the rest of the crew involved in the making of the film have been able to keep the identity of the famed “Voice” a secret for so long.

Director Phil Robinson spoke up about the cryptic nature of the role saying, “It’s a great mystery, and I like that!”. 

Some people have guessed that the “Voice” was Robinson himself. Some people have placed Kevin Costner as the “Voice” in Field of Dreams, and some have said it could be Ed Harris (The Truman Show) or Ray Liotta (Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams). 

All of those guesses have been verified as incorrect by the man who was there when the voice recording work took place. Phil Robinson said that he did record a scratch track of the “Voice” and Kevin Costner’s opening narration before the film was finished, but the final cut of the voiceover was some other unnamed talent. 

Field of Dreams had quite a few excellent moments of trickery in addition to the ethereal voice barking out commands to Kevin Costner’s character.

The way the film crew shot the scene where all of the people did “come” to the baseball field Costner’s character built was quite spectacular. 

You would think that they just used CGI to simulate the thousands of headlights seen heading toward the field, but every headlight you see in that scene is attached to a real vehicle. They used actual cars. 

They actually had a production assistant do some math to figure out the best way to create that scene.

The assistant drove the route to the ballfield, measured the distance, and divided that number by the average length of a car to figure out just how many vehicles production would need to create the visual they were going for. 

The math worked out to about 2,500 cars for this Kevin Costner classic. Once production had a number, they asked the Dubuque County Chamber of Commerce to produce 2,500 cars and drivers for filming … and they did.

Once they had all the cars in place on the road, Phil Robinson and J. David Jones (Apocalypse Now) flew in a helicopter over the rows of traffic to get the perfect shot. 

The great lengths the director and the cast of Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams were willing to go to ultimately created a movie that will hold a place in the hearts of sports fans for many years to come.

The gamble paid off with a classic for all of us to enjoy and a mystery that will keep us wondering, “Who really did the “Voice” in Field of Dreams”?