Academy-Award winning actor and filmmaker Kevin Costner encouraged students to vote and apologized for his generation to about 150 students in DU’s Village Commons last Tuesday.B

Costner, 53, said the generation that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s promised to change the world but didn’t.B

Instead, “so little has changed. Now my son is out there, and I haven’t done enough to make his life better. Or yours, for that matter…I’m here to work on making good on the promise of my generation,” he said.

Students for Barack Obama brought Costner to campus to promote early voting and speak on behalf of the Democratic ticket.B

Costner said that throughout his life, he’s seen two different kinds of people- those that act and those that do not. He urged students to choose to be the kind of people who make a difference.

“When I look at my life and analyze it, was I a participant or an observer?” he said.

He said his purpose was to encourage students to participate in the political process.

Costner also said that he hoped that young voters would recognize the significance of the election process.

“It’s not an uncool thing to do; it’s uncool not to,” he said.

He described the generation currently in college as “the most powerful interest group in America” and in a position to have real influence, if they make it to the polls.

“My generation was united once for a little while…then it ended, and so did our power. The world suffered and so did we,” he said.

“If I could go back to my young self, I would say, ‘Don’t leave it up to somebody else.’ So, I’m promising you, if you stand as one next week, you will experience your power, and you will change the world. You should change the world. It needs you,” headded.

Jarred Olson, a freshman, attended the rally. He said he voted during the early balloting that ended Friday.

His choice was Republican John McCain. Although Costner was stumping for Obama, Olson wanted to hear what the actor had to say.

Unlike Olson, sophomore Abby Brown supports Obama but attended the rally primarily to see Costner.

“If this were Dennis Quaid, I wouldn’t be here,” Brown said.

Kirsten Cangilla, a sophomore, said she identified as a Republican but that she decided to vote for Obama. Besides having an interest in seeing Costner, she was curious about what he had to say about the campaign.B

Cangilla said she was surprised to learn that Costner is an independent.

“It adds more credibility to his message. It takes off the partisan spin. We just wanted information, and that’s what we got,” she said. “I really like that he said, ‘just vote,’ and not who we had to vote for.”