Mr. Brooks

Field of Dreams is my and my dad’s favorite movie,” says Dane Cook. ”I’ve been a Costner fan forever, and I’ve always wanted to see him be bad, to see him play that Hannibal Lecter or Kevin Spacey-in- Seven part.” The popular stand-up comic gets his wish with Mr. Brooks, a thriller that casts Kevin Costner as the title character, a highly respected Portland, Ore., businessman who moonlights as the Thumbprint Killer. (Demi Moore is the cop on his tail.) ”I play this salacious, deviant guy who happens to photograph him during one of his murder sprees,” says Cook of his first dramatic role. ”I say to him, ‘Teach me how to be you, or I’m exposing you.”’

Not that Costner was jonesing for a chance to shed blood. ”I’ve seen those movies, and they’re good and effective, but I wasn’t dying to do a role like this,” he says. ”But I thought this was a clever take; you have empathy for the guy.” In fact, the actor so loved playing Brooks that he’s hoping to reprise the role for two sequels the writers have already mapped out. ”Our hope is that people like it enough to talk about it,” Costner says of the film, ”because that’s the only way we’re gonna come close to surviving in June, and it’d be nice to go on and follow this character through his evolution. Why not make a six-hour movie?” (June 1)