Kevin Costner for President? His Docuseries Collaborator Doris Kearns Goodwin Says He Reminds Her of This Iconic One

Kevin Costner joined his latest collaborator, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, at a May 15 promotional event for their new project, Kevin Costner’s The West.

At the Los Angeles event, the pair chatted with PEOPLE about the History channel’s upcoming eight-part docuseries, which they executive produced and Costner hosts, and what to expect from its examination of the American frontier.

During Costner and Goodwin’s exclusive conversation with PEOPLE, they touched on a few U.S. presidents who had a big impact on the expansion and perception of the West, including the 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt.   

As they continued, Goodwin told the Yellowstone alum, 70: “If I had to pick a president that reminds me of you, it would be Teddy Roosevelt.”

“I mean an adventurer, somebody wanting to test physical skills all the time, in part because he’d been so sickly as a child that he needed to build up his body, but he loved and he had vitality and energy,” Goodwin, 82, said. 

She then commented on the reputation of the popular president, who served from 1901 to 1909 and died in 1919, as a voracious reader, revealing he wrote 40 books and read 200,000 books. “To be a leader, what you need is to understand human nature, and how do you understand human nature but through the great books of poetry and prose,” she said, quoting Roosevelt. 

“Right, he made time,” Costner said in agreement. “And somebody doesn’t think they have time to read. He made time to read. ‘I don’t have time to read’: We’re suffering from that kind of man. I’m talking in general, men and women.”

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He also commented on how the esteemed politicians they researched, such as Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, were avid readers.

“They wrote and they read, and when you write and you read, two things happen: You’re still, and you’re usually by yourself,” Costner said. 

“So these were people that spent time thinking and absorbing, and then Teddy was exemplary on his desire to have experiences,” the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves director continued. “But he wrote and he read, and I think that some of our great leaders could learn by reading and writing.”

The upcoming series “takes viewers on an epic journey through the birth of the American West, examining the relentless competition for land power, and identity that forged our nation’s history,” per the official synopsis.

The series will highlight the tense showdowns between lawmen and outlaws, the rise of cowboys and ranchers, the strength of pioneer women and the drive of abolitionists and fortune seekers who helped shape the American frontier.

The History channel docuseries will also touch on famed figures, from Joaquin Murrieta, Chief Little Turtle, General “Mad” Anthony Wayne, to Sacagawea and Lewis & Clark.

With dramatic reenactments and the inclusion of diverse perspectives, Kevin Costner’s The West series illuminates both the indelible contributions of the pioneers who shaped the dream of the American West and the courageous resistance of Native American tribes who valiantly defended their ancestral land.

“The West is a place where anything is possible,” Goodwin says in the first-look trailer. “It is the essence of the American dream,”

Historian Ned Blackhawk adds: “The American West conjures wonder, possibility, opportunity.” 

“These stories will captivate us — and shock us,” Costner says at the trailer’s close. “Now it’s time to come face to face with the real story of our wild past.” 

Kevin Costner’s The West premieres on Sunday, May 26 (Memorial Day) at 9/8c with back-to-back episodes. The third episode airs on May 27 at 8/7c. Subsequent episodes air on Mondays at 9/8c on the History channel.