NEW ORLEANS (CN) - Actor Kevin Costner opened up on the stand Thursday to fight claims that he shut out investors like fellow actor Stephen Baldwin while selling BP an oil-separating device in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion.
Costner testified that his "heart was a little broken" over the Gulf oil spill, "and knowing that this thing is going on and I have this machine to help," if someone could just consider it seriously.
The "Dances With Wolves" star said his partners tried to capitalize on his celebrity to promote the oil-separating centrifuge he developed in the 1990s.
Costner said he waited two years for the Department of Energy to make the patent to the oil-separating centrifuge available before he could purchase it.
That was roughly around 1993.
"I didn't lose money on it," Costner said, under questioning from Baldwin's attorney, James Cobb.
"I heard your opening remarks - that I failed, or maybe that wasn't your line exactly, but that I gave up," Costner told Cobb.
Though Costner has a different understanding of his history with the machine patent, he said there comes a time for separation from every project. When that time came and Costner sold the rights to the centrifuge patent, he had spent 10 years and approximately $20 million perfecting the machine.
By the time the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010, Costner had already been working on a side project with Patrick Smith that would make centrifuges helpful in oil spills.
Though the centrifuge could separate oil from water at 100 parts per million, regulations require a separation to 15 parts per million, the actor said.
"This 15 parts per million is what finally wore me out," Costner told the jury. "I sent this machine around the world at my own expense, and I could not get it out there" because of that one "ridiculous clause."
But Smith believed engineers could develop a membrane capable of separating oil from water down to 15 parts per million, so they banded together to form WestPac Resources, Costner said.
The pair envisioned creating a membrane that could attach to any centrifuge in the world, not specifically the centrifuge Costner helped develop, he said.
Ultimately, they formed Ocean Therapy Solutions with Spyridon Contogouris, who had bought the patent to the centrifuge Costner worked on years earlier. Contogouris says he brought his friend Stephen Baldwin on board.
But in a 2010 lawsuit, Contogouris and Baldwin said they were conned into selling their shares, just as Ocean Therapy Solutions was set to sell BP 52 centrifuges for $52 million.
Costner told the court Thursday that Contogouris had been popping up in his life ever since they met during a family vacation in Greece.
Contogouris "sought me out and came and hung out on the yacht," Costner said, adding that he remembered Contogouris had been "really nice."
Contogouris allegedly contacted Costner again sometime later about the centrifuge. At the time, Costner put Contogouris in touch with his brother and a man in Nevada who was working on centrifuge technology.
When Contogouris showed up again, this time in Biloxi, Miss., during the oil spill, Costner said he was set to perform with his band Modern West.
Costner said Contogouris had first made several unsuccessful attempts to reach Costner on the phone.