Yes, Kevin Costner almost teamed up with a certain Princess of Wales (who also had a crush on him!) for an on-screen romance in a second part of “Bodyguard”. Back to his words.
For years, rumors have swirled that Kevin Costner was set to direct a sequel to his 1992 romantic drama Bodyguard, in which he starred alongside Whitney Houston, but this time with none other than Princess Diana.
In 2001, and again in 2012, he had already confirmed that Lady Di had been really interested in playing in this sequel and that they had met several times about it. In 2019, the actor had given more details to People magazine, stating that he had notably discussed with the princess – who would have made her film debut there – the presence or not of intimate scenes: “I just remember her being incredibly sweet on the phone, and she asked the question, she said, ‘Are we going to have a kiss scene?’ She said it in a very respectful way”, he then recounted Kevin Costner. “She was worried because her life was under close surveillance.”
This week, the Horizon actor returned to the subject of the cinema kiss, specifying: “I said, ‘Do you want there to be one?’ She said, ‘Yes,’ and I said, ‘Then we will.’ I wasn’t going to make a whole romance out of it. But there would be a time when we would do it and she was so sweet about it.”
The actor also clarified, then as today during a recent interview on the set of Howard Stern Showthat it was Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, who put them in touch around 1996.
“What happened was I started talking to him through Sarah [Ferguson] and I said to her, ‘I’m going to do Bodyguard 2 and I think I can build it around you. Would you be interested?’ And she said, ‘Yes. My life is about to change.’ I didn’t really delve into it, but I thought I understood what she was saying.”
He added : “I really respect Sarah because she was the one who set up the conversation between Diana and me. And she never said: ‘So what about me? I’m a princess too.’ She was totally in favor of this idea.”
Death and aborted project
However, the project was abandoned following Diana’s death in 1997 in a car accident at the age of 36.
“I never made this movie because I couldn’t replace Princess Di“, said Kevin Costner. Furthermore, he added that things had become “ugly” with the royal family after that. Indeed, when it was revealed that he was discussing the film with the princess, the royal family began to get angry with him, he recalled.
“When Diana died, about a year later, it was revealed that I was doing Bodyguard 2 with her. And what happened was the royal family kind of turned against me. It got pretty ugly. And I let it go for a while. It got uglier and uglier.”
National Geographic
He then turned to Sarah Ferguson for advice: “Finally, I called Sarah and said, ‘Sarah, you need to tell me who’s leading the charge over there on this.’ She said, ‘No, no, no, Kev, you don’t want to talk to them.’ I said, ‘Yes, I do.’ I called [cette personne] and I said to him, ‘I’m going to tell you something, you have to stop because it’s true, and if you don’t stop, I’m going to start because it was true.,” Costner added.
Following Bodyguard was never carried out and Kevin Costner never had the opportunity to play alongside the princess, but he nevertheless has fond memories of his brief encounter with the much-missed British princess.
She had a crush on him
In an interview with People published Tuesday, the former Yellowstone star also revealed that he learned the late princess “kind of” had a crush on him through his son Prince William.
“About 15 years later….I finally had a very sweet conversation with Prince William”, he said. “I was in England and I received this message that the prince would like to speak to me.”
He then met him in a secluded room with chairs stacked around them.
“There was no one else there. We sat down and shook hands and the first sentence out of his mouth was, ‘You know, my mother kind of had a thing for you.’”
The actor then appeared incredulous, responding sarcastically: “I know.”
He added : “It was a very sweet thing. We just talked and we both went our separate ways and we never became pen pals or anything like that. But I have very fond memories of who he was, how I was approached and what we talked about.”
Bodyguard is currently streaming on Max.
Listen to Kevin Costner discuss Princess Diana and the potential Bodyguard sequel in the video below:
