Kevin Costner is apparently making the promo rounds for the current second season of Yellowstone, his Paramount series about a ranching family in Montana. While he’s doing so, he’s dropping some startling truth bombs about past projects like his 1992 hit movie The Bodyguard. First, he admitted that that’s not even Whitney Houston on the iconic movie poster (causing A.V. Club writer William Hughes to despair, “What even is love, huh?”)
Now Costner reveals that there was once a Bodyguard sequel in the works, which would have starred a somewhat unconventional leading lady: Princess Diana, in her apparent acting debut. Screen Crush reports that Costner described the prospective project on People TV’s Couch Surfing, with the actor/director (Dances With Wolves, The Postman) telling Princess Di he was prepared to write the part specifically with her in mind. In the meeting Costner says was set up by Diana’s ex-sister-in-law Sarah Ferguson (what? how?), he asked her,
Is this something you’d like to do? She said, “Yes, I do.” I just remember her being incredibly sweet on the phone, and she asked the question, she goes, “Are we going to have, like, a kissing scene?” She said it in a very respectful way. She was nervous because her life was very governed. And I said, “Yeah, there’s going to be a little bit of that, but we can make that okay, too.”
Unfortunately, Diana died in August 1997 just as the script was nearing completion, leaving the rest of us to only ponder what a Costner/Diana cinematic match-up would have looked like. But with everything old becoming new again, who knows—maybe a Bodyguard 2 is still a possibility? In it, Costner’s Frank Farmer could play a bodyguard mentor to Channing Tatum or Chris Evans as they try to protect Taylor Swift or Ariana Grande. Hey, Hollywood, give us a call.