While it’s common for the tabloids to invent stories about Meghan Markle resuming her acting career, it turns out another popular British royal could have starred alongside Costner in a sequel to his smash hit, 1992’s The Bodyguard.
In an interview this week with the Daily Beast, Costner talks about a about a lot of things, like the state of American politics and how opinions on movies change over the years, specifically his movie The Postman in light of recent political events. It was his discussion about the Princess of Wales that caught our attention.
The Yellowstone star first revealed that he spoke to Princess Diana about the role in the ’90s in an interview with Today last year, and he confirmed it again this week. He also revealed the movie would’ve take place in Hong Kong.
Real Life Imitating Art
On August 31, 1997, Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, were killed when the car they running from paparazzi in crashed on the streets of Paris. It was a horrifying end to the life of one of the most popular members of the royal family, despite having been divorced from Prince Charles for almost exactly a year at that point.
In the original Bodyguard, Kevin Costner plays a bodyguard charged with protecting a pop singer, memorably played by the late Whitney Houston, from a zealous stalker. The two fall in love, predictably, but the relationship ends sadly after Costner’s character takes a bullet for Houston’s, saving her life.
In Princess Diana’s life, her bodyguards were often charged with protecting her from the gossip media. It sounds like that was the idea Costner was playing on when he wrote the script, saying,
That’s how it would have worked if she’d have done it. We had conversations about it. It was going to be in Hong Kong, and you can see how scary that would have been, and it would have played into all that stuff.
Kevin Costner Hasn’t Said A Lot About What Could Have Been
Though little is known about the plot for the sequel, Costner has admitted it would follow a similar story, only this time his client would be a princess, played by Princess Diana. They would fall in love, of course, which added some trepidation from Princess of Wales, who, according to Costner, asked him on their first phone conversation if there would be a “kissing scene,” which he said there would be.
How they would have worked with that would have been interesting, given Princess Diana’s nervousness about doing such a scene, but boy, wouldn’t it have been cool to see?
We’ll never get a chance to see it, which is just one more tragic aspect of Princess Diana’s untimely death. As many have opined, she really seemed on the verge of a whole new public persona after her divorce was finalized, but sadly never had the chance to see It fully realized when she died at just age 36.