He was first introduced to Diana by Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York. “It was so sweet. Sarah was the one that set this up. Sarah was very cool,” the actor recalled. “When she could have been going, ‘Well, I’m a princess too. What about me?’ She didn’t do that at all. Diana and I began to talk.”

This isn’t the first time Costner has talked about nearly working with Diana. Back in 2019, he told Entertainment Tonight that “the studio liked the idea of doing a Bodyguard 2 [with Princess Diana] in the same kind of capacity as Whitney.”

Looking back on a phone conversation they had, he said, “I just remember [Diana] being incredibly sweet on the phone when she asked the questions. She goes, ‘Are we going to have like a kissing scene?’ But she said it in a very respectful — she was a little nervous because I think her life was very governed.”

In 2019, the actor also revealed that he had “received the script for the sequel” only one day before Diana tragically died in a car crash in 1997.