The iconic Kevin Costner role originally written for Steve McQueen: “We’ll make it great”
Steve McQueen and Kevin Costner are two actors who’ve embodied the idea of Americana in different periods and in completely different ways, making it hard to imagine a role written for one of them eventually being played by the other.
The former earned his nickname as the ‘King of Cool’ by weaponising his smouldering charisma to become the highest-paid star in Hollywood. He was the epitome of rugged, dangerous, and intoxicating American masculinity, with his piercing blue eyes and sharp features making him an enduring icon of his era and beyond.
The latter, meanwhile, has probably never been called cool in his life. Costner was more of a throwback to a different time, with his fondness for sports movies and westerns lending him a more sentimental and wistful air that made him middle America’s favourite actor when he was at the peak of his powers.
There’s also the obvious fact that McQueen was dead long before Costner became a star, which indicates just how long the switcheroo was simmering away on one of development hell’s many stoves. In fact, it was almost two decades from script to screen, and the end result was a cultural phenomenon.
Costner and Whitney Houston’s The Bodyguard wasn’t a very good movie, but it was sure as shit a popular one. It made a killing at the box office, earned a pair of Academy Award nominations for ‘Best Original Song’, gave rise to the bestselling soundtrack in cinema history, and will be forever remembered for the singer’s soaring spin on Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’.
Those were all key elements to the film’s success, which is why it’s so difficult to envision McQueen as a former Secret Service agent recruited to watch over a musical superstar dealing with an increasingly dangerous stalker. And yet, that was who screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan had in mind.
“I wrote it for Steve McQueen, but Kevin is absolutely what I wrote in 1975,” he told Premiere. “And I think his instinct about Whitney Hoston was right, and she’s a big part of the success of that move. Unfortunately, much of what is around them is nothing like it’s supposed to be, and part of that is my fault because I was one of the producers, and maybe I should have impacted something I didn’t.”
Costner and Kasdan had become friends after making Silverado together in 1985, and the budding filmmaker eagerly snapped up the rights to The Bodyguard, which they co-produced through their respective Tig Productions and Kasdan Pictures banners. “I said, ‘Larry, come with me, and we’ll make this movie, and we’ll make it great,” the actor recalled, which was admirable.
For Kasdan, it was almost fate. “It was the only thing I had ever sold that wasn’t made,” he admitted. “And Kevin was relentless about wanting to make it.” Seven Razzie nominations wasn’t an ideal outcome, but nobody cared when The Bodyguard made so much money 17 years after it was penned with McQueen in mind.
