The iconic poster for the 1992’s The Bodyguard did not actually include Whitney Houston, her co-star Kevin Costner recently revealed.
The image for the poster was taken straight out of one of The Bodyguard’s most memorable scenes, which saw Costner’s Frank Farmer carrying musical superstar Rachel Marron out of a nightclub after a riot has broken out.
But Costner says that the woman in the poster was not actually Houston.
“That wasn’t even Whitney actually,” Costner told Entertainment Weekly in an article published Friday. “She had gone home and that was her double, and her head was buried into my shoulder, which was appropriate anyway. She was frightened.”
Costner said a photo was taken that day, but executives weren’t convinced it would be the lead poster photo because it didn’t feature Houston’s face.
“I picked that picture out because my friend Ben Glass took it…I sent it to Warner Bros and I go, ‘There’s the poster.’ Because it was so evocative. It wasn’t special photography; it wasn’t anything.”
“And so they sent me like five mockups where they put her head [on it] where she’s looking [out],” Costner told the magazine. “I said ‘Guys, I think we had it the first time.’”
The movie ended up being a huge hit, grossing $411 million worldwide. Houston’s cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” for the film also became her biggest hit and the longest-running No. 1 single in history at the time, according to Billboard.