Now, the 69-year-old actor is looking back at his relationship with the late megastar. In an appearance on the podcast, Armchair Expert hosted by Dax Shepard and Monica Padman he recalled the time he spent with Houston on set of their movie.

The Bodyguard was a romantic drama that starred Houston as a famous singer with a stalker, as she falls in love with her bodyguard, who was played by Costner. While the film received mixed reviews by critics, it was a massive hit at the box office, making over $410 million worldwide.

Costner revealed, “She was my choice.” Adding, “So I was the actor, I produced it and I picked her.”

Costner then shared how the director Mick Johnson was “uncomfortable” with Houston as the leading lady, but Costner stuck to his choice and made sure the singer would make her feature film debut in the movie.

“Listen, the first girl I thought was pretty was Diana Ross. I saw her on The Ed Sullivan Show and I thought, ‘F**k yes, let’s go, that’s pretty.’ And I’m like 10 years old. I know what pretty is,” he told the podcast hosts. “I loved her, so it’s not like this giant mystery. So I knew that she should be the one.”

Costner shared that Houston “trusted him” on set in a way she did not trust anyone else in that production. “I started to guide her and I wasn’t trying to usurp my director, but l had made a promise to her,” he shared. “I had promised Whitney that she’d be good in it…We had this movie that worked and that was my promise to her. She’s always gonna love me in the song and I was always gonna keep my promise to her.”

Their bond remained tight even after production on the film wrapped up. They were so close that Costner was even asked to deliver a eulogy at the singer’s public memorial in February 2012.

The actor recalled to Shepard and Padman that initially, he did not want to speak at her funeral but was urged by legend Dionne Warwick to change his mind.

“I just said yes. I could feel the weight on her, now it’s shifted to me. What am I gonna say about this little girl? And [then I] went back to that church in Newark and it was filled,” he recalled. “It was electric. There were two bands playing, the church was alive. It was like boom!”

Costner admitted to feeling unqualified at the funeral to make his speech, recalling how Oprah Winfrey and Diane Sawyer were in the crowd and he wanted to ask if they would give his speech for him instead.

“I had been working on this speech…And I tried to compile everything I wanted to do and finally crafted this speech,” he said. “Somebody said, ‘CNN’s here, they wouldn’t mind if your remarks were kept shorter because they’re going to have commercials.’ And I said, ‘They can get over that. They can play the commercial while I’m talking, I don’t care.’”

“And I started and about 17 minutes later I was done,” Costner added, saying that he thought he had said everything he “needed to say” in his speech.

Costner was one of eight speakers at Houston’s public memorial. His speech was praised widely, in it he talked about how “I Will Always Love You” was not originally meant to be featured in ‘The Bodyguard‘ and the first choice was actually “What Becomes of a Broken Heart.”

“So, what becomes of our broken hearts?” he asked the crowd. “Whitney returns home today to the place where it all began, and I urge us all, inside and outside, across the nation and around the world, to dry our tears, suspend our sorrow – and perhaps our anger – just long enough, just long enough to remember the sweet miracle of Whitney.”

Even more successful than the film itself was perhaps the soundtrack for The Bodyguard, which Whitney co-executive produced. She recorded six new songs for the film and her cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” remains one of the best-selling physical singles of all time. The singe has gone platinum 18 times over — and even won Houston the GRAMMY Awards for Album of the Year and Record of the Year in 1994. The album went on to be named the top-selling Soundtrack Album of the Century by the RIAA.

On the red carpet at the 2022 Oscars, Costner recalled his time with Houston, saying the singer “was a really street-smart girl, she knew stuff.”

“I knew she could handle the part but she wasn’t sure she could handle it,” Costner recalled. “There came a moment where she had to make a decision and I saw her trust me and we had that, from that moment on.”

“That was my promise to her, that she’d look great and be great,” he reminisced with a smile. The film was nominated for two Oscars — both for Best Original song