Princess Diana had eyes for Kevin Costner, according to Prince William. Speaking recently with People, Costner recalled meeting the Prince of Wales a while ago. During a private conversation, William shared that his late mother had a crush on the actor.

“I got this message that the prince would love to talk,” Costner recollected. “We met in this room, and it was just us. He walked up, and we shook hands. The first line out of his mouth was, ‘You know, my mom kind of fancied you.’”

While the actor didn’t divulge further details about the conversation, Costner said William was “very sweet,” adding that he left their meeting with “such fond memories of who he was [and] what we talked about.”

The Academy Award winner had planned to work with Princess Diana on a sequel to 1992’s The Bodyguard, in which he’d starred opposite Whitney Houston. “There was a moment that was really flying down the tracks, very quietly, because it’s how I operate,” Costner said of the film, which was ultimately scrapped, in a 2019 interview.

He had originally been introduced to Diana by the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson. “It was so sweet. Sarah was the one that set this up. Sarah was very cool,” the actor said. “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 discussed almost working with Diana. 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.”

Recalling a phone call they’d 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 disclosed that he had “received the script for the sequel” just one day before Diana died in a car accident in 1997.