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Yellowstone took TV by storm when it premiered in 2018. Since then, the hit Western series has become the subject of dinnertime conversations and spawned two spinoffs. The latest is the prequel 1923, starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren. In a recent interview, the English actor revealed that the 1923 set wasn’t her first experience with cowboys. Find out what Helen Mirren said about spending time with real-life cowboys in the American West.

‘1923’ shares more Dutton family history

1923 stars Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford and
Harrison Ford as Jacob Dutton and Helen Mirren as Cara Dutton in ‘1923’ | Emerson Miller/Paramount+

Yellowstone shares the adventures of the modern-day Dutton family, led by John Dutton III (Kevin Costner). The Paramount Network drama was so popular that fans wanted to know more about the family’s history. Debuting in December 2021, the first prequel, 1883, takes viewers to the Old West, where they learn about James and Margaret Dutton, John Dutton III’s great-grandparents. 

Now there’s 1923, which debuted in December 2022 on Paramount+. In the second spinoff, viewers learn about Jacob and Cara Dutton, played by Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren. Jacob is James’ brother, who faces Prohibition, the Great Depression, more westward expansion, and other post-World War I issues. 

Mirren plays the Irish-born Cara. She was married to James but later weds Jacob, who eventually takes over the family’s Montana ranch. 

“Cara is a survivor. She’s a fighter. She has to be … She’s very much the product of being an immigrant in this country of immigrants, having to put her eggs in that basket,” Mirren told the New York Post. “That’s the nature of immigrants — they had no return ticket, they had to make a go of it here, they just had to, and that’s still the case.”

Helen Mirren drank with cowboys decades before starring in ‘1923’

Filming on the set of 1923 isn’t Helen Mirren’s first experience in the American West or real-life cowboys. The actor, who was born in London in 1945, first ventured to the Western United States in 1968. 

“I was in San Francisco with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and our next gig was in Detroit four days later. So a handful of us took the train. The train went through slowly. It didn’t whiz through. That gave me a view and a vision of America which had never seen,” Mirren recently told AARP.

“The train would stop in the middle of a town with no train station or anything. I remember stopping in Cheyenne, getting off the train, going into a bar, and having a drink with a couple of cowboys, then getting back on the train again.” 

Helen Mirren is a mean buggy driver

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Thanks to its setting, 1923 features its fair share of horses and cowboys. 

But when Helen Mirren arrived on the 1923 set, she explained that riding horses was a no-go. “I’ve been on the back of a horse many times in my life, but when I signed on to 1923, I told them, ‘I don’t ride now … ‘I am a pretty good buggy driver, however,” the actor told AARP.

Driving a buggy was one of the first skills Mirren learned when she arrived in Butte, Montana. The horse wrangler for 1923, Diane Branagan, said of the actor, “She’s a sponge, a total sponge, and just a delight. She really pays attention to what you say and then applies it very much the way you say it.”

Branagan added, “When you’re driving a horse, you have to be ahead in thinking about what it is you want them to do. She is really good at being able to know 50 feet out what she wants to do and have the horse do that. What helps is that she has so much feel. She just gets it.” 

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