It’s all cowboy hats and western lingo for Harrison Ford in Taylor Sheridan’s 1923, and we’re all the better for his contributions to the Yellowverse. Sheridan’s growing Dutton universe is full of powerful characters, and Ford brings a regal sense of intensity and vigor to the show in Jacob Dutton, brother of Tim McGraw’s James Dutton and the caretaker of his children.
Yellowstone underwent many changes since we saw the land the Dutton family would settle upon in 1883, including the deaths of both James and Margaret Dutton. Jacob was said to have gathered the children after Margaret wrote a letter asking for him, and by the time he’d arrived, she’d passed on too. Ford’s character did more than look after the kids James and Margaret left behind; he and his wife, Cara, played by Dame Helen Mirren, gave them a second chance at life.
In a chat with Stephen Colbert, Ford spoke about what drew him to the Paramount Plus series, and we’re certainly glad that Sheridan’s convincing tactics worked for the all-star actor.
“It’s an interesting thing to me. I mean, I watched some of Yellowstone, then 1883 came along, and I watched them and then I got this suggestion that Taylor Sheridan might want to do something with me and but there was no script. But he had already talked to Helen Mirren, which was a big draw for me. And then he developed a great script.”
Of course, there was a little more than the development of a great script involved. Sheridan flew Ford out to his home in Texas, and Colbert remarked that he heard Sheridan used underhanded means to get Ford to sign on, but he corrected him and said his tactics were of a different nature.
“No…no, he poured over hand.”
Sheridan himself recently spoke about wining and dining both Mirren and Ford during the lead-up to the scriptwriting process for 1923, and it’s clear that he’s got the technique down to a science. Mirren and Ford have worked together before, bringing a comfortable sense of love and romance to this chapter of the Dutton family story. It goes without saying that, with all the pain and turmoil the family faces, that love is a grounding force for the patriarch and matriarch of the family — and a needed one at that.
You can catch up on 1923, streaming now on Paramount Plus, before the first season’s second half begins airing new episodes this Sunday, Feb. 5.