Helen Mirren Reveals She ‘Had to Pretend to be Cool’ During ‘1923’ Bedroom Scenes With Harrison Ford

Helen Mirren had to maintain her composure while filming bedroom scenes with Harrison Ford in 1923. The 77-year-old actress spoke at The Wrap’s 2023 Awards Season Screening Series on Thursday about filming a bed scene between their characters, Jacob and Cara Dutton. “I had to be in the bed with him, you know. I’m dressed up to here,” the Oscar winner revealed. “But I’m lying there and I’m thinking, ‘I’m in bed with Harrison Ford.’ I was so excited, I can’t tell you. I had to pretend to be cool. Don’t tell him. Promise me.” Harrison, who she first worked with in 1986 on The Mosquito Coast, was also commended for his kindness on set. “He’s amazing. He really is,” Mirren said. “The stature he’s held, as a major, humongous movie star, all that time, at the same time as somebody who doesn’t love the limelight. He has this interior quality to him.”

“He’s come to a place where he can be easy with other actors,” she added. “It’s immensely generous and incredibly professional. Not remotely spoiled movie star, at all. I genuinely love him. If I wasn’t married …” Harrison, 80, returned the compliment when he appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in February. Colbert, 58, pulled out an on-set picture of him and Mirren, who he recalled as a “big draw” for signing on to star in the Paramount Network show, before reminiscing about his time starring opposite the actress in The Mosquito Coast. “Sexy and still sexy,” praised the late-night host, and with a broad smile, Ford replied, “She’s still sexy,” to an eruption of cheers from the in-studio audience.

“It’s been remarkable to watch her,” Ford said of Mirren’s work on 1923. “There’s a lot of physical action, and she just jumps right in and does stuff you don’t imagine Helen Mirren would do. Dame Helen Mirren.” 1923 follows another generation of Duttons in a time “when pandemics, historic drought, the end of Prohibition and the Great Depression all plague the mountain west, and the Duttons who call it home,” according to a Paramount+ plot synopsis. It follows 2021’s 1883, a Yellowstone prequel that starred Tim McGraw and Faith Hill as James and Margaret Dutton and followed their journey across Montana.