‘Yellowstone’ Fans Get First Look at Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren in ‘1923’

Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren head to Montana in the first photos from 1923, the next chapter in the Dutton family saga. The series will debut on Paramount+ on Dec. 18, after the first half of Yellowstone Season 5 concludes on Paramount Network. Yellowstone Season 5 kicks off on Sunday, Nov. 13 with two episodes starting at 8 p.m. ET.

1923 is set during the 1920s when Montana began facing economic challenges before the Great Depression swept through the country. Jacob Dutton (Ford) and his wife Cara (Mirren) ran the Yellowstone Ranch during this period, which also falls during the time of Prohibition. The series was created by Taylor Sheridan, who co-created Yellowstone with John Linson.

The ensemble cast also includes Darren Mann as Jack Dutton, the son of John Dutton Sr.; Michaelle Randolph, whose character Elizabeth is marrying into the Dutton family; and James Badge Dale as John Dutton Sr., who was a little boy in 1883. Mary Shelton, Brian Geraghty, Robert Patrick, Jennifer Ehle, Jerome Flynn, and Timothy Dalton also star.

“He’s the silverback,” Ford told Vanity Fair of his character. “He’s responsible for that branch of the family. These are two people with a very strong bond to each other who are facing really complicated circumstances.”

At the start of the series, Jacob and Cara have been married for about 40 years. Mirren developed a full backstory for her character, whom she saw as an immigrant to America. She plays the character with an Irish accent and believes she came over during the Irish potato famine. “That absolutely chronologically works for Cara,” the Oscar-winner told Vanity Fair. “She’s now in her late 60s, we imagine. So she would’ve come, I think, as a young woman from Ireland. I think that’s one of the extraordinary elements of America. The people who arrived, and are still arriving, are people with enormous resilience and enormous courage and independence.”

Unlike the couple Ford and Mirren played in The Mosquito Coast (1986), Jacob and Cara are not at odds with each other.”Their lives are totally wrapped up in each other,” Ford explained. “There’s very little that sustains them other than themselves and the hard work and investment they put into their future and their family. It is a tough life, and it’s full of not just physical challenges but moral ones as well.”

The Duttons in 1923 are also in a very different position compared to John Dutton’s (Kevin Costner) generation in 2022. While the family in Yellowstone is wealthy, the Duttons of the Great Depression are barely scraping by. “They can lose it all in a season,” Ford told Vanity Fair. “They’re up against weather, the economy, the influx of railroads, and the change in the cattle business. It’s a complicated time. It’s a volatile time.”

1923 is the follow-up to 1883, which only lasted one season. This new series will run two, eight-episode seasons, Deadline reported in October. Sheridan is also reportedly considering additional prequels that will center on the Yellowstone ranch during the 1940s and 1960s. There is also a Yellowstone spinoff set at the Four Sixes Ranch in Texas still in development.