The 'Queen' actress recalls working with the 'Star Wars' actor for the first time when she was a 'nobody' while he had already made a name for himself with big franchises.
- December 4, 2022
AceShowbiz - Dame Helen Mirren felt the pressure when she first worked together with Harrison Ford. Claiming she was a "nobody" when she teamed up with the "Star Wars" actor on 1986 movie "The Mosquito Coast", the Oscar-winning actress was very nervous of working with the star, now 80, because he had made such a name for himself in both the space franchise and the "Indiana Jones" films.
"When we first worked together, he was a huge movie star and I was like nobody. I was very intimidated, very intimidated," she admitted.
But the 77-year-old actress admitted she "learned a lot" from working with Harrison on the film and still carries some of his lessons with her now. She continued, "But also, I learned a lot from him because I hadn't done a lot. I'd done a lot of theater at that point, I hadn't done a lot of movies. So I watched him, and he taught me a great deal about film acting that to this day [that] I'm still using."
The pair have now reteamed on "Yellowstone" spin-off "1923" and Harrison is delighted to be working with "The Queen" actress once again. He told reporters at the show's premiere on Friday, December 2 evening, "I admire her work and her person [now], and I have all the same degree of admiration for her as I did then."
"She's wonderful, she's just a lovely person, and so it's been both a professional pleasure and a personal pleasure working with her again."
The pair signed up to play farming couple Jacob and Cara Dutton in the show because of the "extraordinary" writing of creator Taylor Sheridan. Harrison said, "The writing and the ambition of the piece that's evident from the scope and scale of it, [drew me to the role]. And the precision of his language and dialogue, and the character."
Helen added, "To be a part of something that is so exciting within the American sort of entertainment world, but also to be a part of something that is investigating American history in this particular way [is great]."
"You can't do it in two hours, you know, it's great to have that great sprawl, and I just thought earlier on, it's like a big Russian novel. It's like 'War and Peace', you know, that real sense of an enormous arc of history. And to be a character within that, it's very exciting."
