Taylor Sheridan's Process For 1923 Was A 'Puzzle' Harrison Ford Was Happy To Solve
This article contains spoilers for "1923."
The Paramount+ series "1923" brought us another chapter of the story that creator Taylor Sheridan began with "Yellowstone." Last year we got a single-season prequel series, "1883," which gave us some backstory on the Dutton family who run the Yellowstone Ranch. In "1923," Harrison Ford plays Jacob Dutton, the brother of James Dutton (Tim McGraw), who we met in "1883." James and his wife have passed, and Jacob and his wife Cara (Helen Mirren) are running things now with the help of the remains of James' family. They're battling a range war with sheep herders, the Depression, which hit Montana far earlier than the rest of the United States, the end of Prohibition, and bad conditions for their cattle.
Sheridan, who is responsible for the "Yellowstone" saga as well as "Tulsa King," "Mayor of Kingstown," and the upcoming "Lioness," has an unusual way of working. He writes the scripts himself — very close to when the episode shoots. In fact, when I participated in a recent roundtable interview for "1923," Mirren said that they began shooting with only three episodes in their hands. When Ford met with him for a discussion about doing the show, the actor asked for a script and was told it wasn't written yet.
Ford rarely does television, so he must have been very impressed with Sheridan's work to accept without a script. Not that this is any surprise with Sheridan's reputation and clear ability to work with no sleep. (Has anyone checked to see if he's a droid? Are there clones of him? I wouldn't be entirely shocked.) In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Ford, who also stars in the Apple TV+ series "Shrinking," said Sheridan's scripts were a "puzzle' to solve.
'But life doesn't do rewrites'
In the interview, Ford spoke about how he normally deals with lines he doesn't feel like his character would say. He said, "If the words don't fit my mouth, we've got to change the words." However, as the publication points out, Taylor Sheridan doesn't do rewrites. Ford said of the process:
"Once in a while, we'd have an issue with that. But life doesn't do rewrites. You get a shot at something, and that's what happened. I really committed to saying Taylor's words because it's fun for me to puzzle it out."
That certainly says a lot about Sheridan's work, having an Academy Award-winning actor decide to change how he deals with script disagreements and call them "fun." Of course, Sheridan is pulling in actors like Ford, Helen Mirren, Timothy Dalton, and Nicole Kidman, who is set to star in "Lioness."
Ford has been called a "team player" on set by director and cinematographer Ben Richardson ("1883," "Mayor of Kingstown," "Tulsa King"). Brian Geraghty, who plays the Dutton's ranch foreman Zane, told me in an interview that Ford is out there in the cold conditions with the rest of the actors, warming up in the van between takes, and said it's hard to keep up with him on a horse.
Everyone cross your fingers that Jacob Dutton lives through the rest of season 1 so he can return for the next one.
"1923" is currently streaming on Paramount+.