What The Cast Of 1923 Looks Like In Real Life

Creator Taylor Sheridan's mega-successful Western series "Yellowstone" follows Kevin Costner as the patriarch of the Dutton clan, an ultra-wealthy ranch family out in Montana. His prequel series "1883," on the other hand, tracked some Duttons as they made their way West, crossing the American heartland. So, what happened after they founded the Yellowstone Ranch? That's where "1923" comes in.

The show follows the burgeoning Dutton family as they expand their ranching empire, somewhere between the folks in "1883" who had nothing and the ones in "Yellowstone" who have it all but crave even more. This time, the cast is led by iconic actors Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, which Sheridan said was a major part of how he decided to do the series. In fact, when he called Ford down to his ranch to pitch him the show, there wasn't a script. "He goes, 'Can I read a script?'" Sheridan recalled to Deadline. "I said, 'You can when it's written, but it ain't written yet and you got to commit to it now. I need to know who I'm writing for."

They're not the only two in the cast, of course. The show is expansive if nothing else, telling interweaving stories of many different Duttons. They're all played by talented stars, some familiar and some new. If you're only seeing them as they would've looked in the 1920s, however, you may not know what the cast of "1923" looks like in real life. Read on to find out.

Harrison Ford joined the cast of "1923" because he was bored. "After two years of sitting on my ass during COVID, and waiting quite a few years for ['Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny'] to start, I had not done as much work as I wanted to," the "Star Wars" star told The Hollywood Reporter. Along came two television shows: an Apple TV+ comedy called "Shrinking," and "1923." He did them both, evidently tired of merely being part of a celebrity couple aging gracefully.

On the Western, Ford plays Jacob Dutton, one of the patriarchs of the lineage that will eventually lead to Kevin Costner's character on the main "Yellowstone" show. He spends much of his time on a horse, which was perfectly fine with Ford. After all, he owns a ranch too, in real life, and Ford was very impressed by the show's dialogue. "[Jacob] talks about turning a natural place into a city and the consequences to nature and for people that live there. He talks about it with real understanding and real complexity," he said. "I'm struck by how consistent it is with what I think — or what I might have thought were I a rancher with the same personality in 1923."

While much of the drama in "1923" was filmed in Montana — where the show is set — Brandon Sklenar shot most of his scenes in Africa. He plays Spencer Dutton, a character with a side quest all his own that involves a grand, sweeping romance and much adventure. Still, like much of the rest of the cast, the actor had to attend Taylor Sheridan's Cowboy Camp to learn how to ride horses on camera. "Cowboy Camp was two months of riding horses all day every day, with some of the best wranglers in the business," he told Man About Town. "I had a little bit of experience on horses as a kid, but nothing compared to [what I have] now." He loved that time in Montana, reminiscing, "Most people would kill to wake up every day in Montana on a horse, on a trail. It's beautiful."

Side note: you may recognize Sklenar's steel-blue eyes from "It Ends With Us," the Colleen Hoover adaptation that has sent Hollywood spinning thanks to its behind-the-scenes real-life drama. One has to wonder how Sklenar views everything that happened. After all, Taylor Swift was allegedly more involved in Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's feud than we knew, so we imagine it would be hard not to have an opinion.

Helen Mirren's character Cara Dutton is the Irish wife of Harrison Ford's Jacob. Why is she Irish while no one else is, you ask? Mirren had an answer for Deadline: art imitates life. "There would've been this absolute mishmash of different accents and different cultures and different foods," she reasoned. "That was how America was born."

Unlike most of the characters on "1923," Cara doesn't ride a horse. "I've been on the back of a horse many times, but I'm not a rider," Mirren explained, telling the outlet about her refusal to participate in Cowboy Camp with her co-stars. Instead, she gets pulled around in a buggy, which is just how Mirren likes it. "I did have to learn how to drive a buggy, which was really great experience," the "Fast and the Furious" franchise vet recalled. "That was my Cowboy Camp."

Mirren and Ford had worked together before, and they get along great in real life, which is part of why she signed on to the show. "It's a wonderful pairing. We love each other very much as people," Mirren mused. "I love Harrison. There's just no two ways about it." If you're a fan of her work on "1923," check out our complete look at Helen Mirren through the years.

As Spencer Dutton tries to make his way back to his family, he meets and falls in love with a British girl named Alex, played by Julia Schlaepfer. "1923" fans who missed her guest-judging spot on "RuPaul's Drag Race" may be surprised to learn that in real life, Schlaepfer is actually American, meaning she was putting on the accent for the show. "I've auditioned to play a Brit a lot and they never cast Americans," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "And then when I kept going through the audition process, I was like, 'Oh, this is exciting. This is amazing.' So it was a really fun challenge."

Challenging, too, were all the trials her character endures on the show. Over the course of the first season, Alex comes up against lions, shipwrecks, and morning sickness, oh my! Don't ask her, though, whether that last one might indicate a pregnancy that may or may not someday lead to Kevin Costner down the line. After all, it could just be motion sickness. "Honestly, I have not been told a single thing, but I have my theories," she insisted. "There has been no confirmation from Taylor [Sheridan] at all, so it could have just been those waves."

As with many Taylor Sheridan properties — including films like "Hell or High Water" and "Wind River" — "1923" includes stories of the indigenous people who were on this land long before the American settlers arrived. Aminah Nieves plays one such character on the Paramount+ Original, starring as a Native American woman named Teonna Rainwater. She's kidnapped and taken to a Catholic boarding school, where she is brutally mistreated in an attempt to make her act more like the colonizers. Thankfully, Teonna escapes, making an arduous trek back to her family over the course of the first season.

Nieves is indigenous herself, and she told Deadline that she's grateful for the chance to act in a story like this on television. After all, she'd spent years purely as an extra; "1923" is her first lead role, and it sure is a heavy one. Still, she revealed that the feedback she's gotten from the community has been glowing. "I think that's the whole reason why we do this art, to share honest and real stories that spark curiosity and help people feel safe," she said. "Having a moment to see yourself and to feel strength to talk about certain things is super important."

French actor Sebastian Roché plays Father Renaud, the head of the Catholic institution that imprisons Aminah Nieves's character Teonna. He rules the school with an iron fist, becoming personally implicated in the abuse that his students face at the hands of the people who are supposed to be caring for them. Roché told Pop Culturalist that he was initially hesitant to play such an evil character on "1923." He's been a villain on screen plenty of times before, in projects like "Supernatural" and "Fringe," ever since he moved to America to act several decades ago. Still, his villains tended to be more fantastical and less history-based. 

Ultimately, Roché decided that he had an opportunity to bring attention to a piece of American history that isn't often discussed. "We're talking about religion as a weapon to dehumanize a whole strata of society and the indigenous Americans, the people who were here first," he explained. "We're recreating that painful history."

In real life, Roché tried to act as sensitively as possible with his co-stars. "I had to inform myself properly and work with the actors who were indigenous American so that we could have safe words together," he reflected. "Because we're dealing with such brutality."

On "1923," Darren Mann plays Jack Dutton, the great-nephew of Harrison Ford's character Jacob. (Those Duttons and their J-names.) He works on the Yellowstone Ranch, but Jack is also in a relationship with Elizabeth Strafford (Michelle Randolph), daughter of another rancher. Mann was excited to learn that Randolph would be his love interest, because the two actually played lovers in a film called "House of the Witch." He told /Film, "You're always a little nervous about what your love interest's going to be like. You hope to God you get along and all that. I can remember being so pumped when I saw the call sheet for Cowboy Camp."

In the show's very first episode, their wedding gets significantly delayed. Then, a massacre devastates both of their families, throwing an even bigger wrench into their planned nuptials. Mann told ScreenRant that this reflected his real life ... the wedding chaos, that is, not the massacre. "I did postpone a real wedding as well for a job, which is kind of funny," he said. "And then I did it in the show."

Michelle Randolph plays Elizabeth Strafford on "1923," a well-educated woman from the East Coast who heads out to Montana to marry Jack Dutton (Darren Mann). She's got a lot to learn, of course, but that's what Randolph likes about playing her. She told Grazia, "She has this hope and positivity, and she tries to learn so much from the Dutton family. She's learning what it's like to live on the ranch, and she's very resilient." In real life, Randolph had a lot to learn, too. At the show's Cowboy Camp, she was given the opportunity to see what life on the ranch would really have been like. "There was one day where we herded cows all the way across the ranch from one side to the other," she said. "We got a taste of what it was like to be real cowboys, which was fun."

It seems that Taylor Sheridan was impressed with the actor's performance, because when he was developing his new show "Landman," he reached out to Randolph and told her to audition. "I was still in 1920s Elizabeth mode, but I locked myself in a room for the entire night and just studied," she told Deadline. It all worked out, and despite being in her late 20s, Randolph won the part of Billy Bob Thornton's teenage daughter. That's right; being on two Sheridan shows may be why Michelle Randolph looks so familiar.

Brian Geraghty plays the mustachioed Zane Davis on "1923," an employee at the Duttons' ranch. He's technically the ranch foreman, but he's also a sort of fixer, a fiercely loyal guy who'll do anything Jacob Dutton needs him to do. And we do mean anything. "Sometimes not even pertaining to the ranch," Davis told /Film. "He'll take care of him. But his job is a bit like Robert Duvall in 'The Godfather.' You know what I mean? He's behind ... trying to make sure everything's going well."

Like many other members of the cast, Geraghty attended Taylor Sheridan's famed Cowboy Camp to learn how to ride for the show. He'd had experience with horses before, but he told /Film that he had plenty to learn. "We all rode horses and learned and were sore and felt like we were terrible, and then got good," he said. "When you're working with Taylor, that's the bar, because he's a real cowboy." Zane appears in many scenes on horseback alongside Jacob, which meant that Geraghty's horseback riding needed to match Harrison Ford's. "He just goes too fast," Geraghty recalled. "It's hard to keep up with him."

Geraghty is a television regular, and he made headlines when he shocked audiences by leaving a fan-favorite show. We dug into the truth about Brian Geraghty's abrupt "Chicago P.D." exit.

Welsh actor Jerome Flynn plays Banner Creighton on "1923," one of the show's most openly villainous characters. (Of course, this is the "Yellowstone" universe; no one is purely good). Banner is the man behind the massacre that obliterates key members of the Dutton and Strafford families, and much of the show's first season is about the quest to bring him to some form of justice. (Will that be frontier justice, or the then-still-solidifying American legal system? Again, this is the "Yellowstone" universe ... it's both).

Flynn, who is perhaps best known for playing Bronn on "Game of Thrones," told In Creative Company that he missed out on early cast bonding experiences because of some real-life difficulties. "It was touch-and-go, cause we were having a real problem getting me a visa," he said. Thankfully, everything worked out, because his performance on the show is one of the most chilling and memorable.

Back in the 1990s, Flynn had a brief, real-life career as a pop star. After he and co-star Robson Green sang "Unchained Melody" on a television show, their cover became a chart-topping hit. The duo even caught the ear of Simon Cowell, who was so determined to sign the duo that he reached out to them relentlessly. As Cowell told "Oprah's First Class" (via DailyMail), "I drove them so mad that I actually got a solicitor's letter from one of them saying I had to stop harassing his client."

Isabel May appears throughout "1923" as Elsa Dutton, but if you're wondering why you don't remember seeing her, that's because she's only acting in voiceover. May first starred as Elsa on the first "Yellowstone" spinoff series, "1883," playing the daughter of James and Margaret Dutton (Tim McGraw and Faith Hill). She narrated that show, too, telling The Hollywood Reporter that she tried not to put too much thought into the way her character said those words. After all, she was describing memories, whereas on camera she was living them. "She's a different person, she's in a different realm at that point. And here I just wanted to live it without understanding it too well," she explained.

Even before they finished filming "1883," May was informed that her character would narrate any subsequent "Yellowstone" shows, too. "I love saying Elsa's words and I love getting to sink into her voice," May gushed. "It's a luxury." That's why you hear her in every episode of "1923," and you may have even caught her narrating the finale of the flagship "Yellowstone" show, too.

Aside from starring in several shows in the Taylor Sheridan universe, May is best known for starring on the Netflix show "Alexa & Katie." She also had an arc on "Young Sheldon" as Veronica, one of Georgie's love interests. 

Robert Patrick shows up throughout the first season of "1923," appearing in most of the season as Sheriff McDowell. Even when he doesn't have much to do, the sheriff can often be spotted in the background of town hall meetings, listening carefully as the residents of Bozeman debate each other. In an interview with Patheos, Patrick explained that although the sheriff is an ally of the Duttons, he represents the modernizing force of the legal system. "The world is gonna be lawyers and judges and the court. And this is how things are gonna be decided," he said. "It's not gonna just be cowboy justice."

In real life, Patrick is known for his work in sci-fi and horror films. Perhaps most famously, he played the T-1000 in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," a futuristic robot who's able to shapeshift and turn into a pool of liquid metal at will. He's been in everything from modern shows like "Reacher," "The Night Agent," and "Peacemaker," to "True Blood," "Big Love," and "Burn Notice."

Patrick has also worked with his "1923" co-star Harrison Ford before. They starred together in the 2006 thriller "Firewall," which Patrick recalled to Patheos. "I had this crazy fight scene with Harrison where neither one of us were really good at fighting, supposedly, because we're both bankers." He added, "It's amazing to watch him on a horse. He's just a hoot."