Helen Mirren didn’t hold back in voicing disdain for “grumpy” older actors while heaping praise on co-stars Pierce Brosnan and Harrison Ford.
The 79-year-old actress played Cara Dutton, the wife of Ford’s ranch owner Jacob Dutton, in the “Yellowstone” spinoff “1923,” and she portrays Maeve Harrigan, who is married to Brosnan’s crime boss Conrad Harrigan in the new Paramount+ series “MobLand.”
During an interview with Fox News Digital, the Academy Award winner shared her thoughts on what had surprised her about working with Ford, 82, and Brosnan, 71.
“I think with both of them, as I say, it’s the way they behave on set, professionally,” Mirren said.
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“Harrison would sit around and chat with the cowboys,” she added. “And it was cold, it wasn’t comfortable. He didn’t go off to his trailer and sit in a nice, warm, comfortable trailer. He would sit in the cold with everybody else. You know, chatting to the guys, for example.”
“And Pierce — Pierce just is so great. And you know what the other thing is great about them both? They both love what they do. And I’ve noticed, in my profession, a lot of older actors kind of get grumpy. Actresses don’t, but actors do.
“They get grumpy, and I think, what the — excuse my language — f— do you have to be grumpy about? You’re working, you’ve been paid a lot of money, everyone’s looking after you. Well, what do you got to be grumpy about? Harrison and Pierce are so not grumpy. They’re just — they love what they do. They’re positive about it. It’s what they do, and they love it.”
Mirren has earned praise for the chemistry she shares with Ford and Brosnan when they played her on-screen husbands. While speaking with Fox News Digital, Mirren reflected on the secret behind her strong rapport with the two actors.
WATCH: ‘MOBLAND’ STAR HELEN MIRREN CALLS OUT ‘GRUMPY’ RICH ACTORS
“You don’t develop chemistry. It’s there or it isn’t, you know,” she explained. “It just totally depends on what sort of person they are, what sort of person you are.
“And they are two really, really great guys,” Mirren continued. “I think it also comes from respect, you know, professional respect and respect for the character of the other or maybe love for the character of the other person. And both Harrison and Pierce share a sort of commitment to their craft — professionalism, generosity on set. There’s no sort of, ‘Oh, I’m a big movie star’ thing going on at all. They’re both great guys.”
Prior to filming “1923,” Mirren had co-starred alongside Ford in the 1986 movie “The Mosquito Coast.” In a December 2022 interview with the U.K. newspaper the Times, Mirren explained why their working dynamic on the “1923” set was “very different” from the first time that they had teamed up.
WATCH: HELEN MIRREN TALKS CHEMISTRY WITH CO-STARS HARRISON FORD AND PIERCE BROSNAN
“The relationship was obviously very, very different then because Harrison was already an enormous movie star, and I was a theater actress out of London and nobody had heard of me,” Mirren said of the “Star Wars” actor.
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“Now our relationship is very different because I’ve sort of caught up with him,” she added. “Well, I’ll never catch up with him completely, but I’m a little bit closer than I was.”
Brosnan and Mirren had both previously appeared in the 1980 British gangster movie “The Long Good Friday,” which marked the future James Bond franchise star’s film debut. In a recent interview with TVLine, Mirren recalled that she never met Brosnan while filming “The Long Good Friday,” noting “he played a very small role, nonspeaking role — important little role, but nonspeaking — and I was never in any scenes that he was in.”
However, Mirren had the chance to work with Brosnan when they co-starred in the upcoming Chris Columbus-directed movie, “The Thursday Murder Club.”
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While speaking with Fox News Digital, Mirren shared that Brosnan played a pivotal role in her decision to join the cast of “MobLand,” which also stars Tom Hardy.
“I was working with Pierce Brosnan on a great film called ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ that is coming out very soon but was shot before Mobland,” she recalled. “And we were both working together for the first time really, properly together. We both got sent the script at the same time, so we could talk to each other about it. ‘Oh, Pierce, I’ve been sent this. I hear you’ve been sent it. Yeah, what do you think about it?’ ‘Well, I don’t know. What do you about it?’
“So, a lot of those sort of conversations went on,” Mirren continued. “But the fact that Pierce was going to be in it was hugely influential on my decision.
“He’s the nicest, best, most professional, great guy,” she added. “And, and at my point in life, the people I work with have become really very, very important.”
Mirren said Hardy’s involvement in “MobLand” was also a factor in her choice to sign on for the series.
WATCH: ‘MOBLAND’ STAR HELEN MIRREN SHARES WHY CO-STAR PIERCE BROSNAN WAS ‘HUGELY INFLUENTIAL’ IN HER DECISION TO JOIN SERIES
“Tom Hardy, a seriously great film actor that I admired as an audience so much and always rather secretly wanted to be a movie with him,” she said. “So. a combination of things like that.”
In “Mobland,” set in modern-day London, Mirren and Brosnan play the matriarch and patriarch of the powerful Harrigan crime family, while Hardy portrays their “fixer,” Harry Da Souza. Over the course of the series, the Harrigans engage in an escalating war with a rival crime family “in a battle that threatens to topple empires,” according to a plot synopsis.
During her interview with Fox News Digital, Mirren raved about playing the ruthless character of Maeve.
“I love Maeve,” she said with a laugh. “I love Maeve. Oh my God, I’m having such a good time playing her. I was saying to someone just now, it’s like a very beautifully made comfortable coat or dress or something that I adore putting on, and I just feel great in it. And that’s what Maeve is like.”
“Mobland” is streaming on Paramount+ with new episodes released weekly on Sundays.
