Darren Mann is back in the saddle for Season 2 of Taylor Sheriden’s Yellowstone prequel 1923.
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Mann, speaking over Zoom from his home in Penticton, said he and Ford, a.k.a. Han Solo, chatted. And yes, Ford, 82, did call him kid and continued to do so throughout the taping of the two seasons.
“Oh yeah, and I loved it,” said Mann about Ford’s choice of moniker. “He’s so fun to work with. He’s such a badass too. He’s riding his horse at midnight with us, freezing cold in Montana.”
“In this business, sometimes it’s not the greatest thing to meet your heroes. You know, unfortunately, but that’s just the reality,” said Mann before adding this wasn’t the case for 1923. “I 1,000 per cent sincerely mean that they are two of the coolest humans to get to hang out with … We all know they’re so great, obviously, but just shooting the s–t with them and hanging out and going to cowboy camp (was awesome).”
Cowboy camp is where the actors get trained in all things horse and cowboy.
“It’s the best way to start any job, show up, ride horses for like eight or nine hours a day, wreck your groin, take ice baths together. You come together while you suffer through learning how to be a cowboy in the greatest way possible,” said Mann.
Mann said, like the other actors on the show, Ford and Mirren happily got their hands dirty at cowboy camp.
“Harrison’s drinking a beer, riding a horse, ready to mix in with the cast and Helen’s right there, learning to ride the buggy, coming in, sitting with us at the lunch table from Day 1,” said Mann. “They’re just such grounded, down-to-earth regular folks that just want to be treated like regular folks too. So, I just found myself so drawn to them. And I loved every second I got to hang out with them.”
As their hotheaded grandnephew Jack, Mann has a lot of scenes with Mirren and Ford and he is quick to point out that even the ones where he is a “glorified extra” were always worth the price of admission for him not just as an artist studying his craft, but also as a performer wanting to build a successful, long career that garners both professional and personal respect from those you work with.
Mann recounted shooting a scene with Mirren: “There was a truck, a little ways off, and some grip guys were loading gear because we were headed to another set right after,” said Mann. “They didn’t realize that we could hear some of the banging around of the gear and whatnot. I’ve been on set with the many actors who would have stopped in the middle of the scene and would have flipped, you know, something like that. She’s so poised and just professional and elegant that she’s like, one second, dear. And she just walked over to the guys and said, ‘Hey guys, you know, I’m sorry, we can hear you, and it’s just a little distracting. Would you mind just holding off for a second?’
“What a beautiful way for this leader to handle a situation that I have watched so many times turn into something that it didn’t need to be … I will never forget the way she handled that kind of situation.”
As for Ford, aside from his willingness to be astride a horse on a very cold Montana night shoot, Mann said the veteran actor never rests on his reputation or past performances and is wide open to taking advice from the director, in this case Ben Richardson.
“He wants to get notes. He wants ideas … he wants to go again,” said Mann about Ford. “Sometimes you get one or two (takes) from some stars, and they say that’s all they’re going to give you. And that’s it. I’m not going to do another one. But he is always down. Even when it was on my coverage, he was always open to do another one, to try something else, something different.”
Mann, 32, began studying acting at age 19. His acting resume notably includes the films Giant Little Ones, Embattled, Breakwater, Hello Destroyer and the TV series Animal Kingdom and Fortunate Son. He landed 1923 after originally auditioning for 1883.
“It’s the best. It’s a dream come true,” said Mann, about riding, shooting and just flat-out playing cowboy for four months out of the year in Bute and Missoula, (Mont). “Those are my favourite days. It’s like getting to be a kid again … Hopping on-and-off horses, and they’re telling me to open that horse up as fast as I can through a field. I’m like, ‘All right, let’s go.’ ”
With the series behind him, Mann, who moved to Penticton to pursue hockey when he was age 15 and played pro briefly for the Indiana Blizzard in the now-defunct All-American Hockey League, has nothing but praise for the crew, the cast, the cowboys who tuned up his riding skills and even his favourite horse, a gelding named Cruise.
But he does have one complaint about the shoot that ran into November.
“I’m a B.C. guy,” said Mann. “Montana, that’s real cold. That’s like, Saskatchewan cold?”
Back in more temperate B.C., Mann is waiting for his next film And on the Eighth Day to come out in March while he’s working on his own passion project, a film about a boxer that he wrote and will star in. Mann hopes that project will go to camera this fall.