ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with 1923 stars Aminah Nieves and Jennifer Ehle about their respective roles in the Yellowstone prequel and the thrill of working on a period piece. The series premieres December 18 on Paramount+.
“1923, the next installment of the Dutton family origin story, will introduce a new generation of Duttons led by patriarch Jacob (Ford) and matriarch Cara (Mirren),” says the synopsis. “The series will explore the early twentieth century when pandemics, historic drought, the end of Prohibition, and the Great Depression all plague the mountain west, and the Duttons who call it home.”
Tyler Treese: Aminah, you both share this great scene in the first episode. It’s very intense. Your character Teonna is being abused. Can you speak to filming that sequence and what a statement it made to introduce both of your characters?
Aminah Nieves: Yeah, I mean, I’m just really honored that it was Jennifer next to me, alongside of me during the entire process that we went through the uprooting, the rebirthing, and I couldn’t have done it without her.
Jennifer Ehle: Oh, that is not true.
Nieves: No, it is!
Ehle: But I’m very grateful that it was me with you. But you could have done it with anyone. But no, we do have a connection. I think that that has helped me in a way.
Nieves: Me too.
Jennifer, Sister Mary is immediately shown as a flawed person in a flawed system. What about this character did you find so intriguing that you could dig into?
Ehle: I think what you said, that it is always fascinating to play flawed people. I mean, all people are flawed, but Sister Mary is particularly flawed, and she is existing, as you say, in a very flawed system. I think to have an opportunity to be a part of telling this particular story, of these two women was very, it was very exciting.
Aminah, I was curious what your thoughts were on working on a period piece because it had to be incredible to go on set and just be transported back a hundred years.
Nieves: Yeah. It was a little bit of all the feelings, but I love period pieces. So, it was my absolute dream to do a period piece. Circumstances are a little, you know, but to witness the Duttons and witness their world and go on set with them, that was wicked. That was so cool.
Ehle: When you went and you took pictures and you posted them on the group chat of the Duttons walking through town. We’d been doing all our stuff in the school. It was just sort of mind-blowing to suddenly see. Their world is so different. All of the worlds in this show are so fully realized and each are really fascinating in their own right.