For all her plummy, Oscar-winning regality in The Queen, Helen Mirren has wielded her fair share of shooters over the years. There was her chain-smoking DCI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect, her retired assassin in Red and – ahem – four Fast & Furious movies. Perhaps that’s why she looks right at home with a shotgun broken over her elbow in 1923, the expansive Yellowstone prequel series set amid the backdrop of Prohibition-era Montana. In fact, season one opened with her character Cara Dutton gunning down an assailant before letting out a guttural scream.
“[It was] a very dramatic moment, and subsequently you find out why she commits this rather appalling act,” the septuagenarian actor remembers of that particular storyline. “In season two, the use of the gun is much more related to dealing with the wildness of the environment and the potential danger of wild animals coming to attack and possibly eat you,” she teases.
