Minka Kelly Has ‘No Recollection’ of Meeting Josh Duhamel on a Plane Ride 10 Years Ago (Exclusive)

Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly go way back, but only one of them can remember that.

The actors have teamed up for the first time onscreen for Netflix’s new Western romance Ransom Canyon, but the series, which is based on Jodi Thomas’ book series, is not the first time their paths have crossed. As Duhamel tells PEOPLE in a joint interview with Kelly, the pair sat beside each other on a cross-country flight a decade ago, but it seems to be a memory only he has.

“There was a moment several years ago. It must’ve been, I don’t know, I don’t even know how many years — 10 years ago? — where I sat next to her on a plane on the way from New York to LA,” he recalls.

“We had a full conversation. And when we finally met again to work on a scene for Netflix and for [Ransom Canyon creator] April [Blair] and everything, I brought it up and she had no recollection. She didn’t remember any of it.”

Duhamel, 52, must have been “intimidating,” Kelly says, teasing, “I blocked it out because I couldn’t believe he was talking to me.”

“Yeah, that’s what it was,” he quips in response, emphasizing again that he “remembered” their meeting, although “she didn’t.”

“I remember what the conversation was about,” he adds, though when Kelly asks, “What was it about?” he plays coy with an “I’m not going to say.”

Kelly’s memory lapse aside, the chemistry between the pair came “really” naturally when they got settled.

“I remember, we got together just to see what our chemistry would be like before we started shooting, and immediately, it was just like butter,” Kelly, 44, says. “I’m like, ‘Oh, this guy — we have such an easy exchange.'”

She continues, “I felt so safe with him. I remember texting him right afterwards going, ‘I’m so excited I get to do this with you. I feel so safe with you.’ And that really just continued throughout the series.”

Praising Duhamel, who plays Staten Kirkland, the grieving ranch owner that her character Quinn has been crushing on for years, as a “really great, solid partner” for the series — which they filmed in Albuquerque for six months — Kelly says the actor is “so amazing” and fans are gonna eat it up.

“I feel like the whole world’s going to really fall in love with him all over again in a whole new way,” she says. “This is exactly what you want — seeing him in a cowboy hat, on a ranch, on a horse.”

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Ransom Canyon premieres Thursday, April 17 on Netflix.