The "woman advances" The leader sees a change of the sea for the indigenous people on the film: NPR

In Woman Walks Ahead a New York activist and artist named Catherine Weldon (played by Jessica Chastain) travels the United States to paint the great Indian chief Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull's role is described with humor and complexity by Michael Greyeyes, a native of the Plains Cree and a native of the Muskeg Lakes First Nation in Canada.

Based on real facts, the film finds Sitting Bull right after his release. penitentiary for his involvement in the Battle of Little Bighorn. "So, it's really a portrait of a man toward the end of his life – disillusioned, really, by the dispossession and violence that his community has faced," says Greyeyes.

Greyeyes has had many significant roles in an acting career that is nearly three decades old. But in an interview, he explained why he considered it a "role of a life."

Highlights of the Interview

On What Attracted Greyeyes to the Script

It was almost, really, from the first page that Steven Knight's writing m & # 39; has caught. And of course, the first time Sitting Bull appears on the page immediately … where he meets Katherine and Katherine talking that kind of high language … and immediately Sitting Bull really pushes him away, with that comfortable, easy, vernacular tone. And we realized right away how sophisticated it is, and the audience laughs. Every projection that I have been in the audience laughs heartily. And from that moment, I realized we were looking at a paradigm shift in the way Hollywood was treating native characters.

Very often in films and scripts that deal with our community or have native content, we are often placed as leaves against which some larger issues, a so-called larger issue is examined. But in this film, we see a three-dimensional Sitting Bull. We see his irony, his regret … his breaking. And that way, it's really surprising. It is quite surprising politically to see an Aboriginal character treated with this field of application – a focus usually reserved for other ethnicities. And of course, that even immediately attracted me to the project

On the role of the film in the history of the American West

I think that this is Is a powerful fix, to be honest. When I talk to people about the role and what is happening – and, of course, where Sitting Bull's badbadination is in terms of political landscape, historical landscape of the time – I am often stunned when I realize people do not know this story. So when I meet people who do not know this kind of monumental historical events, you know, whether it is the Indian kidnapping or Wounded Knee, I am often stunned. And so I know that with this film and its detailed review of the Lakota struggle for sovereignty, for their very lives, I knew it was opportune. And with Susanna White, the treatment of our director, the humanism of his work, of Steven's work [Knight] creates a kind of empathy that I desperately lack in our speech

historical figure

Sitting Bull is a hero. He is a hero for indigenous peoples around the world. And for me to address this role, I am also a stranger. I am aboriginal, but I come from another community, from a different culture. And so when I tried to approach that, I looked for support. I had language consultants and cultural advisors from Standing Rock and the Lakota community who had worked in Hollywood, and we had many people behind the camera behind the camera. And it is with this support, it is with this literal love, that I felt confident that I could approach that and portray it as I think we understand it. As Aboriginal people, we understand that our leaders are what they are: that they are human, complex, sophisticated. They were struggling with huge problems at the moment – you know, we learn about them later, you know the law on the attribution of Dawes, violence in the West. For me, it was, and that is, a lifelong role.

On the choice of roles to be fulfilled, and the responsibility to badume

It is interesting to note that the actors of color carry an additional responsibility, because the dominant culture often sees us as models or like icons. for a broader culture – not something we always badume, you know, a Caucasian actor … and so I wear it somehow with me. I have always been adamant about trying to expand, agitate or subvert in some way our collective notion of indianity. And so, for example, when I spoke English, I always fought for my characters to have a very deep understanding of the language. You know, English is relatively easy, you know, compared to native languages. So I said, "Why would not he learn English well?" And you know, producers or directors often wonder about it. But with Susanna [White] and these producers, it was not an argument I had to make. They were allies from the beginning

On the pressure for indigenous actors (and other minorities) to present roles that are not directly related to their heritage

] Greyeyes: I was lucky in my career. I've always been incredibly proud to represent my community, be it as a Cree man or as an Aboriginal person here. So I played Comanche characters, Lakota characters, you know, other cultures. And even though I played these different roles, they have always played a role back then. But more recently, I started pretending to be police or lawyers and, you know, even a serial killer. But they were still indigenous doctors, native lawyers, until recently. Just two weeks ago, I was finally chosen, after 27 years of activity, as a character whose ethnicity was not determined. They just liked me as an interpreter. And that was a turning point for me

Garcia-Navarro: Do you think it means something wider?

Greyeyes: Yes. I do. I think that there is a radical change. I've seen it for maybe the last 4-5 years, actually. I started to see a dimensionality in the materials I received, the scripts I read, and I started to see it elsewhere – in the treatment of our cultures, our characters. For example, recently, I watched a fabulous episode on Westworld and there was an episode that was really centered on the native "hosts" in the show, and that was beautifully done – really sophisticated, and the performances were nuanced. So that's where it is. It's with movies like Woman Walks Ahead . This is of course in the work of Aboriginal filmmakers and native writers – he has always been present. But I think we are on the eve of something. This gives me a lot of hope, as I continue to work in an industry that I love, this change is at your fingertips.

Sarah Handel and Barbara Campbell produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Patrick Jarenwattananon has adapted it for the Web.