Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1486263
72 SAG-AFTRA | Fall/Winter 2022 | sagaftra.org a lot of funny aunts and uncles and I always wondered as a kid why there weren't more characters like that. Did these portrayals influence your desire to become an actor? z: I was a big film buff — my father used to take us to the drive-in every Friday night up in Montana and we'd watch those '70s exploitation movies, the hippie films like Easy Rider and Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey, but I never really thought about being an actor; that came later on in life. I guess it was when Dances with Wolves came out that I started thinking more about possibly trying to be an actor, and I auditioned for some local community theater stuff when I was living in Nebraska — it was kind of a whim to be honest. A very good whim! z: Yeah! [laughs] I took some acting classes in high school, but kind of for an easy credit, so it wasn't until my 20s when I started thinking about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I auditioned for a play and I got it, and I fell in love with acting. And you had a relative in the business. z: Yes! My great-great-uncle Francis Zahn, who I was named after, was a writer, painter and a tribal judge on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, and, at one time, he was an interpreter for Teddy Roosevelt between the Lakota tribe and Roosevelt's people. He was also an actor in Errol Flynn's movie They Died with Their Boots On — he actually played Sitting Bull. I even have a picture of Flynn and my uncle together, but I didn't find this out until later in life. I think it's pretty cool. There's a scene in the 2009 documentary "Reel Injun" that talks about some of those Native actors like your uncle and reveals an instance when several were hired for a John Ford film and were told to "just say some stuff in Navajo." Years later it came out they added some colorful expletives! z: [Laughs] Yeah! I did that in the '90s, actually! They asked me to say something in my language, and I'm not a fluent speaker, so I kind of said some bad words and let it go — we all had fun with it [laughs]. How did you feel when you got your SAG card in 1991? z: I did a Fox TV pilot called Lakota Moon, and they had to Taft-Hartley me in, and that was the first time I was eligible to be a SAG member — and, yes, it was extremely exciting! You move to Los Angeles, you want to be an actor, and the first thing they say is that you have to be in the union. How do you get into the union? Well, you have to get a union job! [laughs] You kind of go up against the wall and try to figure it out, so I was extremely excited when I had a production that wanted to make me eligible to join. It's a big deal for any actor. Speaking of your first job, you're surrounded by so much young talent right now, especially on "Reservation Dogs." What's that been like? z: When Sterlin Harjo came to talk to me about selling his and Taika [Waititi]'s pilot and told me the synopsis of it, the first thing I said was, "How are you going to find these Native teenagers to play the lead and regular roles?" Because there's Above, McClarnon and Kiowa Gordon, Dark Winds (2022–). Right, from left, Devery Jacobs, Paulina Alexis and McClarnon, Reservation Dogs (2021–). FX ON HULU MICHAEL MORIATIS/STALWART PRODUCTIONS/AMC