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CBC
a day ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
Where are the older Indigenous theatre actors?
Social Sharing A Port Dover, Ont. theatre company wanted to mount the play Crees in the Caribbean, but they ran into a casting problem. They couldn't find Indigenous actors old enough to play the two main characters, who are a First Nations couple in their 60s. Crees in the Caribbean playwright Drew Hayden Taylor wasn't surprised to hear this. In a recent piece for the Globe and Mail, he explained that finding older Indigenous actors has become an increasingly common issue. Today on Commotion, guest host Ali Hassan speaks with Taylor about what to do in this situation: go on with non-Indigenous actors or scrap the whole thing? We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Ali: When you were told that the play was in jeopardy because of casting issues, what was your instinctual or initial reaction to that? Drew: Well, this isn't the first time it's happened to me. There was one production of that play some time ago that was indeed cancelled because they couldn't find people of the appropriate age for the role. Now, I've done other similar plays in the past. I did an elders love story, farce comedy called The Buz'Gem Blues, with, again, two characters in their 60s. It had been produced a few times. And you had to look long and hard, but we always found people to do the role. So one of the things Jane [Spence, the artistic director of the Port Dover theatre company] did — and was urged to do in order to hopefully avoid this whole issue — was start her search substantially before the actual production. But when I heard this, I was like, "Oh, not again." Because, as I said, I missed one production. There's a very popular Indigenous play called The Rez Sisters, which I believe has three actors in their 60s…. And it's always been a bit of an issue to find age appropriate actors for these roles. Ali: If somebody asks you, what is more important: that the story gets told or that the casting is 100 per cent accurate or precise? Drew: Both. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. Speaking as an Indigenous person, talking to you from a First Nations community, we have spent the last 30, 40, 50 years, trying to get our voice and our representation included in the larger dominant culture. And I think right now, we've got a glut — not glut, that's a bad term — but we have, we have many, numerous Native performers in their 20s, 30s and 40s and approaching their 50s. And I think now, we are just getting to those actors in that later phase of life. So I think it's both important to get the story correct, and to get the right perspective — the right age and the right performer for each role. The option right now [is that] you take an actor in their 50s — and I think that's what's happening — and you age them up. You give them a little gray in their hair. For the female roles, not so much the graying of the beard. But you do try to make them look older and fit them into that particular scene. I have no problem with that. Ali: I understand that since you wrote that [Globe and Mail] piece — a little bit of hope, a little ray of hope — things have changed. Can you tell us what happened? Drew: The day it came out, she [Jane Spence] says, "Oh, by the way, the play's on life support. We managed to find a Native actor who can do it. Now we're trying to confirm a Native actress to do the role." So there is hope at the end of the tunnel. I believe she's making an offer to two actresses this week.
CBC
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
How did Graham Greene become a Canadian icon? Talent, discipline and luck
With hundreds of stage and screen credits to his name, Graham Greene is an undeniable Canadian icon. In 1990, he became one of the most recognizable Indigenous actors in North America thanks to his breakthrough role in the Kevin Costner film Dances With Wolves, which earned him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. Now, the Oneida actor from the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario is the recipient of a Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. But before he carved out a prolific career in the performing arts, Greene was a draftsman, a steelworker, a welder and an audio tech — difficult jobs that taught him the importance of discipline and a strong work ethic. In a career-spanning interview with Q 's Tom Power, Greene says he got his first professional acting opportunity while working as a roadie (he mentions he toured with the Canadian band Abraham's Children and did sound for country artists like George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Reba McEntire and Buck Owens). That's when a guy named Doug Rogers asked him if he had ever considered doing theatre. "I said, 'Well, I don't know about theatre. I don't even know what a script looks like,'" Greene recalls. After receiving the script, Greene decided to give it a shot and landed the job. He was pleasantly surprised to find the work really enjoyable. "I changed into the costume and they put me in the shade in a nice chair," he says. "They brought me food and water … and I thought, 'Jeez, I'm living the life of a dog! This is great. I don't have to carry anybody's amplifiers anymore. I don't have to do lights. I don't have to drive halfway across the country for nothing.'" While Greene says it took him a while to get used to acting, he eventually came to the realization that he loved performing and had a talent for it. But as one of a few Indigenous actors in Canada at a time when representation was lacking, talent and discipline could only take him so far — he also needed luck. "I got lucky, I just got lucky," Greene says. "A lot of actors that I know in the business, they had to punch and claw their way to do the stuff, and they had to work very, very hard at what they did to get where they are today. And me? I just got lucky."
CBC
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
When actor Graham Greene got the call that he'd won a Governor General's Award, he thought it was a prank
Social Sharing With a dry sense of humour and a penchant for teasing, it's no wonder that acclaimed actor Graham Greene believed his own friends were pranking him when he got the call from Governor General Mary Simon's office letting him know he'd be receiving a Governor General's Performing Arts Award. "'Yeah, yeah, who is it?'" he recalls saying. "I found out it was true, and I said, 'Oh my gosh, I'm terribly sorry, I thought it was some friends playing a joke.' The same thing happened when I got the Order of Canada, I thought somebody was pulling my leg." The 72-year-old actor will be receiving a Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award for his vast body of work in stage and screen, which includes unforgettable portrayals of chiefs, medicine men, doctors, a judge (Molly's Game), a detective (Die Hard with a Vengeance) and a death row inmate (The Green Mile). For his performance as Kicking Bird, a Sioux medicine man in the 1990 film Dances with Wolves, he earned an Academy Award nomination. Often playing specifically Indigenous characters, and frequently speaking languages and representing tribes and nations not his own (he's Oneida from the Six Nations of the Grand River), Greene is one of the most recognizable Indigenous actors in North America. "It's wonderful to be recognized in your own country, and I'm grateful for that," he says. "I'm just a working actor and I'm lucky enough to survive as long as I did in the business. There's a lot of better actors that have not survived and there's some that are still active that never got any recognition, which is unfortunate." His four decades of acting all stemmed from Greene's fascination with human behaviour when he was a sound engineer for bands. He'd sit behind the sound console and watch the crowds instead of the band. "I just picked somebody and started asking questions and making things up about them." Filling in a character's backstory came naturally to him in film, but he wanted to bring more confidence to his acting, so he did theatre to develop discipline and learn "how to dance," as he calls ad-libbing. Some of his favourite "dance partners" have been Felicity Huffman and Mel Gibson, from Transamerica and Maverick, respectively. Actors Graham Greene and Tantoo Cardinal 4 days ago Duration 5:33 Two Canadian actors discuss what it was like to work with Hollywood's Kevin Costner in the 1990 movie Dances with Wolves. Despite announcing his retirement from acting, he says he gets more calls than ever. He tells his agent to send only the good stuff, and his requirements include working four days or less, very little dialogue and "a lot of money." Acclaimed television series The Last of Us and Reservation Dogs must have fit the criteria, as Greene made notable appearances in both in recent years. Sometimes, a little convincing brings him into the fold. The 2024 thriller/comedy Seeds was written specifically for Greene by the film's writer, director and star, Kaniehtiio Horn. "She says, 'I wrote a role for you, and you better do it.' I said, 'Well, I guess I better.'" Seeds is the closing night film of imagineNATIVE Film Festival, where Greene will receive another lifetime award, the August Schellenberg Award of Excellence.
