Irene Bedard You Might Know Her From

Our very first Disney princess, y’all! This week we are joined by Irene Bedard. You Might Know Her From: Pocahontas, Smoke Signals, The New World, The Mist, Ralph Breaks the Internet, and Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee. We get into the legacy of Pocahontas and the ways in which she is entangled with Irene’s body of work as an actor, the sense of community among indigenous artists within Hollywood, taking on genre pieces with Westworld and The Mist, the tightness of Jay Z and Beyoncé’s NDAs, and the incredible life of Molly Spotted Elk. 
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Let Them All Talk directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, Candice Bergen
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Anne’s essay in “The Sound of Music is the Hottest Movie I’ve Ever Seen” in She Found it At the Movies: Women Writers on Sex, Desire and Cinema. Get a free copy when you follow us on all social media and leave a 5-star review. 
Irene Bedard IMDB
Irene lives in same Ohio town as Dave Chappelle 
Speaking voice of Pocahontas and character was modeled after her
Nominated for a Golden Globe for Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee (produced by Jane Fonda)
Played Pocahontas’ mother in Terence (Terry!) Malick’s The New World 
Asked Tantoo Cardinal if she should do the Disney Pocahontas; has good relationship with Q’orianka Kilcher
Smoke Signals (1998)(dir:Chris Eyre ) based on short story by Sherman Alexie. Was inducted into the National Film Registry for its cultural significance
Songs My Brother Taught Me (Chloe Zhao) and The Bygone (2019) 
The U.S Department of Justice found that American Indian women face murder rates that are more than 10 times the national average. 
#MMIWG2S – Missing and Murdered Indigenous Womxn, Girls, and Two Spirit
Community of indigenous actors in Hollywood is quite small. Has worked with the following indigenous actors multiple times Adam Beach, Tantoo Cardinal, Russell Means, Wes Studi 
Has recently been working in genre tv: Wes’tworld, The Mist, The Stand
Says the manifest destiny stories Native Americans have been playing for years are actually genre tales themselves 
Has been shopping around the story of vaudevillian and showgirl, Molly Spotted Elk
Indigenous actors weren’t even included in the report: “Inclusion or Invisibility: Annenberg Report on Diversity in Entertainment” (they were lumped into “other”)
A few inches taller than Grandmother Willow, Linda Hunt
Stephen King: The Mist (2017) and The Stand (2020) ; Terence Malick: Tree of Life (2014)  and The New World (2005) 
Was directed by Joey Travolta (John’s brother) in Navajo Blues (1996)
Best Disney princess friends: Jodi Benson (Ariel), Paige O’Hara (Belle), Linda Larkin (Jasmine)
True Women: Dana Delaney, Annabeth Gish, Angelina Jolie 
Big Chief Sugar Podcast featured a great interview with Irene Bedard
Plays the president in Jay-Z and Beyonce’s music video for “Family Feud” with Omari Hardwick (directed by Ava DuVernay)