Kaniehtiio Horn is known for Indigenous roles in ‘Letterkenny,’ ‘Rutherford Falls’ and ‘Reservation Dogs’ — in ‘Alice, Darling’ she gets to be ‘just a girl’

If you’ve been reading lately about Canadian actor Kaniehtiio Horn, chances are it’s for one of her Indigenous roles — say, the Canadian Screen Award-winning part of Tanis in “Letterkenny,” the supernatural Deer Lady in “Reservation Dogs” or villain Feather Day in the just cancelled “Rutherford Falls.”

But one of the attractions for Horn of the movie “Alice, Darling,” which makes its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 11, was that her character, Tess, was just “a girl.”

“I remember at one point, I was like, ‘Is this character Indigenous?’ They were like, whatever,” Horn said in a Zoom interview, referring to producers Katie Bird Nolan and Lindsay Tapscott. “And I was like, ‘Sweet, OK cool. So I’m just a chick.’”

It’s not that Horn isn’t proud of who she is and where she’s from — she still lives on the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal, where she was raised. She plans to make a TV series about her mother, Kahentinetha Horn, a former model who’s known for her Indigenous activism, including during the 1990 Oka Crisis, a.k.a. the Kanesatake Resistance.

As a four-year-old, Kaniehtiio had a frightening front-row view of the standoff between police, soldiers and Mohawks resisting the expansion of a golf course onto sacred land near Oka, Que.: she was in the arms of her 14-year-old sister Waneek (who went on to become a gold medal-winning water polo player and Olympian) when violence broke out at the end of the siege and her sister was stabbed in the chest by a soldier’s bayonet.

So, yes, Horn is well aware of the importance of Indigenous actors and characters on our screens.

“Every Indigenous person in entertainment right now is pushing things and we’re at the forefront of representation,” she said, “but it was really nice to just play a girl and the actor nerd in me really liked these scenes where it was just dialogue … figuring out what motivates these people,” she said about “Alice, Darling.”

The film stars Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick as Alice, a woman in an abusive relationship, although she doesn’t characterize it that way, at least not initially. The truth of her situation emerges during a vacation with her friends Sophie, played by Nigerian-American actor Wunmi Mosaku (“Loki,” “Lovecraft Country”), and Tess. Alice’s boyfriend, Simon, is played by Canadian actor Charlie Carrick.

In production notes for the movie, Nolan, who co-founded Toronto production company Babe Nation with Tapscott, noted that the film shifts focus from the abuse to the friendship between the women. “Ultimately it is a story of female resilience and empowerment.”

Horn liked the nuanced way the movie deals with Alice’s relationships.

“It’s not so in your face, which I find is more interesting psychologically. To delve into those intricate relationships with friends, especially jealousy that can happen amongst girls — I mean, women are complicated. I thought it was just really well written and just a lot of fun to be able to bring to life these relationships.”

Horn’s character Tess is described as a brilliant artist who is loyal and big-hearted but also brash, blunt and sometimes judgmental.

It’s by happenstance rather than design, Horn said, that she plays so many strong female characters.

“I am surrounded by strong women,” she said. “And I also think a strength in a character is to be flawed and to admit that you’re flawed. And so I hope that these characters that I do play are multi-layered.”

In Canada, she’s probably best known for the irreverent small-town comedy “Letterkenny” on Crave. Her character Tanis is a tough Indigenous woman, leader of her reservation, a loyal friend and a savvy business person.

In “Reservation Dogs,” which began its second season on Disney Plus this week, Horn plays the mythological Deer Lady, who punishes bad men. And in “Rutherford Falls,” cancelled last week by Peacock after two seasons, she’s gym owner Feather Day, a thorn in the side of ambitious Indigenous casino owner Terry Thomas, played by fellow Canadian Michael Greyeyes.

Her other credits include TV movie “Moccasin Flats: Redemption,” for which she was nominated for a Gemini Award; an ACTRA Award-winning part in the comedy “The Trotsky”; a Canadian Screen Award-nominated role in web series “Ghost BFF”; and one of her favourite parts, hostess Gina in alternative history drama “The Man in the High Castle.”

Horn was hard pressed to get cast in Indigenous roles when she began her career, after graduating from the professional theatre program at Dawson College in Montreal.

Of Mohawk and German-Scottish heritage, her light skin and blue eyes meant being passed over for parts that went to darker-skinned actors.

“It’s almost 20 years now that I graduated theatre school and I never thought that I would ever play an Indigenous person,” she said. “And looking back I’m like, well, that’s kind of sad but, at the time, I was just like, well, it is what it is.”

As it happens, it was a non-Indigenous performer who solidified Horn’s interest in acting.

She appeared in plays in grade school, but it wasn’t until she saw Newmarket’s own Jim Carrey in “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” in Grade 5 that “it clicked that ‘Oh, this guy makes people laugh. This guy gets paid to do it.’”

By the time Horn graduated as a classically trained actor she felt like she could play anything, “so I just auditioned for everything.” Now, as the mother of a toddler, she’s more choosy. “Having my son has really changed me in that sense of valuing my time.”

She did eventually start getting Indigenous jobs, usually when there was an Indigenous person behind the camera. “The second that I opened my mouth, they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, she’s from the rez,’” said Horn.

Horn is becoming one of those Indigenous people behind the camera, including on the “Letterkenny” spinoff “Shoresy,” on which she’s a consulting producer.

Having Indigenous people in all areas of production takes away the stress on Indigenous actors of feeling like they’re representing an entire community on set, she said.

“That was a lot of my career,” Horn said. “So I hope that by being a part of ‘Shoresy’ I really alleviated a lot of that stress from the (Indigenous) actors who were there …

“We need to encourage Indigenous people to not only be directors and producers and actors, they need to go into sound design and into set dec (decoration), into wardrobe (and) hair and makeup. We need to fill all of these roles.”

But while that representation is vital, she added, “I really want to be known as an excellent actress, not an excellent Indigenous actress … hopefully Indigenous actors get to do more roles where they just play a person.”

Debra Yeo is a deputy editor and a contributor to the Star’s Entertainment section. She is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @realityeo

SHARE: