Indigenous actors make history with Emmy award nominations
This is a historic year for Indigenous people at the 76th annual Emmy Awards, which honors excellence in the television industry (which also includes made-for-tv movies). The nominations were announced last week.
The biggest feat is that the groundbreaking, highly acclaimed series “Reservation Dogs” finally received a nomination in the outstanding comedy series category for its third and final season. The show, created by Sterlin Harjo, who is Seminole and Muscogee, and Taika Waititi, of Māori descent, follows four Native American teenagers growing up on a reservation in eastern Oklahoma.
Also hugely substantial is that “Reservation Dogs” star D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, of Oji-Cree ancestry, received an outstanding lead actor in a comedy series nomination, the first Indigenous lead acting nomination in Emmy history, according to Variety. “Reservation Dogs” received five Emmy nominations total, including technical categories, according to Emmys.com.
Woon-A-Tai joins fellow nominees Matt Berry (”What We Do in the Shadows”), Larry David (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”), Steve Martin (”Only Murders in the Building”), Martin Short (”Only Murders in the Building”) and previous winner Jeremy Allen White (”The Bear”). Yeah, no heavy hitters there!
Meanwhile, Lily Gladstone and Kali Reis made history as the first Indigenous women to earn acting nominations. They are both nominated in the outstanding supporting actress in a limited or anthology series or movie category.
Gladstone, of Blackfeet and Nez Perce heritage, received the nomination for her role in Hulu’s “Under the Bridge,” a true-crime drama set on Vancouver Island in Canada, where she investigates the murder of a 14-year-old girl. Gladstone just came off a whirlwind movie awards season earlier this and late last year. She became the first Native American nominated for a best actress Academy Award for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
She won multiple lead actress awards during the season, including the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award, but not the Oscar (that went to Emma Stone for “Poor Things,” her second lead actress Oscar after “La La Land”).
Reis, a member of New England’s Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe, was recognized for her role in HBO’s “True Detective: Night Country,” where she plays a rural Alaskan police officer investigating strange activity. You know, “detective” stuff. And Emmy-worthy stuff!
The only other Native American person ever to be nominated in any acting category was August Schellenberg, who received an Emmy nomination in the outstanding supporting actor in a miniseries or movie category for his performance as Sitting Bull in the HBO television movie “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” in 2007, according to Variety.