Why does that notion, one many would eagerly endorse, strike him as so hysterical? He entered Hollywood at a time when Indigenous people were regularly played by white actors. With that Studi, sitting outside the lobby of his East Village hotel in New York, lets out such a howl of laughter that he nearly doubles over.
“That’s essentially what I want to work on, and being a godfather to Native people in the industry,” he adds. “It does still exist, the misconception that we were all killed off and we don’t exist anymore as peoples.” “Hopefully it has to do with creating a better understanding of Native people by the general public,” Studi said in an interview earlier this summer. Along with Max Walker-Silverman’s “A Love Song,” which opens in theaters Friday, he’s a recurring, funny guest star on Sterlin Harjo’s “Reservation Dogs,” the second season of which debuts Aug. When he heard Mann was making “Heat,” Studi called up the director and got himself a part as a police detective.īut recently, Studi is increasingly getting a chance to play a wider array of characters. But it’s sometimes taken some extra effort. Studi, the Cherokee actor who masterfully played the defiant Huron warrior Magua in Michael Mann’s “The Last of the Mohicans” and who got his first big break playing the character credited only as “the toughest Pawnee” in “Dances With Wolves,” hasn’t been limited entirely to what he calls “leather and feathers” roles.