Wes Studi: Bringing Down Barriers Against Native American Actors

Studi was educated at the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, part of a program created by the U.S. government in 1884 to teach academics and agriculture to American Indian youth from all tribes so they could assimilate into mainstream America. Studi studied dry cleaning, and upon graduating in 1964, he joined the Oklahoma National Guard. He signed up for active duty in Vietnam and spent 18 months between 1968 and ’69 — “just in time for Tet,” he said, of the Vietnamese New Year in 1968, when the Viet Cong launched a series of furious battles. 

Wes Studi gave a tribute to veterans at the 90th annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on March 4 in Hollywood

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Acting opportunities grow

Around that time, Hollywood productions began casting Native American actors in Native roles: Will Sampson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Outlaw Josey Wales, Chief Dan George in Little Big Man and Eddie Little Sky in A Man Called Horse. “Our numbers began to grow only in the late '60s and '70s,” Studi says. “Now we have so many capable people who would like to get in the business of show business.”

What’s needed for that barrier to come down once and for all is to have Native Americans in positions of power in studios. “The only way I can see it happening is to get some of us in there to where we can make some decisions,” Studi says. “The Indian boarding schools back in the day were run by churches and governments and staffed by non-Natives. As time went on, Native Americans began to staff those organizations, and things changed. And tribal governments have been taken over by real Native Americans over the years, and things have changed for the better. Otherwise, it remains stacked against us.”

Studi laughs at the suggestion that he needs to become a superstar, get rich and bankroll his own movie studio. But he agrees that kind of power leads to distribution, which is how movies get to the masses. Otherwise, Native American filmmakers and actors will continue to produce independent films and reach loyal but small audiences. “We need distribution — venues to put the film into. We as Native Americans don't have the infrastructure to do that,” he says.

Studi took to acting late — his first film role was in a Nebraska TV production. His first big movie was as “the toughest Pawnee” in the 1990 hit starring Kevin Costner, Dances With Wolves. His most memorable early role was as Magua, the intense Huron warrior in The Last of the Mohicans, the 1992 movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis. He has a long acting résumé, including Eytukan, the chief of the Omaticaya clan on the planet Pandora in the blockbuster Avatar.

The Academy Awards come calling

And in March, Studi took on a new role: presenter at the 90th Academy Awards ceremony. While the academy doesn't track its presenters, many reports list Studi as the first American Indian presenter in the show's history. He was asked to introduce the tribute to military veterans with a montage of Hollywood war movies, and he gave a shout-out to Native American veterans in Cherokee at the end. 

“I think that it was high time that veterans were honored, as well as it was high time the academy had a Native as a presenter,” he said. "When we got the invitation to present, I was, like, ‘Oh, wow.’ It was kind of unbelievable at first. 

“At the beginning, I was asked to give a sound editing award with Laura Dern. But within a few days, the academy called again and came up with the idea of a tribute to the military. That was probably the result of the talk about [the hashtag] ‘#OscarsSoWhite’ a few years ago. Organizations like the academy always risk becoming dogmatic in their thinking.”

Studi says some people suggested he give the entire tribute in Cherokee, but he didn’t think that would work. “So I simply added the shout-out at the end, and it got a lot of response.”

It was a nice bit of justice, years after his childhood playing cowboys and Indians, to be able to embrace his Native American heritage to Hollywood in front of a worldwide broadcast audience.