“Indigenous people are a necessary enzyme for a healthy civilization”: Tantoo Cardinal is a living legend

There are few Canadian actors as accomplished as Tantoo Cardinal. Hailing from the small town of Anzac, Alberta, and of Cree and Métis heritage, Cardinal has appeared in over 120 film, TV and theatre roles, including Dances With Wolves alongside Kevin Costner and Killers of the Flower Moon with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro—roles that not only showed off her considerable strengths as an actor but raised the profile of Indigenous peoples across the broader culture. This week, theatregoers will have a rare chance to watch her perform live as the lead in Witch, a Soulpepper revamp of the 1600s English play The Witch of Edmonton, in which an ostracized woman, Elizabeth, watches as the devil corrupts the town around her. We caught up with Cardinal to talk about her return to the stage, Indigenous representation in film and media, and her dreams for the future.

The last time you acted in a stage play was back in 2018, at a Tarragon staging of Hamlet, and we haven’t seen you in a major film since Killers of the Flower Moon. What have you been up to? Animation! I did some narration for a project called Water Worlds on APTN, which is about water scientists teaming up with Indigenous knowledge holders. First we did the narration in English, and then we did the whole thing again in Cree. After that, I worked on Inkwo, a short animated film by Amanda Strong, which was considered for an Oscar nomination. We didn’t make the list, but we were up there.

It’s hardly been a hiatus, then. No, not at all. I’ve been so fortunate. I was living in LA while doing Water Worlds, and the US writers’ strike was on. Everything was at a standstill, and there I was, walking to the sound studio to do voiceovers. Canada kept me working. In this world of acting, a hiatus means being between jobs, and you never know how long it’s going to last. Is it going to be years? Months? There’s no security in acting. People say, “Oh, just get a mortgage.” Oh yeah? And where is the next month’s payment going to be coming from?

How did you get involved in Witch? I got the script sent to me a couple of years ago. As it turns out, I share an agent with Shawn Ahmed, who plays Frank. I liked it, but I also didn’t know when it was going to get funded or if I’d even be alive at that time. But they chose me and it worked out, and now I’m amazed and honoured to be given the responsibility to hack her out, or whatever the actor’s term would be—bring her to life—in my way.

What’s it like being back in Toronto? I’ve got a couple of sons who live here, but the reason I’m here is because Witch lives here. Sometimes I think, Wouldn’t it be nice to go listen to some blues? Or some jazz? Or try out some nice restaurants? But there’s been no time. Still, I like being in Toronto. I’m staying in an Airbnb of my own—not on tour in a van travelling all over Northern Ontario or Saskatchewan. Those are places I’ve been in the past, taking theatre out to our communities. We’d never know who—if anyone—was going to be at each performance. In comparison, this is pretty plush, man.

What about the role of Elizabeth appealed to you? For one thing, it takes me out of the specificity of an Indigenous story, which is nice. For most of my career, I’ve been identified with the whole Indigenous thing, which is frustrating. In the early days of my work, I’d say, “We are here, we have intelligence, we have a world view and major contributions to make to this society.” Yet people only think to cast me when they’re looking for Indians, not for a woman of a certain age or experience. The breadth of experience, the unspoken history that Indigenous women have—it’s not known and certainly not accepted in this society. They don’t know we have astronauts. It’s nice to get a little break from that.

There’s a certain poetry to this role as well, since Witch is based on The Witch of Edmonton, a play from the 1600s that happens to share the name of your home city. It’s a bit of a misnomer. The Edmonton of the original play was far across the water, in England. That said, there are two other actors from Edmonton, Alberta, in this thing. It was meant to be.

The play is about a woman outcast from society who refuses the temptation of a devil figure—who then goes on to manipulate all of her oppressors instead. This may not be an Indigenous story, but there are themes that relate to the resistance of colonization. Do you try to draw on those?  Well, maybe that’s why I got cast. I don’t know of any actor who doesn’t draw on their own life experience. Before I left my home in Anzac, Alberta, back in the 1960s, there was an awareness that our society was going to hell. We’d lost our relationship with the earth and the natural force. I was born in Fort McMurray, and all the powers that be wanted to put us to sleep. They knew what was under our land, and it was in their interest to get rid of us—or, failing that, to make us think we were crazy and of absolutely no value. When those first European men got over their scurvy and got off their boats, they found a matrilineal society where women made the decisions and men were helpers. We’ve since lost that balance. As time went on, though, we began to see that, thanks to those foundations, Indigenous people are a necessary enzyme for a healthy civilization. There’s an organic thing happening now. Women are coming to the forefront. And it’s inevitable. We fooled around, and now we’re going to find out.

We’ve seen some prominent examples of Indigenous representation on screen lately, like in North of North and Slash/Back. What’s your take on the current state of things? It’s so exciting. There’s been this renaissance. It’s frustrating that it’s taken this long, but that just shows how difficult it is to break through. There’s mesh built into society to keep us out, because our world view is dangerous to the guys that want to do stuff with their money and power and keep building. I like to use the example of the Cree word for “fire,” iskotêw, which is formed from the words for “woman” and “heart.” People want to pull resources out of the earth like she’s a thing rather than a life force, a mechanism that gives you life. That’s why so much effort went in to killing our language and everything that we are. Because we’re dangerous. There was no place for cooperation or true democracy.

In an interview with Tom Power on Q, you said there were some creative choices about Indigenous portrayals in early projects you worked on, like Dances With Wolves, that weren’t the most accurate but were necessary to bring modern audiences along. What kinds of creative choices are modern films making that we’ll one day consider problematic? Every time we step out and do anything artistic, we’re going to make mistakes. That’s part of the process of maturing and getting wiser. There are a lot of people creating art that is necessary and fabulous, and there’s nothing wrong with it—I love what North of North is doing, for instance. But people outside of our culture have to be really careful. Sometimes they think they know everything. If you’re not telling a story that’s from your kitchen, you have to be very respectful. There are protocols in our communities for telling stories, like saying where and who a story comes from, because every story has a life experience. Truth is important too. You can play around, you can jazz it up, but it has to have the essential truth at its base.

When you reflect back on your career as a whole, what do you make of it? It really depends on the day. I feel pretty amazing to have survived that rugged road. Thank goodness I’ve had some time to recuperate. When I first started out in the late ’60s, there were no visible roles for Indigenous women. My mom was afraid for me. I had a friend take me aside and tell me, “You realize there’s nothing out there, right?” And I said, “Well, there’s going to be.” I could just feel it. So I put my pennies there, and it came to this. Now I can look and say, “Okay, what’s here for me?” And that means not just Indigenous roles but roles calling for a woman of my age. I’ve still got that going on, man. I’m looking forward to seeing how it pans out. I’ve got ideas, and there are possibilities out there. It’s not quiet.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.