MONKEY BEACH CAST

Grace Dove

Grace is a Secwépemc actress based on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples–Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. She has embraced a responsibility to lift up her audience and her community. She co-starred with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy in the Oscar-winning film The Revenant. You can currently watch Grace in the Netflix thriller How It Ends alongside Academy Award winning actor Forest Whitaker and Theo James. Recently she wrapped up her first leading role in the feature film adaptation of Eden Robinson’s novel Monkey Beach premiering in 2020.
When the red carpet is rolled up, and tucked away she facilitates her own youth-empowerment program “Thunderbird Dreams” in communities.

Adam Beach

ADAM BEACH is the most acclaimed Native American actor of his generation, and a proud inductee, 2nd ever, Native American, into the Motion Picture Academy.  With over 60 film and TV  productions, he has worked with a bevy of the greatest filmmakers, from John Wu, to Clint Eastwood, to John Singleton, Scott Cooper and Jon Favreau, to name a just a few.

Adam starred opposite Alfre Woodard in the NETFLIX feature JUANITA and worked alongside Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike and Ben Foster in HOSTILES.  In David Ayer’s SUICIDE SQUAD he played Christopher Weiss aka: Slipknot.

He is well known for his award winning performance in Clint Eastwood’s FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS playing Ira Hayes, a Pima Native American who was one of the six US Marines to raise the American flag on Iwo Jima. His work in the epic HBO Miniseries BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE earned him a Golden Globe nomination and

His film work spans his Sundance debut, SMOKE SIGNALS, to Jon Wu’s WINDTALKERS, to his starring roles in films from THE BIG EMPTY, to the Walt Disney production SQUANTO: A WARRIORS TALE.  He was featured in John Singleton’s FOUR BROTHERS and starred with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig in the science fiction-western COWBOYS AND ALIENS

His television work includes the HBO series BIG LOVE as well as 2 seasons on LAW & ORDER: SVU, the miniseries COMANCHE MOON. He also helped launch the CBC series, ARCTIC AIR that ran for 3 seasons.  

Tina Lameman

Tina Lameman is a First Nation Actor from the Beaver Lake Cree Nation.  

She is extremely proud to be a part of the film called Monkey Beach in which she starred as Ma-Ma-Oo. Monkey Beach has an amazing cast of First Nations actors including Adam Beach, Grace Dove, Glen Gould and Nathanial Arcand.  

Tina also starred in the film Circle of Steel alongside Chantelle Han and Duncan Ollerenshaw.  It did the Film Festival Circuit and won Audience Choice Award at the Calgary Film Festival 2018.  

Tina attended Theatre Arts at Grant McEwan College in 1989.  She also attended Film Acting Classes in 1991 at Zocalo Theatre in Edmonton.  Her first role was in 1992 in the movie Road to Saddle River, a small part with no lines.  She helped write and co-starred in a play in the 1994 Edmonton Fringe Festival for Azimuth Theatre called Running Through The Devils Club that was very well received.  She has since moved on to bigger roles in many other productions.  Tina was cast as the Female Lead (Josie) in the TV Series Mixed Blessings for which she won an AMPIA award in 2008 for Best Actress.

Tina has worked in both film and on stage in her career and has a natural talent for Comedy which she believes she has inherited from her Cree family.  She is currently working on writing scripts and honing her skills in that area of the Entertainment Industry.  

Tina believes in encouraging our First Nation youth to reach for their dreams and is very proud to be able to show them that we can achieve our goals no matter how impossible it may seem.  

Nathaniel Arcand

Nathaniel Arcand one of Canada’s most talented and best known Indigenous Actors, currently well-known for his role as “Clinton Skye”
in FBI Americas Most Wanted (CBS). Nathaniel played Scott Cardinal on Canadas beloved show “Heartland” for eleven seasons. Nathaniel
has appeared in numerous major motion pictures; television shows on major networks as well as independent films.
Nathaniel is from the Alexander First Nation and is Plains Cree. He is an accomplished musician, martial artist and public speaker and carries a
unique bond with horses and nature.
Follow him on Twitter @ArcandNathaniel and on Instagram @nathanielarcand.

Joel Oulette

Joel Oulette was born in Medicine Hat AB , His ancestry is Red River Metis and Swampy Cree from Cumberland House First Nations. Joels great grandfather x 4 fought in the Battle of Batoche at 93 years old, he told his grandsons to fall back, while he held off the red coats, giving enough time to save his family to retaliate. Joel grew up with his moms performing arts company, which focuses on Dance, Acting, and Cultural Presentations. Joel’s bbop name was Jelly Bean Joel. The cultural presentations were dancing the Metis Red River Jig and Rabbit dance, Louis Riel states the Metis will rise again through the arts. Joel and his cousins did a film at the Medicine Hat Esplanade recently to honour his Great Grandfather Joseph Ouellette and his Grandfather Raymond Oulette shared stories on growing up in a Metis/Cree family.
In elementary school, Joel performed Thriller with Gr 2 students, they would give up their lunch hours to learn the thriller routine, and performed infront of their peers that were in Grades higher than them. His father is a talented artist and did the makeup for a thriller and his mother taught
the students the dance.
Joel first started out at 3 years old, attending the dance acting classes with his big brother and sister. His first film was at 5 years old, as an Extra in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee with his sister Shayla. Over the years Joel worked his way from Extra, to small speaking roles, to co
lead to lead roles at a young age.
● 8 years old, – Lead in Perserverance , by Impact Society.
● 12 years old -Extra , warrior in Alpha feature film by Director Albert Hughes, 80 million dollar film, 100 people in cast and crew. Joel was able to see first hand the makings of a box office film , which was on farmland in Brooks AB
● 14 and 15 years old – Joel was in 2 summer indigenous youth film camps by Indigenous Director Trevor Solway, learning how to make a film, pitch an idea, and create the script, was exciting, Joel also learnt how to act in front of the camera, compared to stage acting.
● 16 years old, Joel auditioned for Monkey Beach, Jimmy, a younger brother to the Lead . Joel read the book from Eden Robinson, and loved the twists and turns, and the suspense of being lost at sea, and how the sister has special powers to locate her lost little brother. Joel enjoyed going to Kitimat and working with the young actors whom had to spend some time on set and also had to do school work on set, Joels football coach was the only one upset that Joel had to go away to do Monkey Beach for two months.
Joel enjoys the fight scenes in Monkey Beach with actor Glen Gould, Joel prefers to do his own stunts. He also loved the mountains and working with cast and crew that was like family.
● 17 years old, Trickster Lead, Joel was honoured to get the part in CBC trickster tv series, by Eden Robinson, he read the book, and was captivated by the monsters, myths and the struggles of being in a dysfunctional family. Joel enjoyed working with the older actors whom were mentors with Joel, again it was like working with an extended family.
● 18 years old, The Abducted Movie, Lead, about Missing and Murdered women and girls.
● Joel is will be singing and playing guitar in the Abducted, plus he looks forward to the
fight scene, Joel prefers to do his own stunts.
Joel is athletic , he was in high school football for three years, practicing every day to win the finals , Joel received Rookie of the Year Award. Joel is involved in Jitsu and Martial Arts.
Joel also did yoga certification in Mexico with his sister Shayla. He will be teaching yoga by his sister’s side in the future. He supports the Matriarch Movement , which is about Missing and Murdered Women and Girls and Missing and Murdered Men and Boys, their platform , is We are not a statistic.
Joel is a humanitarian, and believes in giving back to the community, He helps Sunworks Arts and Cultural Society, Shine program, he was awarded at 10 years old, the youngest facilitator when he helped teach dance , at the Youths Cultural Survival Conference at Onion Lake First Nations. He was honoured with an archery set. Shine program has added film productions as well, Joels dad helps deliver the program as a film coordinator and visual artisti and Joels mom still teaches children and youth that they can SHINE in the performing arts, alot of kids would love to do what I do, says Joel, so why not work with the SHINE program in the communities. Joel also is involved with skateboarding and is a member of the Medicine Hat Skateboard Association, in the future, Sunworks And MHSBA hope to raise funds for skateboard parks on the reserves and bring out Brandon Novacks a pro skater , whom almost lost his life to do addictions, but skateboarding and recovery healing programs, helped save his life.
Joel and his big brother Grayson hope to help stop the youth from being another statistic, there are too many fatal overdoses in Canada. The importance of youth carrying Narcan to save a life is crucial but it is all crucial to fund sports, arts, recreation and culture, for it saves lives.
Joel is busy auditioning and learning social media, his sister Shayla is helping him how to represent himself on social media. Joel has been in the performing and visual arts for 15 years , and he is super stoked for the future, he hopes to one day be in a film with his sister and maybe
his brother. For he prefers to do a jitsu scene on his brother, pay back. Joel realizes the hard work one has to put in to be a successful actor, one of his mentors on Trickster, his scene dad, Kalani Qupeypo stated that to become a great actor, one has to put in 10,000 hours to work on
developing his craft. Joel spends hours in the gym, with his scripts memorizing lines , on his phone in his car and with his family, Joel also believes in balancing his medicine wheel, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Joel needs to manage his time , to put his energy into acting. He is also looking at taking classes in musical theater, dance, singing and acting in Vancouver and Calgary. One has to always learn, one of Joels role models Hugh Jackman is taking classes online, with 50 young teens, to learn how to dance and he is singing all the time in his house, during covid, his kids may not like it, but he is preparing for a musical theater film in the spring. Joel has been doing online singing classes and guitar lessons during covid as well. The bottom line as a career as an actor, one can always keep learning to be the best you can be.

Glen Gould

Glen is an Ontario based award-winning Actor, with an extensive background in theater, television & film. Most recently, he joined the cast of Prairie Dog Film’s new show, TRIBAL. As well as a role in Loretta Todd’s Feature Film, MONKEY BEACH, based on Eden Robinson’s Novel, of the same title. Glen also recently completed Season 4 of the hit CTV series Cardinal, returning as Detective Jerry Commanda. He appeared as War Dog in the Hollywood Blockbuster,COLD PURSUIT, starring Liam Neeson.

Some of the films he can be seen in include: The LGBT Action-Thriller, North Mountain and the award- winning feature film, Rhymes for Young Ghouls, which earned him a Best Actor win at the 2014 American Indian Motion Picture Awards in San Francisco and a Best Actor Nomination at the 2014 and 2020 Red Nation Film Festival in L.A. Glen was also awarded the prestigious David Renton Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor at the Atlantic Film Festival and the Best Actor at the Dreamspeaker’s Film Festival for his role as Avery Paul in the award-winning feature film Charlie Zone.

In addition to Film and Television, Glen also has an extensive background in Theatre and is known as for his rich voice, providing voice overs and narration in many TV Shows, Documentaries and Animation.He has also embarked on a career as a musician, performing in his country-rock band, Donna’s Boy. Their debut album titled On The Road and their first single, Billy The Kid, have both hit the charts and can be found on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and several on line catalogs.

Sera-Lys McArthur

Sera-Lys McArthur is a screen and stage actor, producer and model with deep Native American roots. Sera-Lys is a proud member of the Nakota/Assiniboine Nation and was raised by her German-Canadian single mother in southern Saskatchewan. Despite being raised in a remote
area, she managed to become a working actor at age 13. At 18, she moved to New York City to study musical theatre. Sera-Lys earned an MA in Acting from East 15 Acting School, the University of Essex, UK.

Sera-Lys will next be seen starring on the series “Burden of Truth” premiering May 21, 2020. Her character ‘Kodie Chartrand’ is brought in as a new recurring role introduced this season. ‘Kodie’ is the childhood best friend of the lead character, ‘Joanna Chang,’ played by KirstinKreuk.
Sera-Lys has experienced success on both sides of the border, gaining Canadian household recognition with series recurring roles on “Arctic Air” and “Hard Rock Medical.” She recently had an unforgettable guest appearance on the hit Starz series “Outlander,” as Mohawk healer ‘Johiehon’ on episode 412 “Providence.” She also appeared alongside Cobie Smulders on episode 203 of Netflix’s “Friends From College.” She is the female lead in “Robbery,” an independent feature film, and a key supporting role in the novel-to-film adaptation of “Monkey Beach.”

Coming up next as an emerging producer, Sera-Lys has multiple feature length projects in development, and several finished short films already under her belt, including: “Pharmalarm” (producer & lead actor), “Magic Madeleines” and “The Wolf of Waubamik Woods” (co-producer and actor). She just wrapped on the set of a short film where she was both lead actor and producer, based on a feature script written and directed by Cree filmmaker Thirza Cuthand.

Outside of acting and producing, Sera-Lys spends her time teaching online ESL to children overseas, developing a palate for New York cuisine and smoky Mezcal, hanging out in Central Park with her canine sidekick, and attending tons of theatre productions, before COVID anyway.

Stefany Mathias

Stefany was born and raised in North Vancouver BC. Canada. She is the daughter of the late Squamish Nation hereditary Chief Joe Mathias and Janice Antoine, who is the principal of the Coldwater School in Merritt, BC, Stefany now carries the hereditary title passed to her by her father.

Graduated from the University of British Columbia (UBC) theatre program and continued in Theater she also attended the Vancouver Film School for film production and directing after graduating from UBC. Stefany began auditioning for TV and Film after graduation and was noticed by Chris Haddock who cast her in his acclaimed TV series “DaVinci’s Inquest,” where she played a recurring role. She then went on to appear in “Da Vinci City Hall”, “The Collector” .and several independent feature-length and short films. Between acting gigs, Stefany’s first feature-length script was accepted to the Sundance Writer’s Lab at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, it was one of 15 selected out of 3000+ scripts. 

Stefany moved to Los Angeles in 2011 where she continued to pursue her acting career and also discovered a passion for directing and producing. Stefany co-produced, co-wrote, and co-directed a short film, “Only On Mondays”; produced, wrote and directed another short film called “Here We Are”, and went on to direct “Gloriana” which is the most recent short she directed. “Gloriana” was accepted into the Coronado Island Film Festival in November. As an actor she has appeared in Longmire, Blood & Oil and can soon be seen in the feature film called “Monkey Beach”, directed by a First Nations director, Loretta Todd.

Currently, Stefany continues to audition, is developing and writing a feature film and has just been brought on to direct her first feature, called “White Blood” written, by First Nations writer Andrew Genaille. 

Zoey Snow

I started acting when I was about 8 years old, and at first I thought I wasn’t good enough for it, mainly because I thought I was annoying or was too obnoxious, but I made it, I’m slowly getting to where I wished too be when I was a little girl. But I also have a huge passion for music, I love music and it ‘s another I dream I have.I believe I can do both, most people take me as an only child but I have two older brothers, I’m the youngest but it won’t stop me from taking chances for doing older things, older roles. I love acting and music, I hope whoever ‘s reading this you encourage yourself too do everything you want, it ‘s never too late to dream another dream, believe you can and your already halfway there!

Miika Whiskeyjack

Miika Whiskeyjack is Plains Cree from Saddle Lake First Nation. She began performing at the age of 7 in dance and film. Miika is a trained dancer in contemporary, jazz, tap, ballet and her cultural dance, fancy shawl. Miika landed her very first audition for the role of Wendy Bull in the television series Blackstone for 5 seasons. Miika’s first feature length film was in Jeff Barnaby’s Rhymes for Young Ghouls. She has also appeared in the LaLaloopsy animation as Fariy Z, the production of Ancestors and Elders as a dancer and countless commercials. Miika is so thrilled to be a part of the film Monkey Beach as Teen Lisa. The novel to film adaptation by Indigenous author, Eden Robinson. She also had one of her latest films released in 2019 titled, Red Snow, which proved to be one of the most challenging roles to date for Miika, as she had to learn the Inuvialuktun language for her character, Asana and dive into themes that affect Indigenous youth and communities today. Film and television has revealed inspiration for Miika to use her voice and explore who she is not only as an artist but has helped her grow into the young woman she is today. Miika feels humbled and in gratitude she is able to express herself though many mediums of the arts and feels it is a way to ignite social change through the messages her expression conveys. She hopes to inspire other Indigenous youth to remain rooted in who they are as those very roots will gift them the empowerment to become who they were meant to be. There is strength and beauty in who we are as Indigenous story tellers.  With love, Miika. 

Oliver Tru Sison

Sam Bob

Traditional name Tulkweemult,
from Snaw-Naw-us First Nation,  Vancouver Island

Sam Bob has performed nationally in television, film, radio, and theatre.  He is  a Jessie Richardson GVTA nominee for Best Actor in Headline Theatre’s Out of the Silence and nominated Best Actor by Dreamspeaker’s Film Festival for Dana Claxton’s The Red Paper. His theatre productions include Crees in the Caribbean and Popcorn Elder with Saskatoon’s GTNT theatre. Also, he was in Drylips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing at the Arts Club.  Paradise in the Wasteland with Tahmanous Theatre. Age of Iron,  Farewell, maladjusted and Ecstacy of Rita Joe at the Firehall Arts Centre, Time Stands Still–Native Earth Theatre/Toronto, Swaa’ahmut  and maladjusted with Theare for Living, as well as several festival productions with Kevin Lorings Savage Society..  Mr. Bob can also be seen in a netflix film Blackway with Anthony Hopkins, he is currently in Laudermilk airing on Amazon Prime. A comedy in which he has a recurring role as ‘Cloud’.  And recently shot a feature film called Monkey Beach based on Eden Robinson’s book.

Sam has also taught free community theatre classes at the Vancouver Friendship Centre for several years. He attended residential school at Kuper Island.

Nick Dangeli

Tim-kyo o’hl Hayats’kw (Nick Dangeli) is of the Nisgaa, Tsimshian, Tlingit, Haida, Gitxsan, Tsetsaut, and Colville Nations. Growing up in his hometown of Omak, WA. He is an Actor, Director, Screen-writer and Traditional Dancer, Singer in, The Git-Hayetsk Dance group. Nick has been thriving as an Indigenous artist in Vancouver, B.C. Focusing on both film and theatre. Nick helped create the very first Smalgyax language film in the Tsimshian language, Aks Gyigyiinwaxt (Water Prayer) in 2016.In 2019 a graduate from Capilano University from the Indigenous Digital film program receiving his diploma. He has not only acted in many short films, but has created many short films over the past few years with his own film company, Dangeli Productions. Nick can also be seen in the upcoming movie Monkey Beach 2020. Nick continues to focus on his creativity and culture, it helps make him the man he is today.

Erika Davis

Erica Davis (Wilson) is a strong and resilient Nisga’a Woman, who is relatively new to film. Being cast as Aunt Edith in Monkey Beach, directed by Loretta Todd, was her debut film performance! Erica’s main acting experience comes from community theatre, working both on stage as well as off. In 2013, she was cast as Young Marie in the production ‘Perfect Pie’, which won her zone festival and brought her to Mainstage in Kamloops BC. In locals, Erica received Peoples Choice Award for Best Female Actress and at Mainstage she received a shared ‘Best Youth or Novice Performer’ award with her casting partner. Erica belongs to the House of Aamagat in the Nisga’a Nation, though she also has strong Indigenous lineage with the Heiltsuk Nation. She currently resides on the unceded territories of the Ts’msyen in Terrace BC with her husband, Rob Davis and their 3 children, where she works as an Indigenous educational assistant. Erica loves all forms of Art, and can be found beading, weaving, painting, knitting, or breathing life into her drum by singing her Nisga’a songs. Her love for the stage and film is simply an extension of her incessant need to create.