D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai wouldn’t let an interview about his Emmy nomination go by without praising one of his co-stars: “I want to add one thing — there’s a project that Devery Jacobs did with director D.W. Waterson, an amazing film called ,” he tells .
“It’s a sports film about cheerleading. I want to shout that out, because she created an amazing project.” Woon-A-Tai, who earned his first Emmy nomination for lead actor in a comedy for the final season of the FX on Hulu series, also talked with about his time on and what he sees of himself in his character Bear.
What was interesting was when I first got the audition, I had two scenes — four pages — and right off, just in those two scenes, I really connected with Bear. I hadn’t even read the whole script yet. The writers room was all Indigenous, and they knew that they wanted to tell their stories, and in telling their own stories, they told the stories of a lot of other Native kids out there as well, me being one of them.
I related to Bear right off the bat, and I see a lot of similarities within myself, within my cousins and my nephews, and with family and friends. There are definitely a lot of Bears in the world and in what we call Indian Country, just like there are Willie Jacks everywhere or Elora Danans or Cheeses everywhere. So I felt like I was really rolling with that Bear as well, and to see his arc was very beautiful.
We’re two different people — I grew up in Canada, in a big city, not a re.