TIME November 6, 2017 ▶For more Voices, visittime.com/AmericanVoices
Time OffAmerican Voices
Kilcher’s next
film is the period
dramaHostiles,
which won raves
at the Telluride
and Toronto
film festivals.
It follows an
Army captain
escorting a
dying Cheyenne
chief back to his
tribal lands.
▽WHEN Q’ORIANKA KILCHER WAS A BUDDING ACTOR OF 6,
an interviewer asked her what roles she dreamed of playing.
She couldn’t decide between her two heroes, so she named
them both: Pocahontas and Hawaiian Princess Ka‘iulani.
By the time she was 19, she had played both.
At 27, Kilcher is adding another historical figure to her ros-
ter: storyteller and actor Mary Thompson Fisher, who became
famous in the 1930s under the stage name Te Ata (Maori for
“bearer of the morning”). A citizen of the Chickasaw Nation,
her talents won her fans including President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, who invited her to perform at his first state dinner.
In the new filmTe Ata, financed
by the Chickasaw Nation, Kilcher
portrays her as a passionate cultural
ambassador at a time when it was
illegal even to dance a traditional
Native American dance.
Like the real-life Te Ata, who was
half German, Kilcher is of mixed
heritage: her mother is Swiss-Alaskan
and her father Peruvian. But that’s
not why Kilcher says she found a
kindred spirit in the character. “What
touched me most about Te Ata is not seeing your differences as
a crutch,” she says, “but rather as an advantage.”
Early in her career, Te Ata attempted to find mainstream
success, enduring countless Broadway auditions only to
have doors slammed in a face that was never quite right for
the part. It wasn’t until she leaned in to her heritage that she
found fame. Similarly, Kilcher has built a career by embracing
indigenous stories. It’s a path that has resulted in part from
her desire to “highlight that part of American history
people like to sweep under the rug.” But it also stems
from the challenges of being an actor with indigenous
roots in an industry in which difference is often
exoticized but less frequently celebrated. “It’s been
disheartening at times,” she says. “I’m never native
enough, and I’m never white enough.”
To hear Kilcher describe her heritage is to
envision a spinning globe: “I was born in Germany,
raised in Hawaii, and my father is from Peru.
I’m Quechua-Huachipaeri from the jungles and
highlands of South America, and Swiss, Alaskan
and French.” Or, as she puts it, “I’m a little mutt.”
Kilcher was raised by her mother, a human-rights
activist who speaks six languages. “I’m very proud of
all of my roots,” she says, beaming, and launches into
the story of her great-grandfather, a Swiss immigrant
who was one of the first Alaskan homesteaders and
who helped write the state’s constitution.
Growing up immersed in the arts, Kilcher
Q’orianka KilcherThe actor and
activist on playing indigenous
roles, embracing her mixed
heritage and loving Shirley Temple
idolized the Tejano pop star Selena
(or at least, Jennifer Lopez’s portrayal
of her in the 1997 biopic) and Shirley
Temple. Kilcher’s first movie role was a
Seussian Who in the 2000 adaptation of
How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but she
broke out five years later as a spirited
Pocahontas in Terrence Malick’s
The New World. That film coincided
with her emergence as an activist.
She recalls walking into the offices of
Amnesty International, telling staffers
she had a movie coming out and asking
what issues she could help highlight.
She was 15 years old. Since then, she
has worked with grassroots youth
organizations in Peru and around the
world, focusing on environmental and
human-rights issues.
Kilcher’s activism has informed the
roles she takes. “I found when I was in
Peru, there are a lot of young people that
are ashamed to be indigenous,” she says.
In portraying women like Te Ata, she
sees an opportunity to inspire them to
“embrace what makes them unique and
be proud to be indigenous.”
Still, she hopes Hollywood is moving
toward casting that’s “based more on
your work as an actor than the color
of your skin.” Kilcher just finished
filming TNT’s seriesThe Alienist,
based on Caleb Carr’s 1994 novel.
In the book, her character has
blond hair and blue eyes.
“When you’re working in
Hollywood, there is always
that thing of, ‘Oh, you can
only go out for a native
role,’ ” she says. “And they
ended up casting me. I was
just so grateful, because it’s
not often that it happens.”
But her goal has never been
to blend in. “The girl next door, it’s
never really been my thing,” she says.
“I’ll never be the girl that sells Cheerios
to somebody. And you know what?”
Kilcher flashes a megawatt smile.
“I think it’s a great problem to have.”
—ELIZA BERMANHOSTILE
TERRITORY‘I’ll never be
the girl that
sells Cheerios
to somebody.
And you
know what?
I think it’s a
great problem
to have.’TASIA WELLS—GETTY IMAGES