Irene Bedard

Two roles carry most of Irene Bedard's public recognition, and they pull in opposite directions. In 1995 she gave the speaking voice to the title character in Disney's Pocahontas. In 1998 she played Suzy Song in Smoke Signals, adapted from a Sherman Alexie short story collection, which mattered to Native filmmaking in a way the Disney film did not.

The Pocahontas thread is worth following on its own. She voiced the character in 1995, returned for the direct-to-video sequel Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, came back for a cameo in Ralph Breaks the Internet more than two decades later, and separately appeared in the live-action telling of the same history, The New World, cast as Pocahontas' mother. One historical figure, four credits, two entirely different registers.

Around that sits three decades of steady work in Native American roles, which is how the record reads: Nakooma in Squanto: A Warrior's Tale, Black Buffalo Woman in Crazy Horse, Margaret Light Shines Wheeler in the miniseries Into the West. The recent stretch is the more interesting one, because the parts have grown less ceremonial. She plays Sylvie Nanmac in Alaska Daily, set in the state she was born in, Joanna in How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Winter Bird in American Primeval, and Lisa Winters in Songs My Brothers Taught Me.