“Those traumas when it comes to the historical past generation to generation; our children, our grandchildren, our future grandchildren learn these behaviors.”

After that movie I said, “Y’know what, I have to realistically wear my emotions now when I do a job. That’s gotta be as real as it gets. It’s not just dialogue anymore.”

I do a lot of inspirational talks for kids, to motivate them to change their lives and give them hope.

This movie shows that perspective from Scott’s character, and I love it. It shows the American Indians as the ones who respect and help out when people are needed. It’s a nice little twist.

Well to me growing, up I’ve had my own psychological war with my parents dying at such a young age. My mother was killed by a drunk driver, then two months later my father drowned.

I’m not gonna fall. I’m tired of falling. I’m tired of seeing our people fall. I don’t believe in failure.

Smoke Signals really mirrored the way I grew up and how I felt, and that movie was the first time I’d dealt with my parents’ death and how I felt that loss and sadness and anger.

It’s what we put in our minds and our hearts to succeed. And success isn’t about money.

Acting for me was an escape and it wasn’t until Smoke Signals that made me realize that acting is a personal development and challenge to grow.

I think when I started acting it was the first time I got the freedom of expression.

When faced with structural injustice, especially in the form of oppressive military occupations,

We [Americans] have a historical trauma when it comes to the past relationships when it comes to Native Americans and the history of how America was created.

Ever since I started acting, I’ve always spoken to our people about identity. I’ve spoken to kids, telling them: “Where do I get my strength to push through the barriers to get me where I’m at today? It’s my culture and my traditions, you know?

Growing up with sexual abuse and having to be in gangs and dealing with my own trauma; finding the cultural identity when I was 16, and learning those traditional ways saved me from hurting myself.

We [Native Americans] respect being human beings, but also the natural and spiritual world and I thought that came across wonderfully

I was able to express certain emotions and feelings that I could put into other characters, so it was a good way for me to run away from ho I personally was.

Success isn’t about the biggest house in the world. Success is about loving your family, taking care of your child.

Most actors are drawn towards historical tellings because it’s one of the most simple forms of storytelling.

Anyway I read more contemporary poetry than contemporary fiction so my mind goes first to a kind of crass “conceptualism” that repeats vanguard gestures of the past minus the politics and historical context.

I’m not really frightened by experimenting – that’s the main thing. I really like mixing very old beautiful pieces that are from thrift shops or that have some historical value with quite new futuristic things.

It’s very much to do with how I’m feeling … I love to be experimental and use eclectic mismatched things and put them together to see what third entity is created!

In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.

I strongly reject threats by any member state to destroy another or outrageous attempts to deny historical facts such as the Holocaust.

A historical romance is the only kind of book where chastity really counts.

Actually, the only thing I regret is not making more underground films and bringing them with me as historical documents.