Casting calls paths to authentic Native representation

ALBUQUERQUE

Dana Bahe’, Diné/Salish, is sick of still seeing acting parts portraying Native Americans going to non-Indians.

Bahe’, dressed in the contemporary Northwest style from his Salish heritage, stood in line with hundreds of other tribal members who answered a Native American extra casting call recently at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute.

He said he was there to make sure that the directors had the opportunity to hire tribal members for the parts they were casting.

“Anglos and Spanish can’t portray us truly,” he said.

(Recall: Rock Hudson, “Winchester”; Burt Lancaster, “Apache”; Audrey Hepburn, “Unforgiven”. In more current times Johnny Depp as Tonto in “The Lone Ranger” and Lou Diamond Phillips as Henry Standing Bear in the Netflix series “Longmire”, although they claim to have some Native American heritage.)

Casting directors Lorrie Latham and Elizabeth Gabel were on site scouting extras for “Hostiles” starring Christian Bale and Wes Studi, Cherokee; “Godless”, a six-part western series to air on Netflix; and other projects.

“We need all kinds of faces and ages for our films this summer,” said Mary Bowman, an assistant director who helped organize the casting call.

Selected extras, who are paid, act in background parts like people walking by or sitting in a café.

 

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