The Indigenous North of North actress Anna Lambe talks to Teen Vogue about upending prejudiced assumptions about life in the Arctic.
TV audiences got to know Inuk actress — and star of the new Netflix show North of North — Anna Lambe last year as part of the supporting cast of True Detective: Night Country, which took viewers to the far northern reaches of Alaska.
Now, the 24-year-old is stealing the spotlight as the lead in the first-of-its-kind Inuit comedy, which just debuted globally and overnight cracked the streaming giant’s top 10 shows. Created by Inuk filmmakers Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, North of North aims to shatter stereotypes about the Arctic, making this seemingly surreal place and its people utterly relatable. Fittingly, it was filmed in Iqaluit, Nunavut , which is Canada’s northernmost city and also Lambe’s hometown. North of North was very much a community effort, with many of the town’s residents playing a part in its making, both out of necessity — given that the production pretty much overtook the town and was in need of everyone from set builders to background actors — but also out of pride at the opportunity to change prejudiced perceptions about life in the Arctic. In the show, Lambe — who didn’t venture out beyond Iqaluit until she was 18 and now finds herself in the Hollywood limelight — shines as Siaja, who is building a future for herself in her small village after a very sudden, very public exit from her marriage, with all the humorous, heartfelt trials and tribulations that entails. Here, Lambe talks to Teen Vogue about growing up in the Arctic, returning to her hometown to film North of North, and bringing authentic Inuit representation to the screen. Teen Vogue: Can you describe your upbringing in Iqaluit? Anna Lambe: I feel so incredibly lucky to have grown up in Iqaluit. There are a lot of statistics about the challenges that exist within the community, like the suicide crisis and substance use and abuse issues. But I feel so fortunate that I got to grow up surrounded by my culture, my language, and my family. We are quite community-oriented, so a sense of accountability to others was something I always intrinsically understood. Growing up, my family did a lot of hunting. We spent a lot of time at my great grandma’s house eating uujuq, which is seal soup. My grandma was always sewing something. Spring was characterized by this festival known as Toonik Tyme; we get a glimpse of that in North of North. In the summer, we were going out boating, clam digging, and seal hunting. There was always this liveliness and brightness about celebrating the seasons. These things were so normal and natural and really shaped the way I think and how I move through the world. It wasn’t until I was older and left for university that I realized that these things aren’t the norm and aren’t really understood in other parts of Canada or the rest of the world. I’m just so grateful to have grown up around a culture and a community that I love so deeply. TV: What has the transition from your Arctic hometown to the Hollywood limelight been like? Every new space I enter feels a bit surreal. In particular within the past two years, it’s been so incredible to be in spaces that I never would have imagined I’d be—like being at a premiere in Los Angeles for True Detective or going to the Emmys and seeing Meryl Streep in the flesh. There are things I look back on and I’m like, “Oh my god, that actually happened.” Coming into this career, I didn’t really have a set plan and instead am just open to whatever happens and whatever comes—so all of it is such a nice surprise. For example, later today, we’re going to go see the North of North billboard in Times Square . I’m actually kind of afraid of the big things that I’m feeling in my heart; all of this is so much more real than I could have ever imagined. TV: What does it mean to you to bring authentic Inuit culture to the screen? AL: It’s such an honor to be part of the changing representation of Inuit and the Arctic in film and television. I feel so grateful that Stacey and Alethea, the showrunners, trusted me and allowed me to be part of that change. I’m really optimistic that people will be open to seeing us as we truly are and that people will come to understand that our joy and our humor are just as worthy of being shown as our trauma and our heaviness, because telling that full range of Indigenous stories is so important. It doesn’t have to be one or the other — both are worthy of being told. TV: How did your identity and lived experiences inform your portrayal of Siaja? From the moment that I read for the audition, Siaja was someone I knew very, very well. I saw elements of myself, my family members, and community members within Siaja. So it was really about gathering up elements of all the girls in school growing up who I thought were cool and interesting and ambitious, then taking their stories and my own experiences to craft Siaja as we know her. It’s been really wonderful with the release of the show in Canada to have so many people say that they feel represented and empowered and inspired by Siaja. That’s the kind of impact you could only dream of having, so it’s unbelievably touching when it actually happens. TV: What was it like to return to your hometown to film North of North? AL: The first project I ever did was The Grizzlies with Stacey, Alethea, and Miranda de Pencier, which we filmed in Nunavut back in 2016. So to get cast in North of North and come back home to film this was really a full-circle moment. We all leveled up, because The Grizzlies was an indie film, and it was so cool to come back and have the production value of a Netflix/CBC/APTN production. It was a long and difficult shoot, and it was kind of like being thrown into a machine and just grinding it out until we got to the end. But I had the support of my community and my family. I moved back in with my parents for this one, and my dad really made sure I had what I needed to get the job done. For example, I would come home from a long day of filming, and he’d be like, “Hey kid, there’s pasta in the fridge if you’re hungry.” That was so important, because there were so many moments when there wasn’t really enough time for me to take care of myself. Dealing with the nerves of leading the show, it was really nice to have my parents to support me and to ensure I had what I needed at home. I’m so grateful to have that support system in place. TV: You’ve already had some pretty impressive acting jobs thus far, but do you have any dream roles? AL: I would love to do a rom-com feature film. It would be fun to do something soft and lighthearted. There are definitely hard moments in North of North where things were emotionally quite difficult to tap into, but for the most part, it was just really, really fun. I want to do more shoots where, like North of North, I don’t go home and feel like I need to hold myself for a little while and decompress . I’ve really come to appreciate being able to tell those kinds of stories. I also want to do a western. I know that’s so stereotypical, but I have this funny vision of myself riding a horse through a field at dawn with my hair blowing in the wind. It’d be called The Long Ride or something like that; it would be this fun reimagining of the West. And I’d love to do a psychological thriller, because horror movies are actually my favorite genre. I love that at times they’re so camp and fun, and other times they’re really mind-bending. TV: What do you hope audiences, both Native and non-Native, take away from North of North? AL: I have different hopes for different viewers. For Native viewers, I really want people to feel represented and seen and heard in an authentic and meaningful way. And to feel proud and excited about this new era of Indigenous film. The past few years have been so exciting, with so many incredible shows coming out — Reservation Dogs, Rutherford Falls, Dark Winds. Even 10 years ago, it would be hard to fathom that there would be such a broad range of Indigenous excellence on mainstream TV. For non-Native viewers, I hope they are open and receptive to a place that they perhaps don’t understand or that they’ve never seen before. And that they’re about to find relatable moments within the show and to feel seen and validated in some of Siaja’s experiences. Because even though North of North is about a specific place and a specific people, so many of the themes and plot points in the show are universal. I just really want people to see the North as it truly is — as Northerners have always known it — and to continue to invest in Indigenous stories that center joy, growth, and healing in a fun way.
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