Tantoo drinks and talks

Coffee with Tantoo Cardinal...Tantoo leans forward and accepts the tobacco, "Everyone knows how stoic, yet primitive but somehow not that intelligent we were. So when I first began, I surprised people on the set with how I expressed myself."

They offered her a role and immediately she broke a cliché. "The script said something about the action of my Indian character and it struck me. I am hitting them with a totally different perspective. They never saw this truth before; this truth has kept me going." In her early work every issue had to be addressed, "from the script, to how they wanted me to act, and even to the way we as Indians worked on set."