All about Adam

The rez: 'There's a lot of healing to be done'

Flags of Our Fathers star overcame hardships to run for chief of his Manitoba reserve

His run for office:[L]ast year, he returned to his home reserve in Dog Creek and ran an unsuccessful campaign to become its new chief. MTV documented the effort as part of its Diary series, which aired on television last month.

Beach says he ran for chief because his family (some of whom still live on the reserve) asked him to, and while he would have gladly taken up the reins as leader, he also wasn't entirely surprised when he lost.

"Part of me was hoping I was going to win, but part of me also knew it wasn't going to happen. There is a lot of stuff in my community that people don't talk about. There's a lot of healing to be done and when you take someone like myself, who's coming in there with so much good power to make a change, you're tilting the balance, you're not part of the insecurities."His role on SVU:Beach will have to content himself with playing a lead role on a top-rated TV show, having been recently cast as Detective Chester Lake on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Not a bad gig for a chief-in-training.

"He's Mohawk, from the Bronx," Beach explains of his character. "His generations of family built New York, so he's very tied into architecture and the structure of the city. He can't sleep and there's a reason why he's with the SVU and why he's so committed to it. He was a victim himself. I'm asking them to make Chester a Pandora's box that's going to be opened over the next three years." The job will take him away from Ottawa and his sons, who live with Beach's first wife, Meredith Porter. When he is not filming in Manhattan, however, Beach says he intends to be back home with his kids.