By Christina Radish
Chaske: What's cool, is that we get to help people as well. When you meet certain people, it's pretty cool. I remember meeting some of my heroes, when I was a kid, and being like, "Oh, they're really nice guys. They're really cool people."
Bronson: I did a couple of Make-A-Wish Foundation things, brightening up somebody's day. If you have that kind of power, it's pretty good.
Alex: I think also, as representatives for Native Americans in this franchise, we have a responsibility not to present a bad image. We're portraying Natives, and that's what they're going to see. I think it's time for us to rewrite what Hollywood's take on Native Americans was, which was long hair blowing and a noble kind of people, like in leather and feather period pieces. Now you see something in a contemporary setting, and you see us being humans. It's a great thing. Well, we're kind of human, but we're not demonized, which is important. It's done in a very tasteful way.
Chaske: It's going to be one of the biggest movies of the year.
Q: Being Native American, you have a connection with land and animals. Playing a werewolf, did you find yourself feeling different about that?
Chaske: You have to have a balance as well. I know a lot of Natives who are lawyers and doctors, who don't always wear their hair in braids. I think that's a misconception from the stereotyping that Hollywood and pop culture has of us. Not all of us are like that.
Alex: Hollywood thought Adam Beach was the only Native American left.
Chaske: I lost out on a lot of roles to that guy.
Alex: Yeah, were extinct, except for Adam Beach. They were almost going to put him at the Smithsonian for being the last Native American. So, it's good that people did their research. A lot of thanks goes to Rene Haynes, who was the Native American liaison that added to the casting. Joseph Middleton did the primary casting, but Rene had cast Chaske before in other projects and myself as well. She knows her stuff. That was a good thing that Summit did. They really made sure they did it right for the Wolf Pack.
As I already emailed you, I found the bronzing particularly offensive. They weren't deemed Indian enough without it.
ReplyDeleteBronson: As soon as I got out there with my shorts and no shirt on, I felt the part.
Alex: As soon as I got the bronzing on, I felt it.
Bronson: The bronzing always ended up on my socks.
Chaske: That stuff is hard to wash off, too.
Alex: I think they put motor oil on us. It's all brown and copper. The shower looked like someone murdered a man.
So most of the Native cast is being bronzed over to look more Native and one person cast as a Native is using skin lightening to hide their true identity - what ever happened to people being proud to occupy their own skins?
ReplyDeleteThese guys are working very hard to be positive and make the best of a bad situation but what is there to be positive about except some kind of vague acknowledgement from Hollywood that Natives aren't actually extinct?
Of course I could be completely wrong? Maybe?
Then, I wonder, not only will they be bronzed, but will the "bronzers" do a bad job of it?
ReplyDeleteIn the first movie, they did a poor job of making the vampires look pale.
Yup, and Nikki Reed is also bleaching herself and had huge psychological issues with it (in my opinion she is seriously miscast):
ReplyDeleteNikki Reed: "I bleached my hair at the expense of my hair falling out. I have all these layers done that did not exist before to cut it. I bleached my skin, I was in the bathtub scrubbing for three months before I even started shooting. My eyebrows, 36 hours in a hair chair, contacts, everything I possibly could."
That's incredible.
Nikki Reed: "And I woke up every morning and looked at myself in the mirror and was like, 'Okay, you still look like this.' You know, it’s like every feature, however you want to put it - all of my like God-given dark features - everything was wiped out. And you just sort of have to look at yourself like you're a different person, which was bizarre."
That's kind of freaky. You could get lose yourself in that look.
Nikki Reed: "Yes, I totally was like, 'Who are you?' for a long time."
http://movies.about.com/od/twilight/a/nikki-reed.htm
http://blindie.com/2009/01/01/critic-says-twilight-trespassed-taylor-lautner-nikki-reed-with-race-changing-makeup/
Q: "Being Native American, you have a connection with land and animals. Playing a werewolf, did you find yourself feeling different about that?"
ReplyDeleteWTF!!!! After reading this I didn't even bother reading the rest of the interview.
Anonymouse
"Joseph Middleton did the primary casting, but Rene had cast Chaske before in other projects and myself as well. She knows her stuff. That was a good thing that Summit did. They really made sure they did it right for the Wolf Pack."
ReplyDeleteBoy, they really are clueless/don't know what's going on. Wow. Not my representation!