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Getting to know ... Adam Beach

Adam Beach - Biography: Contact Adam Beach Today!

Adam Beach Life's a Beach... Very rarely does an actor acheive mainstream success playing only his or her own nationality. This is exactly the acheivement that Saulteaux actor Adam Beach has managed to atain. But then fighting for his identity is something he has had to do for much of his life. Born on the Dog Creek Reserve near Ashern, Manitoba on November 11, 1972, Adam lost both of his parents at the tender age of eight. Adam and his two younger brothers were forced to move to Winnipeg to live with an aunt and uncle. Six years later, they were moved yet again to live with another aunt and uncle. The feelings of displacement and grief, as well as the burden of caring for his brothers made Adam an angry, troubled adolescent. He spent time in a gang, all of whom were minorities in a mostly white high school. He signed up for a drama class in high school, simply for the chance to "goof off" with his friends, but he soon discoverd that he had a natural talent for acting. Performing became an outlet for all of the anger, bitterness and self-loathing he was experiencing. Adam credits Johnny Depp (who has partial Cherokee ancestry) who he used to rush home after school to watch on 21 Jump Street, with helping him to make the decision to pursue acting professionally. Adam began performing in local theatre productions and eventually dropped out of school to accept a lead role at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People. In 1990, at the age of 18, he won a small role in the TV mini-series Lost In the Barrens, based on the novel by Farley Mowat, and starring Graham Greene. Adam continued to work in local theatre and TV for a few years, and eventually won roles on episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger (1993), Touched By An Angel (1994) and Lonesome Dove (1995). He was also cast as a regular on the popular CBC-TV series North of 60, about life on a fictional reservation in the Northwest Territories, which ran from 1992 to 1997. In 1994, Adam was cast as the lead in Disney's Squanto: A Warrior's Tale, a highly imaginative story about the first contact between early settlers from England and Native Americans. The next year brought four new projects, including his appearance on Lonesome Dove. He appeared in the TV movie My Indian Summer - for which he won the Best Actor award at the First Americans in the Arts Awards - in the short film Prey, alongside actress Sandra Oh, and in the road-trip movie, A Boy Called Hate. But it was his performance in Bruce McDonald's comic drama Dance Me Outside that made a real impact. Dance Me Outside told the story of a group of young Native Americans on the Kidabanesee Reserve. Adam played Frank Fencepost, a dense but street-smart teenager in one of his most memorable early roles. In 1996 CBC-TV created a TV series, called The Rez, based around the premise and characters of Dance Me Outside. Adam was cast as one of the characters, though not the same one he played in the film. He also appeared in the movies Coyote Summer (1996) and Song of Hiawatha (1997). In 1996, Adam became a father for the first time when son Noah was born. Two years later, a second son, Luke was born. Chris Eyre's Smoke Signals (1998) was the first film entirely written, produced, directed and acted by Native Americans. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won both the Audience Award and the Filmmaker's Trophy, as well as being nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. Adam played Victor Joseph, a reserved young man whose estranged father dies, leaving him to travel from Idaho to Phoenix to pick up his ashes. Reluctantly he agrees to be accompanied by Thomas Builds-the-Fire (Evan Adams), who had been saved from a house fire as an infant by Victor's father. Smoke Signals is basically a road-trip movie and focused on the dialogue between the two leads. Much of the appeal of Smoke Signals is that it was not a film made only for a Native audience. What the film's characters experience and discuss is universal. Adam found that after Smoke Signals he was suddenly in demand from Hollywood. His unconventionally handsome face was now considered recognizable and ten years of steady work had refined his talent. He took a small role in the Disney hockey movie, Mystery Alaska (1999) in which he co-starred with Russell Crowe and basically got paid to play hockey for three months. In 2000, Adam starred in the Canadian thriller The Last Stop, along with Jurgen Prochnow, Rose McGowan and fellow Canadian Callum Keith Rennie. Adam played a Colorado state trooper who gets stranded at a rundown motel during a blizzard with a group of reluctant strangers. After a bagful of money and two bodies turn up, everybody becomes a suspect and Adam has to keep order, while catching the murderer. The following year, Adam showed off his comedic skills as David Spade's sidekick, Kicking Wing, in Joe Dirt. Also that year, he starred opposite former MuchMusic VJ Sook-Yin Lee, in Helen Lee's romantic comedy, The Art of Woo. In 2002, Adam landed his highest profile role to date, in the John Woo action movie, Windtalkers, which was based on the true story of the code developed from the Navajo language for use by the American forces during the second World War. Adam starred as Private Ben Yahzee, as a Navajo Codetalker, guarded and ultimately befriended by Nicholas Cage's battle-weary Sargeant. The Codetalkers had to be protected (or as a last resort, killed) to avoid their capture and to prevent the code from being deciphered by the enemy. His role in Windtalkers required Adam to learn the Navajo language, which stood him in good stead in his next major project, the PBS-TV movie, Skinwalkers. With Robert Redford executive producing and Chris Eyre (Smoke Signals) directing, Skinwalkers told the story of the mysterious murders of three medicine men on the Navajo reservation in the Southwestern US. A seasoned urban cop, returning to his homeland, and his new partner, an FBI Academy grad (played by Adam), find clues to indicate that the murderer may be a "skinwalker", a Navajo witch with frightening powers and the ability to kill with curses. Adam has some more major projects in the works, having recently completed the TV movie Cowboys and Indians:The J.J. Harper Story, in which he plays the title character, and the new Jon Favreau comedy The Big Empty, an homage to the pulpy, fatalistic film noirs of the 1940s and 1950s. He also returns to the character he played in Skinwalkers in the TV mystery Coyote Walks, scheduled to air in 2003. He is currently filming Sawtooth (2004), described as a mountain gothic thriller with Native American undertones. Adam considers himself Canadian and divides his time between Los Angeles, where he recently moved, and Ottawa where his new wife, Tara Mason, works as a civil servant. Though he plans to continue acting, Adam has expressed a desire to go back to school to earn a degree in politcal science and eventually get into politics. He spends much of his time off-set attending pow-wows, speaking out against issues affecting Native Americans. Considered a role model, he often visits schools, speaking to Native American children about his experiences. He's worked steadily since 1990 and in every role he plays, Adam has always honoured his heritage. He's played characters whose Native background was obvious, and he's played characters whose heritage was not so obvious, but he's never played a role which would require him to play a character who wasn't Native. He has acheived a great deal for an actor refusing to compromise his heritage. He's been photographed for Vanity Fair's Hollywood Issue and was included on E! Entertainment's 2002 Sizzling Sixteen list. He's being offered more and more roles and is arguably one of the most prolific Native American actors working today.

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