ROSE & IVY Introducing April Starring Devery Jacobs

Above Dress by Simone Rocha; bodysuit is stylist’s own.

Over the years, one of the things I’ve come to learn about leading a creative life is finding and then being your true self. How has being your authentic self factored into where you are now?

It’s had a huge say in navigating my career and life. If I had followed the path that was laid out for me growing up, I wouldn’t be here and my life would look entirely different. I wouldn’t have realized I was queer; I’d probably still be living on my res and working in social work in some capacity. Throughout the years, I’ve been listening to that internal voice to figure out what my perspective is whether it be moving to New York when I was super young in order to pursue this path. The further I have progressed in my career and my life, I’ve come into myself and my queerness. My life looks different than I thought it would but I feel closer to myself than I ever have. My career path, the projects I am creating, what inspires me, the city where I live, the people I am surrounded by are all dictated by my internal voice and what I want to say in the world.

Above and Cover Dress by Meruert Tolegen; coat by Michele Varian.

Above Dress by Ivy Kirk; shirt by Commando; shoes by Amina Muaddi.

Above Dress by Meruert Tolegen.

Would you say it was always a deep desire to pursue the world of performing?

I always loved film and television. I was someone who would obsessively watch VHS tapes over and over again when I was growing up. I made home videos where I would have my siblings act and I would direct them. I would create my own scenes and force my family to watch them.

I first started acting at the Turtle Island Theater Company on my res. But I didn’t know anyone who was able to become an actor. I was an English-speaking kid on my res in the middle of Quebec. It was not a feasible career path for me but I had gotten a few roles here and there. When I was graduating from high school, I had a moment when I realized if you acted as a kid and if you do what’s on paper then people are like, this is amazing, but it’s not the same as an adult. Acting is really hard and I was intimidated by it. Growing up in Kahnawa:ke and being amongst indigenous rights activism and raised in the aftermath of the 1990 Oka Crisis, I had a huge sense of pride of being Mohawk. It was always about being able to help indigenous people and standing up for indigenous rights, which went hand-in-hand with being raised in my community.

At that time, I didn’t think I could actually be an actor, so it made sense for me to go towards the path of social work. I didn’t end up studying that, it was the step before, but I ended up working at the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal. It was around that time, when I had nearly given up on acting, that I had one last audition and it ended up being for a breakout and first leading role in a feature film Rhymes for Young Ghouls with the late Jeff Barnaby. It was the first time I had worked in a live-action project with an indigenous writer and director; it really changed everything from me. I have never lost that sense of wanting to help indigenous people. It’s still very much a part of who I am and it has manifested in my acting, writing, producing, and directing. This work supports that, versus going and being a social worker, which is also a very hard job. As soon as I got that role, I realized, I could not do anything else.

I love reflecting on progress and reflecting how far you have come. What did that time in New York and just working to ‘make it’ teach you about yourself?

It was something I needed to do, but I also realized I needed to move home a year later because I was broke (laughs). It was a meaningful time for me. In New York I started writing and directing on my own. It originally came out of necessity like a lot of actors turned writers find. It was around the time of The Revenant, where Hollywood had a very specific lens on indigenous people. I had just come out of that experience shooting Rhymes and I thought there were going to be all of these indigenous directors with projects all over and indigenous protagonists but I quickly learned that was an exception to the rule.

I remember meeting with an up-and-coming director. She had asked me, what stories I wanted to tell, as an actor, nobody had ever asked me that before. I ended up having an existential crisis (laughs) and I said, I will get back to you. While I was in New York it was about finding what my tastes were and what types of stories that I wanted to tell. I wanted to explore the stories that reflected my identity, whether it was being an athlete, a queer person, or an indigenous person growing up on my res. All of those things were flooding to the surface about the stories I wanted to tell. I went back to this director and in the most impassioned email of my life and she got back to me and said these are amazing, but I am getting back into the family business of real estate (laughs). It was a kick in the ass I needed and a moment of me thinking, why was I waiting for this person to tell the stories from my community when I can do it myself.

When I was in New York, I wrote my first short film. I wouldn’t say it was perfect, but when I look back, I am really proud of it because I had that first taste of being in control of a narrative and a story. It combined by passion for indigenous rights activism because it was around missing and murdered indigenous women and my love for film. New York was about getting in touch with myself and my tastes and it has been something that has helped carry me through the rest of my life and my career.

New YOrk is filled with endless inspiration and as they say, if you can make it here you can make it anywhere. Congratulations on the success of ’reservation dogs’! What are you most proud of on your time on the show and being in front and behind the camera?

Oh gosh, I think I am proud that we were able to finish the series just as strong, if not stronger than when we started. There are some series that will taper off or they cannot maintain the same level of quality, but we told the stories we wanted to tell. I was proud that I was able to get more experience behind the camera and hats off to Sterlin (Harjo) who invited me into the writer’s room and to direct on season three. I knew going into it I was super passionate about playing Elora and I knew I wanted to be a creative behind the camera, so I was grateful to be able to do that.

I am sure it is so rewarding being able to be involved with so many different parts of the creative process.

In the writer’s room, I wasn’t originally drawn to Elora’s story, I was drawn to other characters so it was almost harder to write for her. It’s a gear shift that you are in but ultimately, it didn't matter which department I was in it was about giving service to the story. In our culture, stories are animate beings and they are real because you brought this inanimate object and soul into the world. It’s real because people are connecting to it.

You also recently started in ‘Echo’' on Disney+, as well as the Marvel animated series ‘What If’. You also have ‘Backspot’ coming out later this year, which was the first time you produced and also starred in a film.What would you say is your compass when it comes to signing onto a new project?

I approach it differently in front of the camera and behind the camera. As an actor, I’m just curious about characters I have never played before and I look for experiences outside my own. Behind the camera, I am interested in seeing things about my upbringing and my experiences that relate back to my communities. There is a curiosity in all of them, you know in your gut when you are struck with that inspiration of, I want this, or, this is a story I need to tell. With Backspot specifically, I don’t think I would have ever played a character like Riley had I not created it for myself as a producer. People don’t know me as an athlete but I was a former competitive gymnast and I did all of my own stunts except one in Backspot. I play a cheerleader in the film but there are a lot of connecting tissue between them. Also, getting to play a young queer person and making the movie that the director D.W. Waterson and I needed to see growing up as young queer people. So each new project brings a different side of who I am, aspire to be, and what I feel should be out in the world.

Are you constantly working behind the scenes writing and producing?

A million things are going on at one time. You never know when something is going to pop off so you have to keep a bunch of irons in the fire and then whichever one goes, you follow that one.

What’s your process like? Are you an observer or are you more sitting in an office plugging away?

It’s a little bit of both; sometimes I will travel to a new spot and feel the energy of a certain space. For the most part, aside from getting those initial observations, I go full isolation, hyper fixation, and in a zone, then it comes out of me. I keep going through revisions until I get to something that makes sense.

Outside of acting you activism is important to you. Can you talk about how it feels to have a platform to bring attention to the causes you are passionate about?

Environmentalism is an issue whether it’s about a pipeline being built and missing or murdered indigenous women—all of these things arela intertwined and interconnected and root back to colonization. When I was younger, I started out being on the front lines of organizing and youth groups but recently I experienced burn out from that. I am not as much on the front line but I want to be more supportive of those on the frontline and uplift their voices. I want to focus on global indigenous issues because it’s not only an issue that’s happening on Turtle Island, it’s a shared experience globally. I am always going to be passionate about using my platform to amplify and draw people’s attention to activists, water protectors, and indigenous folks who are doing all of that great work as much as I can.

What pinch-me moments have you had since your career started to take off?

I’ve been working since 2007, almost two decades, but only in the past three years—since Reservation Dogs season one—have I noticed a tangible change in my career. Up until then I was still grinding, doing indie films, and feeling like a huge success when I could pay my bills from acting alone. They always talk about an overnight success, but for me, it has been almost 20 years in the making (laughs). What’s been the craziest pinch-me moment is going into spaces, like award shows, and people who have I admired since I was young know who I am—that has been the part that’s the trippiest (laughs). It’s crazy because I am just the fan girl in the corner.

Do you have any dream collaborators?

I have a physical list, but one of my dream directors would be Andrea Arnold. I have been such a fan of her work for so long. It has influenced me so much, all the way back to her short film, Wasp.

Introducing April Starring Devery Jacobs