Latest news with #Lambe
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'True Detective,' 'North of North' Inuk star Anna Lambe on taking risks and telling Indigenous stories with humour
In recent years, Anna Lambe's acting career has skyrocketed. The Inuk actor from Iqaluit got her start at 15 years old on the film The Grizzlies, then went on to star alongside Alfred Molina in the Prime Video series Three Pines, and worked with Jodie Foster in True Detective: Night Country. Most recently, Lambe starred as Siaja in the CBC and Netflix series North of North, with the first released to rave reviews. Next up for Lambe? She will star alongside Brad Pitt in David Ayer's movie Heart of the Beast. "It's pretty surreal. It's really, really cool," Lambe told Yahoo Canada about being cast in Heart of the Beast. "Every new project just feels so exciting. But I mean, the caliber and the size of Heart of the Beast is just, I feel very honoured to have the trust of the team to hop in and do my thing." Lambe's acting career started at her Nunavut high school, where there were posters put up to attract students to join a workshop for The Grizzlies, and Lambe's drama teacher recommended that she participate. In an interesting turn of events, Lambe almost "backed out" of the workshop, feeling too shy and anxious to participate, but her dad was already on his way to pick her up, so she went. And the rest is history. "Every time I get a new job, it's something that my dad always makes sure to remind me of is, 'Can you imagine if you never went and did that audition?'" Lambe said. "It's really humbling and it just makes me think about it in the big picture." "I am grateful that I just took the chance. I mean, it was a low risk chance, but it has kind of led to so many bigger things. I've had to take risks over and over again along the way, that's just how this industry rolls. And everything's a bit of a roll of the dice, but I've embraced that a little bit more, and I'm really curious to see what what comes next." Lambe would go on to work with the team behind The Grizzlies again on North of North. "They took a chance on me when I was 15 and then they took a chance on me again when I was 23, and I am so grateful for the way that they always lead with the community at the forefront of their minds," Lambe said. "And that it's always about how they can give back and how they can tell stories with nuance and complexity, and appropriately and authentically." The Grizzlies is a film about a group of teens in Kugluktuk, Nunavut, the town with the highest suicide rate in all of North America, who connect by playing lacrosse. Lambe plays the only female player on the team, Spring, and was tasked with taking on particularly difficult topics, like domestic violence. "In playing Spring and taking up space, she really goes through this arc where she finds her strength after such significant loss and trauma, and how she, as a young woman, was like, 'I'm not going to be scared out of things that I want to do,'" Lambe said. "We're so often encouraged to make ourselves smaller for other people, and recognizing that your story and your strength and your resilience is valid, and is important, and is, I think, something that we all deserve to hear, to see." When Lambe was filming The Grizzlies, she didn't fully grasp what being in a movie meant. She was just excited to make friends and tell an important story, and that desire to have fun and attraction to storytelling is still what drives her. "I just get to move through this industry with a smile on my face, because I'm just having the time of my life," Lambe said. Once Lambe got to Three Pines, the story of the show was particularly emotional, and difficult for the actor to both work on and watch. Adapted from Louise Penny's best-selling book, the show is centred around investigations into murders in a Quebec town, including the disappearance of an Indigenous girl, Blue Two-Rivers, played by Lambe. While Blue's family is adamant she wouldn't mysteriously leave, and certainly wouldn't leave her daughter behind, the Quebec police are quick to dismiss her case. "Three Pines was a heavy project and I think there was a lot happening at the time that made it that much harder. And it's a deeply personal thing to me, and something that I was struggling with at the time and trying to kind of deal with all of these different feelings that I was having," Lambe said. "But the very real issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women is something that, I think, we can never stop talking about, and something that I think deserves that space and that platform." "It was very much a difficult one, and one that I really also struggled to watch. Violence against Indigenous women is a very real threat and also something that many of us have experienced, or have loved ones who have experienced. Three Pines was so different from anything else that I had done up until that point, and continues to be different from anything else I've done since. ... Because of how difficult it was for me, I don't know if I would choose to do that kind of thing again. But those kinds of stories are so important in continuing to highlight that crisis that very much is still happening within our communities." While Lambe shared the screen with great talents like Alfred Molina, Rossif Sutherland, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Tantoo Cardinal in Three Pines, the celebrity of her collaborators certainly grew in True Detective: Night Country. "Stepping into True Detective was such a dream," Lambe said. "The cast on that show was so incredible. I mean Jodie Foster, of course, but Kali Reis, Finn Bennett, John Hawkes, Chris Eccleston, Isabella LaBlanc, what an incredible cast and lovely people. Really such a great group of people to work with." "[Showrunner] Issa López, I adore her with my whole heart. And she put so much attention to detail into everything that she did, everything she wrote, everything she directed. She was such a powerhouse. And I admire her work so dearly. And as well as the Alaskan producers, Cathy Tagnak Rexford and Princess Johnson." In True Detective: Night Country, set in Alaska, Lambe plays Kayla Prior, whose husband Peter (Finn Bennett) is a rookie detective working under Foster's character Liz Danvers. Lambe has said the relationship reminded her of her own parents. "[True Detective: Night Country] gave me a taste of what could be and something to chase for the rest of my career," Lambe said. "It allowed me the time and the space, with the acting coaches and the dialect coaches and everything, to try and do my best, to level myself up." "That shoot was just such a privilege and getting to meet everyone on it was such a privilege. And the story that we told was one that was deeply important, again about missing and murdered Indigenous women, but also about empowerment and reclamation, and taking back and justice, whatever that may look like, or whatever that might mean. And whether you agree with that or not is always something that can be debated. It was just really exciting and empowering, and it's a point of my career that I often look on and I'm like, 'I can't believe that happened. That's so cool.'" Lambe moved into comedy in a big way for North of North, a show that's outrageously funny and balances its emotional moments with perfection. Lambe plays Siaja, a young Inuk woman who goes through a very public separation from her husband in their small town, having to reevaluate her life under the close eye of her community, while also providing for her daughter. "The amount of people that have loved it has been just really humbling, overwhelming, heartwarming," Lambe said. "I'm so grateful that so many people have been open and receptive to seeing the story in a place they might not have seen before, and allowed themselves to kind of fall in love with these characters and the show that we created." But it was the light-hearted nature of the story that really appealed to Lambe, versus having to work through a lot of trauma-based storyline in her previous work. "It was going to be hard and it was going to be really long days, and we were going to be battling the cold, and that definitely posed challenges throughout filming, but in terms of content it was like, this is going to be fun," Lambe said. "And there were so many times where, in approaching episodes and scenes that we were filming, amongst the cast and amongst the crew, we'd be chatting with each other like, 'I can't wait to do this part. Oh my gosh, I can't wait to do Inuk Bridgerton. That's going to be so beautiful. I can't wait to do the underwater sequences. That's going to be really cool.' So just getting to kind of exist and play in so many different forms and moods and and tempos was really nice. Because we can go from like really high comedy, clown-esque comedy, and we kind of break your heart a little bit. ... I think to have that full swing is really fun and a huge privilege as an actor." Another highlight from North of North is how the show really uses costumes as a tool to tell this story, particularly if you look at how Siaja dresses, versus her mother Neevee (Maika Harper), and Siaja's daughter Bun (Keira Cooper). "The costumes played such a huge part into how I understood Siaja. Her love of colour and fun cuts and fun patterns, and fun prints," Lambe said. "And even more so, I think what I loved was how Bun was dressed. She had such bold parkas, and she wore whatever she wanted, and these kind of cool, little funky outfits. I think there was something really interesting about going from Neevee's colour palette to Siaja to Bun's, because there is a kind of gradual shift into into bright and bold colours and expression, and fun. And that, to me, really exemplified the intergenerational healing that happened amongst those those three generations, and that with each generation people get to express themselves a little bit more. That we create safer spaces for our children to grow and be who they are. And I think the costume department did such an incredible job of representing that." But when the show does have to lean into its more emotional moments, including a scene where Neevee tells Siaja that before she was born, she had another child who was taken by her white father, it's handled with so much care and adds such a richness of the storytelling in North of North. "I think at the core of the show, what was most important for us was the authenticity of it, and the experience of living in the North, and the complexities of our communities and our family dynamics," Lambe said. "And something that's very real is how our community really struggles with the trauma from colonialism and how we navigate that." "But for the most part, we do it through humour. ... From really dry humour to really silly like fart joke humour, the coping exists within all of that. And those moments where you do just break open, those are real too. And I think defining the show as one thing or the other, as just a comedy or just a drama, doesn't do it the service of, it's just a human experience, and just a human story. So it was nice to feel like we weren't needing to exist in one or the other, and that we can have both at different moments, and they both serve the story equally importantly."
Toronto Star
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
Meet Anna Lambe, the Iqaluit-raised breakout star of the Netflix hit show ‘North of North'
The week we spoke with 'North of North' star Anna Lambe, the Iqaluit-set show cracked the Netflix global top 10. 'I get messages from Poland, from Australia, from Brazil,' said Lambe. 'It all feels like, wow, look at our little show go.' It's going: The international breakout hit co-produced by APTN, CBC and Netflix, which happens to be Netflix's first original Canadian series, has just been renewed for a second season.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
North of North Renewed for Season 2 at Netflix
Netflix is heading up north, and staying there: The streamer has renewed the Arctic comedy North of North, starring Anna Lambe, for a second season, TVLine has learned. North of North (a co-production with Canada's CBC) stars Lambe as Siaja, a young Inuk mother living in the fictional town of Ice Cove who 'wants to build a new future for herself after a spontaneous — and extremely public — exit from her marriage,' per the official synopsis. 'But it won't be easy in a small Arctic town where everybody knows your business.' It debuted on Netflix earlier this month with an eight-episode freshman season. More from TVLine Diarra From Detroit Renewed for Season 2 at BET+ Ransom Canyon Star Teases Potential Shake-Up for Lucas in Season 2 (And More Skinny-Dipping!) YOU Series Finale Ends With Chilling Message to Viewers; EPs Explain That Fourth Wall-Breaking Moment The supporting cast includes Maika Harper as Siaja's mom Neevee, Jay Ryan as her estranged dad Alistair, Kelly William as her ex-husband Ting, Braeden Clarke as new love interest Kuuk, Keira Belle Cooper as Siaja's daughter Bun and Mary Lynn Rajskub as town manager Helen. Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril co-created the series and serve as executive producers. 'When I got the call from Alethea, Stacey and [EP] Miranda [de Pencier] about North of North being renewed for a second season, my heart exploded in the best way possible!' Lambe said in a statement. 'I'm so excited and overwhelmed with joy, I can't wait to head back to Ice Cove!' Are you ready to bundle up for another season of ? Let us know what you thought of Season 1 in the comments. Best of TVLine Yellowjackets Mysteries: An Up-to-Date List of the Series' Biggest Questions (and Answers?) The Emmys' Most Memorable Moments: Laughter, Tears, Historical Wins, 'The Big One' and More 'Missing' Shows, Found! The Latest on Severance, Holey Moley, Poker Face, YOU, Primo, Transplant and 25+ Others
Forbes
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Anna Lambe Talks About Netflix's ‘North Of North' And Life In The Arctic
Anna Lambe in 'North of North' on Netflix. The Netflix series North of North debuted at No. 9 on the English TV list with three million views following its April 10 premiere. It gained 2.7 million views in its second week, landing the Arctic dramedy at No. 10. Though it remains in the Top 10, the new show is off to a slow start. This heartwarming story of a young Inuk wife and mother who wants to live life on her terms deserves to be on the list, and the hope is that its 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and positive online buzz will help it climb the charts in the coming weeks. The eight-episode series from creators, executive producers, and writers Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril is an absolute must-watch. This uplifting story centers around Siaja (Anna Lambe) as she rebuilds her life in her tight-knit Arctic hometown of Ice Cove following a spontaneous and public split from her self-absorbed husband Ting (Kelly William). Siaja goes from a monotonous but safe life to crashing on her mother Neevee's (Maika Harper) couch with her feisty daughter Bun (Keira Belle Cooper). Anna Lambe is excited for the world to learn about the Inuit culture in 'North of North' on Netflix. ... More In a sit-down interview, Lambe explained the importance of telling Siaja's story and that of the Inuit culture. She told me she cried throughout the audition process because she wanted the part so badly, and when she was cast, there were plenty of happy tears. Lambe also wanted the chance to work with MacDonald and Arnaquq-Baril following their time together on the 2018 film Grizzlies. 'I knew that North of North would change how we are represented in film and television.' When she read the character description, Lambe immediately connected with Siaja. 'She's a young mother trying to figure herself out. She's well-intentioned and wants to do what's best for the community. I loved her ambition and how she cares about people and wants what's best for everyone. Oftentimes, she'd put the needs of others first at her own expense, but she realizes that she can't do that anymore. She resonated with me so deeply.' As the streamer's first-ever Canadian original series, North of North teaches viewers about the Inuit culture, which many might be unfamiliar with. It's the first series of its size to film in the Arctic, marking a significant milestone in platforming authentic stories from the region on a global scale. For MacDonald and Arnaquq-Baril, it was important to capture the people of this region and to be authentic behind the scenes. Locals were hired in various departments, including set design, wardrobe, hair, and makeup, with a spotlight on the significance of tattoos in the Inuit culture. Ice Cove, however, is a fictional place. The show stitched together various locations in and around Iqaluit to create the town. The nearby community of Apex proved crucial to capturing a small-town feeling and showcased the unique Arctic landscape. When asked what Lambe wants the audience to glean from watching the series, she briefly paused before answering. 'We exist! We're up there. A lot of people have this idea of the north as being cold and desolate, and maybe people, once upon a time, lived up there, but don't anymore. So often, as I've traveled the world and worked on different things, people are so surprised that there are communities up there. I hope through this show that people see that not only are there communities up there, they're so warm and vibrant, and we're modern, and we're very much connected to the rest of the world. We love pop culture and understand what's happening in the world. It's just that this connection hasn't gone both ways for a long time, and it's exciting that the world will see us as we truly are through this story.' Anna Lambe talks about the importance of bright colors and beadwork in the Inuit culture. As stated above, it was all about authenticity, including Siaja's wardrobe. She wears a lot of statement pieces, including bold and colorful earrings. Lambe discussed the significance of large earrings and bright colors in the Inuit culture. 'It's dark for so much of the year, so we wear bright colors. We express ourselves through our fashion. Earrings are little bits of luxury that we carry along with us,' she explained, adding the importance of beadwork and how the skill is passed down from generation to generation. She then addressed the scenes in the show about hunting and why this is a reality in her world, due to the high expense of groceries and limited access to food and supplies. This is an important part of the culture that the show doesn't gloss over or shy away from. 'Hunting is an important part of our culture, and there's such a deep respect and love for animals. It's not just what they provide us, but what we give back to them; it's very cyclical. No life is above another,' explained Lambe. She was referring to subsistence hunting, which is harvesting wild animals for food, clothing, and other essential needs for people in remote regions who rely on animals for survival and cultural traditions. 'It was important to show this because there are a lot of misunderstandings about hunting. It's a central part of our community. We share meat and gather around food; it brings us together. When you hunt your first animal, you share all of it, and everything goes back into the community. When you hunt after that, you can keep some of it, but it's always important to give back.' Anna Lambe discusses the importance of bright colors in fashion in the Arctic. They're very respectful of the environment. 'We're big believers that nothing goes to waste after a hunt. When a walrus is hunted, carvings are made from the ivory tusks. People will use whatever is left from the carvings to make jewelry. If there's a caribou hunt, antlers are used to make jewelry and carvings. Leftover furs and skins are used for parkas and boots. It's all about finding a place for everything and not letting anything go to waste.' Some of the most heartfelt scenes are with Siaja and the elders in her Arctic town. I asked her to describe how seniors are regarded in her community. 'There is so much reverence and respect for elders. They guide the next generation. We look to them when we are unsure of what to do next. It was important to have them in the show. They're the knowledge keepers.' As fans root for a second season of North of North, they can look forward to seeing Lambe in two upcoming films: the comedy Dusk & Dawn and director David Ayer's action film, Heart of the Beast, starring alongside Brad Pitt and J.K. Simmons.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Everybody Sees What I See Now;' North Of North's Anna Lambe Get Honest About Bringing Inuk Representation To Audiences
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. There are a number great television shows out there that have helped TV audiences learning and relate to cultures other than their own. One show in particular that premiered on the 2025 Netflix schedule – North of North – has stepped into that ring. And the star Anna Lambe spoke to CinemaBlend about what a joy it is to share the Inuk culture with the world. Lambe, who grew up in the same place that the series was filmed, spoke with me regarding the surprising success of North of North. The actress spoke that it's 'special' to share her home with viewers, and has loved seeing people 'fall in love' with the north that she knows, saying the public can appreciate what she always has. In her words: So I'm from Iqaluit, Nunavut, which is the place that we shot the show in. It's been so special getting to share a place that is so close to my heart. And the place that formed me as a person and who I am now, is because I grew up here. For people to be able to experience the north as I've always known it, with the real sense of community, the warmth, the laughter, the silliness, and you know, definitely the very real trauma that does exist within our communities. But how we navigate that with laughter and with love – for people to see the north and fall in love with it – It just kind of is like, 'Oh, everybody sees what I see. Everybody sees what I see now.' It's not the first time that a television series on Netflix has taught some valuable lessons regarding culture. I could point out the teen romance series Never Have I Ever for its Indian-American representation. Or we could talk about The Most Beautiful Flower, a show that hails from Mexico and offers a genuine look at the culture. But North of North is one of the first shows to really explore Inuk culture, an Indigenous group that traditionally inhabited the Arctic and subregions. We don't really get a lot of shows that dive deep into that and this is the first series that offers us an idea of what it's like. While it is a sitcom with plenty of twists and turns that are akin to a rollercoaster rather than everyday life, the love and laughter that Lambe speaks about from her culture is certainly there. The fact that it was filmed in Lambe's hometown in the first place is something that I'm sure made this experience that much better for her. There hasn't been confirmation of a Season 2 yet – and honestly, with Netflix, that can be up in the air with how often they tend to cancel their television shows. But here's hoping that its surprising success on Netflix will bring them to another season because there is still so much left to the story that we could learn. Maybe we'll get to see it on another TV schedule soon enough. If you haven't had the chance to watch North of North yet, be sure to check it out with a Netflix subscription.
