Michael Greyeyes stars in Oklahoma-made 'Wild Indian,' 'Rutherford Falls'

Michael Greyeyes feels grateful for the times he gets to wear a jacket and tie at work.  

"For the past few years, I've been really excited about my contemporary characters. I've done my share period films, but I'm really much more interested in telling contemporary stories. So, I've been fortunate that I've been able to find those roles," Greyeyes said.  

"To find a guy who's a businessman, that's really rare. Really rare. I got to wear suits. This is not something that happens a lot." 

The indigenous Canadian actor — who has portrayed Sitting Bull (in the 2017 film "Woman Walks Ahead") and Crazy Horse (in the 1996 TV movie "Crazy Horse") — plays an ambitious executive haunted by a childhood secret in the stark Oklahoma-made thriller "Wild Indian" and a canny casino manager with a plan up his sleeve in the uproarious streaming sitcom "Rutherford Falls."  

"As different as these men are — and they're radically different — they have many similarities. One of the things that I think people might not recognize between the character I play in 'Wild Indian,' Makwa, and the character I play in 'Rutherford Falls,' Terry, is that these are both powerful men and that they're not victims," said Greyeyes, who is Nêhiyaw (Plains Cree) from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation – Treaty Six Territory in Saskatchewan. 

"That's almost a stereotype in American cinema, the sort of powerless Native victim. And neither Makwa nor Terry are those things. In a way, they're both powerful. ... But one man is completely broken. And the other is whole."  

Made in Oklahoma  

Filmed in central Oklahoma in early 2020, "Wild Indian" centers on two Anishinaabe boys — the loyal Ted-O (Julian Gopal) and the abused Makwa (Phoenix Wilson) — who often sneak off with Ted-O's father's rifle and escape into the woods to practice shooting.  

When Makwa guns down a classmate, the boys conspire to cover up the murder, which sets them on starkly divergent paths. When they reunite as adults — Makwa played by Greyeyes and Ted-O by Tahlequah-born actor Chaske Spencer (“The Twilight Saga”), who is Sioux, Nez Perce, Cherokee, Creek, French and Dutch — they are forced to deal with their devastating secret.  

"I have some friends in Oklahoma, so I've been I've been through the territory. But this was my first opportunity to actually film in Oklahoma — and I loved it. ... It's an independent film, so we had a very tight schedule. We shot the whole film in 17 days, which is extraordinary for a feature film. ... The crew was fantastic. Being surrounded by the community in Oklahoma was very welcoming," Greyeyes said in a recent phone interview.  

"In a way, I'm grateful for the tight schedule, because crawling into the skin of someone like Makwa/Michael is really difficult. ... Certainly some of the things that my character does and says are painful to me as an indigenous man. I remain haunted, actually, by the experience of seeing the world through the eyes of a guy like him."  

While the guilt-wracked Ted-O ends up in prison for using and selling drugs, Greyeyes' Makwa leaves behind their Wisconsin reservation for the skyscrapers and golf courses of California. He remakes himself as "Michael Peterson," a successful businessman with a pretty white wife (Kate Bosworth), a cute new baby and a faithful white assistant (Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg).  

"This character's urban, smart, ambitious. ... But very quickly, I realized that there was something else going on, that he was wearing all these masks," Greyeyes said. "He's extremely dangerous. He's like a powder keg. Rage is just right at the surface of him. So, that's really what drew him to me is that complexity." 

Indigenous on screen  

"Wild Indian" marks the feature film debut of Native American writer-director Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr., (Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa Indians). The crime drama, which made its world premiere in competition in January at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, is streaming on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, YouTube and other platforms. 

"This was my first film in competition. So, I was blown away by the opportunity, blown away by the attention the festival gave the film," said Greyeyes, who has a small but pivotal role in the indigenous road movie "Wildhood," which debuted this month at the Toronto International Film Festival.  

For Greyeyes, 54, having an indigenous filmmaker at the helm of "Wild Indian" made all the difference in ensuring that the characters are authentic and layered. 

"I think indigenous filmmakers ... have been seeking narrative sovereignty: That we're in control of our story, that we're in control of the projects and where we film them and how we depict ourselves. This has been an ongoing battle for decades," Greyeyes said. 

"When you have an indigenous filmmaker, or storyteller, allowed to create characters, we, of course, can embrace all the things that we have in our community. We have joy, we have danger — and I knew that I could trust Lyle to tell this story beautifully. I wasn't afraid to lean into Makwa's brokenness, his rage, his loneliness."  

Shifting storytellers 

Similarly, the critically acclaimed Peacock Original series “Rutherford Falls" boasts a Navajo co-creator and executive producer in Sierra Teller Ornelas and one of the largest indigenous writer’s rooms on television, with five Native writers on the series, including Ornelas and Jana Schmieding (Cheyenne River Lakota Sioux), who is one of the comedy's lead actors. 

Recently renewed for a second season, the sitcom centers on lifelong best friends, Nathan Rutherford (Ed Helms), the descendant of the fictional titular town's white founding family, and Reagan Wells (Schmieding), the head of the cultural center for the fictional Minishonka Nation, the local Native American tribe. Reagan often finds herself caught between Nathan, who has a single-minded passion for preserving his family's heritage, and Greyeyes' Terry, who manages the casino that houses her tiny cultural center with an eye toward using profit and power to ensure his tribe can thrive.  

The spring debut of "Rutherford Falls" was followed by the summer bow for another streaming series with Native characters, writers and creatives: the Oklahoma-made FX on Hulu hit "Reservation Dogs," also just renewed for Season 2.  

"I'm really excited to step back into the role of Terry. 'Rutherford Falls' is one of my favorite projects of my entire career," Greyeyes said.  

"One of the reasons why films like 'Wild Indian,' along with 'Rutherford Falls' and 'Reservation Dogs,' are so successful is because Native storytellers are in charge. They know the communities that they're depicting intimately. They grew up inside these communities, so they can tell stories that are not only culturally rich and authentic, but they can also take incredible risks. ... That's why you see characters like Makwa, that's why you see characters like Terry, that we haven't seen them before." 

The prolific performer recently inked a first-look deal with Blumhouse Productions and will co-star in the company's remake of the movie "Firestarter." Greyeyes will play the violent Rainbird, a character written as Native in Stephen King's novel but portrayed by George C. Scott in the 1984 film.  

"There's some other projects that are coming up, but I can't talk about them yet," he said. "I'm very excited by my opportunities and grateful for them."