Director Sterlin Harjo on Reservation Dogs with Gary Farmer

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he is a sundance fellow his films have premiered at top festivals all over the globe his uh latest project reservation dogs premieres on fx august 9th sterling harjo welcome to the show thank you thank you both for having me so i think first we should probably uh start start off by talking about reservation dogs you're the uh writer and uh producer of it and you put together a really uh amazing ensemble a really cool group of people for it too uh yeah i guess yeah what do we need to know first well yeah so it's a show that i created with my friend taika waititi and we um you know i just started looking for something to do together and came up with this idea that was based off two scripts two separate scripts that we had um we've been friends for a long time and kind of we'd get together and have drinks and you know wherever we'd be whether it be a party or whatever we would always be like hey tell that story from home you know like and so we would kind of switch off telling stories from home and you know like the common thread between me being a seminal in creek from oklahoma and he being a maori man from new zealand was that our communities are colorful and vibrant and hilarious and full of stories and and and superstition and magic and and all these things that you know i felt like we hadn't seen celebrated much on screen for native people and so we decided to um do this project together and set it up at fx and yeah it really just kind of hit the ground running and it was like it was really fast tych and i wrote the pilot i directed the pilot uh so we created the show together um and then uh i put together uh this group of uh native all native it was the first time in all native writers room um has written a show and so um you know tommy pico tazma chavez megazi pinsnow bobby wilson sydney freeland we all came together and wrote this uh story this whole season um and then continued with that with um had all native directors and so we had uh tazba direct eye directed um black horse low directed and sidney freeland directed um so it's kind of top to bottom a lot of native crew as well and like top to bottom a very indigenous project and uh very proud of it and i think it you can tell and also gary is in the film and plays a an awesome character or in the show and plays an awesome character um i think i think from from that you can tell that it was created by natives you know just the way the way it feels you know um you know i just managed to figure out the pics thing oh yeah did you see some of it did you see some footage did you see the pilot i saw the pilot and i was so impressed uh sterling and it just takes you to another place that we haven't seen on tv much uh yeah and uh thank you i'm just really proud of that uh i know it's uh going to new york for a premiere sometime soon can you tell us some about that yeah so it's premiering at tribeca um they liked it wanted to premiere it and it's kind of like the first uh glimpse at it for the public um pretty exciting we're gonna take uh the kids up all the actors that play the four main kids we're gonna take them up and you know give them a red carpet experience and show this show show this uh pilot too it's already sold out so it's pretty exciting um and then it comes out quick after that i mean i think the first two episodes come out on august 9th so it's real fast so i'm editing my ass off right now right thank you for taking the time oh yeah i know it's good right i see that the uh of course that i can't help but think of the inspiration came a lot from the 1491's yeah sketch comedy group you know based in the wooded ghettos of minnesota in the buffalo grass of oklahoma but uh which way i found myself and myself but there are a gaggle of indians chock full of cynicism and splashed with a good dose of indigenous satire it's a five-member comedy group and they've appeared on the daily show with jon stewart how did that performance go leading up to that yeah i mean you know like 1491 is a special thing for me in my life because i was already making films and you know they're premiering at sundance and and you know it was a time in independent film where like as you know it was hard to get things made it was hard to get things distributed and the 1491s was born out of that like let's just cut out the middleman and we have this platform youtube let's just put out and and it was also like it's so hard to find funny content for native people that's made for native people and so we're like let's just make these videos and put them straight to youtube and we only just planned on making one which was the uh wolf pack auditions and you know the the the rest of the fortune 911 we've met randomly in different places we all ended up coming together because i was showing one of my films in uh minneapolis and we all me and ryan redcor went together and we kind of got with dallas goldtooth magazine and bobby wilson we all just like let's do this and there were other people like elizabeth day and then were there too um and we just got together and we made a um video we were making fun of the audition process for um the new moon wolf pack or the for the new moon wolf pack and um you know honestly i think that and we didn't realize it was going to be popular but after that video came out it was so popular at indian country that we were like we should just keep doing this and so we came up with a name after that and all that and i think one of the keys to what made us successful doing that was um we did it you it would be easy for us just to make fun of white people you know like but we made fun of ourselves and it was kind of like holding our own feet to the fire and and looking at the the the weaknesses of our of our native people and especially native men we take native men to task i think and like always trying to be the tough warrior or whatever and like uh so i think like that was key to kind of why it became popular um and you know it was a really like it was kind of a training ground for me in comedy where we were having we started doing a live show and i had to go up and perform or or else like i was just gonna be they were gonna be mad at me for getting paid the same you know so like i would go we had developed this live show and i had to do sketch comedy um and then it was also training around because whenever i was when i started shooting the videos it taught me how to make comedy you know it taught me how to shoot comedy in a way because it's very different than just doing dramas and so it was really helpful but also what was really helpful was like meeting like getting to really talk to indian country all over we traveled all over you know and then also learning how to make white people laugh at our stuff too and and we realized early on that you have to give white audiences permission because they're so not used to laughing at native stuff they're so they hold like they're so like precious with us and like you know you know um so we had really had to give learn how to give them permission to laugh with us you know um i think all of that led to reservation dogs you know and as you know we have the whole crew is working on the show or they're starring in the show i mean ryan redcorn's doing the behind the scenes of the show you know it's like everyone's involved so it feels like a continuation of the reserve of 1491's for sure and you know and also very much inspired by you gary i mean like you're one of the few people that um you know from powwow highway to even smoke signals and and my favorite dead man it's like you know you're one of the people that kind of paved that way i think charlie hill and different people like letting people know that we are funny um but also not just funny but complex and complicated i remember being in um uh indigenous film class when i was in college and they went around the room asking everyone what their favorite native film was and and i um and everyone was picking you know dance wolves or like you know uh smoke signals whatever but it got to me and i said dead man and i said because that's like the first even it was made by a white man that white man did his research and he created a character a native character that was so many different things at once which is like you know and also you are a big part of that but it's like it's it's funny it's there's a darkness to him there's a sadness to him there's a mystery to him there's poetry to him and he always kind of knows a little bit more than johnny depp you know his character and like i don't know it's like such a good uh performance and i feel like you know all of that led to what we're doing on reservation dogs you know and whenever we were um writing it you know we thought a lot about that and you and all of that no thank you thank you very much uh i uh had a great time on the set it was such a wonder to work with these uh four young people and i know you have a long relationship with uh i suppose canadian native actors uh certainly with uh four sheets in the wind or to the wind yeah yeah uh with uh tamara and of course she appears in the pilot yeah but then does she seamlessly be get replaced by her sister yeah she does she it was heartbreaking and hard but she couldn't uh we we couldn't get her released from her show that she's on and it was honestly like that part was between her and her sister i mean they were like neck and neck the whole time and so we ended up casting sarah to replace her um and both of them have amazing that both of them do that character amazing you know and it would have been great either way um but i think things can happen for a reason you know yeah for sure and i'll be and i'll bring tomorrow back to season two for sure or something yeah yeah she's a sweetheart as well and a fantastic trio of actors and you also involved jennifer which was wonderful yeah yeah we certainly can if we want to book the 1491s you can go to 1491 you know ask gmail.com i was amazed by your website uh um sterling uh there's so much on there and i saw one of my favorite artists uh sean who oh yeah who we just lost of course last year or two and uh can you tell us a bit about that website that's such a powerful unit if anybody who wants to to get to know you a little better that's the place to go yeah you know like i i i think like i've always been the person that does a lot of things and i'm not satisfied doing one thing so i wanted to have this website where i could kind of um put all of that so i do a podcast which i haven't done as much of since i did do this show but you know you can go through and louise erdrich and joey harjo and and you know samantha crane i've interviewed a lot of people over the years and it's very random but it's like i just interview native people mainly um and that's called the cuts podcast you can get it on whatever wherever you get podcasts um it's called the cuts with sterling harjo and then um but then i also have these videos that i did and i wanted to showcase all that stuff that i do um because i feel like it's important for us to do many things you know that's why i'm excited for rutherford falls to come out that it already that's already come out but i'm excited that that's out i'm excited for reservation dogs i'm sorry for all these things come out because we have to if we're changing things we have to do it from such a a lot of different angles you know and and we're not just one thing you know we have different types of comedy uh we do we do dramas we do all of that and i think the more we put out more content that we put out because look it's like a lot of people talk about the lack of good representation and you know we get rid of mascots and all that but it still leaves a place where our young people need representation and so we have to make that content for to take the place of all the negativity that we're removing we have to make content that they can grab hold of you know and i think that the more we do the better and healthier we are as a people i believe sterling you're kind of peerless in your craft where there's not a lot of people in the same vein as you that have so many feature films and are you know really just continuing to turn them out and now you've gone from the independent world to doing something a lot more mainstream um can you tell us a little bit about how you feel like you're making your mark and you know who you are within this independent film world and then the greater industry yeah i think that um you know i mean it was it was as simple as i hit i came on board with four sheets to win in my short films at a time when no one wanted to fund any independent films it was a really hard time to get independent films funded it was post smoke signals it was post pulp fiction and all that and i came in thinking oh i'm gonna get these budgets i'm gonna make a film went through the sundance labs but then no one it was like crickets no one wanted to make independent films the industry kind of collapsed a little bit and um i i had to make a decision and and uh i went to la and i remember taking all these meetings and you know they all kind of kiss your ass because you came on a sundance but they don't really want to make your films and they're not going to give you the money and so i realized then that i had a choice i could give up and i or there was three choices i could give up which i wasn't going to do i could stay in i could go to la and try to like work as a pa and work my way up and whatever or getting something you know and then and then or i could go home where people support me and and people are into what i do and i could just try to make my films there for no money and so that's what i did and the gamble that i took was like i know that if i just keep making good work um eventually this industry will turn around and i'll see that change and i'll benefit from it and it really happened exactly like that there was a lot of times where i wanted to give up and there was a lot of times where i thought i couldn't do it but i stuck it out and i remember like all of a sudden streaming started taking off all of a sudden tv in tv they don't care if you have um stars or not like you can have like like a lot of like our leads or like the kids are like unknown they've never acted before and and in television they don't care about that and and then streaming it just kind of opened the door and it kind of cracked everything wide open and i started taking meetings and all of a sudden they were like wow you've made so many different types of things like from documentaries to films like how do you do all this i'm just like i'm hungry man like i just like i had to um but because of that i i the doors were open for me easier they were they were they knew that i did the work you know and i was just ready like i was ready to start making stuff and i started selling tv shows and then taika and i came up with this idea and it's kind of off to the races um but i also think that it's my it's an opportunity for me you know one of the good things about just staying home in oklahoma and doing it from here is they keep you humble at home you know like you can't go around acting cool you know like they know me like they don't care um and so i i think that i have an opportunity to make what i do and maybe inspire others to do what they do in a way that's different than what the film industry is has been um i mean gary knows like on our set there wasn't a big hierarchy like like everyone's talking to everyone if the actors and the kids want to sit around on the director's chairs and watch the the footage or watch watch watch us shoot a scene like they can you know um you know i made a i made a funny video with this one pa named zach every day you know just to do it just because it was funny and like you know it's like uh i think that you know we had a lot of native people there and a lot of native women and it's like we're we're all in this together and and there's a way to make this stuff in a way that feels more like a community like an independent film than the hierarchy of what hollywood tries to push down everyone's throat i was amazed that your brother was the location manager and your cousins like them you know she's the most delightful woman in the world yeah she's like hosting the whole thing really yeah yeah lemon but a variety once wrote as grittily authentic as the street life here feels arjo also captures a near hallucinogenic mood and that was on mako last effort no the effort before but um watching the uh pilot last night i mean that's what it does it just that takes you beyond and then of course is that i i wish i would have saw that before i you know the medicine man came to me you know i had no knowledge and i was very unaware to tell you the truth of the whole content of the impact of the 1491s in american culture that's profound yeah you know i think that i think that there's a level of spirituality that i like to inject into my work and it really comes from being a kid listening to all of my uncles and aunts tell stories you know like and it's always been that like i've always tried to capture the feeling that i had when they would tell me stories which like always kind of dances on magical on this like magical plane right it's always like there's reality and then they would tell a story where it's just above it you know it's not like it's not mystical or anything but it's just above it and there's humor and there's there's something else at play and we're not in control of it all you know and i feel like that's the way that they tell those stories and that's kind of how i want to try to make films and this show you know it's like like there's reality and then there's like broad comedy and farce and satire and stuff but in the middle there there's this dance of like reality and magic and spirituality that i try to like that's what i want you know i want to keep it there yes for sure jack yeah i wanted to ask you about some of the people that you've got on the show i mean you've got um some amazing cast members including zon mclaren um i think wes studi was on the show and so just working with some of those really cool actors was that a ton of fun or are there any stories that uh that happened during the shoot well yeah i mean like what's cool for me is to just give everybody comedic roles you know like zone and west they've all you know gary's always been funny and like in comedic dramatic and comedic roles but like wes and uh zahn you know they're always fierce and scary and you know you gotta you gotta deal with them but we all know them as hilarious people like in real life and like so i was always like with zone i was always like man i'm gonna write a funny part for him you know just because he's so funny and he never gets to show it you know and and wes is similar and we've seen we've seen wes and mystery man and things like that so we know it's there um but it was nice to kind of let west just go you know like and they were all real comfortable more comfortable i think being funny because it's more true to who they are you know um and i can't wait for people to see all of them and like what they get to do you know it's great and it's like it's really cool because it feels like it feels like we're all because it's these different generations right it's like gary west sun and then there's me black horse sydney tosma it's like another generation and then we have the four lead actors who is another generation of people and so it's like this really beautiful sort of like um celebration of what we've all been working towards but also like passing the torch to each other you know it's like we're handing it off to these young people and it's a beautiful thing for us all to get to show them how we want to do it and what what's what's possible and so like for me it's like those young folks uh they're gonna do the really amazing work as well like in the future you know and so like but it feels good it feels like we're all handing it off to them a little bit you know it's a beautiful thing and the role in miko that you have zahn in as a villain is just chilling he is chilling so going from that uh directing him in comedy might have must have been uh a fun well you know what's funny though is like when we were making mikko and he's playing this killer um the whole time i'm sitting there going like the whole time in between takes he's just cracking jokes and he's making me like and i had just met him i never knew i'd met him once before but like just having him like hearing his sense of humor man was like i i was like i wanted to like change his role in that movie because he's so funny you know yeah he's a really fun guy when we were in santa fe you know we worked on that show scout it was really funny because um we were like good fellas me and zahn every day on our days off we would go and sit at that little cafe that's right down from uh it's like right over there where they do it's like right over there where they do that fashion show and that little that little uh grassy area i forget what it's called but it's a little the french one i don't remember you can sit outside and zan and i would sit there and just like have coffee eat breakfast and just like talk to everyone that walked by and it was like goodfellas just sitting out on our stoop every day you know i like he cracked me up man he's just so funny and i and and you know uh so like i would i would i would hear him say all these things and i would i would always um kind of incorporate incorporated a lot of that into the part the part that he plays what was uh the impact of tycho's influence on the creative uh well you know he and i came up with the broad strokes of the story um one night together and then he and i co-wrote the pilot and you know tyke is busy so um he he had to he left um and then i kind of was the rest of it was me you know and um kind of took the reigns but he and i are so similar and like it's interesting because like i wrote it i think like this show is meeting in the middle of he and i so like i write you know on this show i write more like he does and when he was writing it was be he kind of meets me where i'm usually at you know um and it was it's a kind of a fun exercise to be to have you and your friend in your mind when you're writing these scripts you know because like you're kind of it kind of gives you the style already and that's just you we just work towards that you know um but but to be honest the biggest impact of taika is that the show is made because of taika taika walked it into fx where he had an overall deal and said this is here's the idea and then they loved it you know and then he kind of it was like the best gift someone could give a friend like he just he helped get it in the door and then he handed it off to me and you know and said i'll see you on the other side patek and i came up in a community and gary was in that community and like it was this in this indigenous film community and we traveled everywhere together and that's how we met and we're in canada first nations we're at imaginative you know where we're down in santa fe we're in new zealand you know we're in california it's like um we're in new york with nmai you know i was like this it was like this real cool counterculture of us slugging it out and making our films and showing them and celebrating them together you know and we came up kind of like as friends all of us and um so we we formed a community and i think within the indigenous community you have to give back and you have to pull people up with you and it's it's it's i don't think it's something that we talk about or think about it's just you do that you know and taika did that and he's done it with me with this show he's done it with you know he's a producer of dennis's dennis glaze film he's a producer on billy luther's new film um i do the same thing where i i'm i bring people into different projects i have multiple projects right now with uh other filmmakers you know it was it was like one of my the highlights of my life to give black horse lowe's first tv directing job um he met on he and i met on a bus at sundance you know and didn't want to like each other because you know you meet an indian you're far away and you don't want to you don't necessarily want to get along and then we got along really well you know and then um and then tazba chavez you know like she she's paiute and navajo and like we've she's been like a little sister to me for years you know antika um and to be able to give her her first tv directing job uh i mean like that's some of my favorite things you know and to be able to give sydney freeland a directing job on the show i mean that like that's what it's all about to me it's one thing to have a show but the other thing is just to employ all these people and to give back and lift everybody up and help help everyone take that next step um because there's no going back to after that like we just keep walking forward you know and i think that um it's an obligation for us as indigenous people and how we came up i think it's an obligation for us to do that um i know you're uh over in oklahoma today i suspect you're in downtown tulsa how's the weather there today today is beautiful it's like 70 degrees really beautiful sun's out i'm sure a tornado will hit any minute but right now it's good i know they're so amazing that uh you know you look at the list from the boys on the 1491s i mean you guys pretty well got every tribe in between minnesota and oklahoma and it's just so beautiful to see you begin to develop the talent you know i know the primary cast happened to be all canadians and uh i guess we both kind of know why that is there's just more opportunity for young canadian actors to grow than there is here in the us maybe you can talk to that a bit yeah i mean you know i always always like you always think of i always think of canada and indigenous actors as like um it's almost like england how you all people you know in america we always cast as english actors and it's i think there's just been opportunity and there's been funding and there's been support to learn how to act and to be in projects more um and it's a beautiful thing and i think it's great that cross-cultural like cross boundary uh working together you know i think that's a beautiful thing and um it also like you know one of the main lead kids is a kid from oklahoma never actually before in his life just showed up and auditioned and you know got this like major part in an fx show and it's great to see those uh canadian actors who have more experience really kind of take him under their wing and bring him along you know and man like i just edited one of his episodes that he's kind of one of the main characters in and he kills it man and he's in there acting with you he's interacting with wes duty and zone and like doesn't even doesn't bat an eye you know it's pretty amazing to see that and i think that's the most beautiful thing about this is to watch the growth of everyone and like and and that familial sort of community aspect of it all um and you know for me we're indigenous you know we're not canadian we're not american we're indigenous people we come from the same people we come from different communities of the same people but we all we all of our communities are very similar i remember the first time i went to australia new zealand to show my short film um it's about an uh indian clinic they're waiting all day called good night irene's on youtube but like they're all they're waiting all day to see the doctor at the indian clinic it's kind of just this conversation between three people and i showed that with the aboriginal people in australia and also the maori people in new zealand and afterward i mean they laughed through the whole thing and afterwards i remember people just saying yeah man we got the same thing here you know like and the humor was the same you know we have a shared experience as indigenous people and so for me this show isn't just about these oklahoma natives it's about all indigenous people and young people and so to be able to bring cast in from everywhere it feels really cool it's like all of our shared experience and that's why the writer's room also was really cool so all these indians from different places some cities some some reservations california indians minnesota navajo like oklahoma and to be able to mix that up and show our shared experiences i think that's it's really cool to be able to do that i remember a long time ago robert redford got us all together all us uh native filmmakers i i that must have been somewhere around the turn of the century yeah and uh you have a little story leading up to that uh events uh that we participate to try and strengthen this uh film community yeah i mean it feels like we were having a lot of those meetings back then you know i think it was like early 2000s we were having a lot of these meetings where we're all trying to figure it out because we knew it's about to happen any day you know any any year we knew that we were going to break through and we were having these meetings about how to do that you know and there was a lot of people from different institutions and um i remember coming there uh i was i was gonna be late so me and my friends i had two cherokees and ryan redcorn we were all in the same car and we drove straight all night um to get to that meeting and man i was in the spirit world when i was in that meeting i just remember just like trying to like hold my own and like talk like and all these like legendary native filmmakers and actors around me you know it was crazy um but you know people like redford have always done that they've always like and it's now and now it's paying off you know there's all this stuff being made now and all of that work that all these people did to try to figure it out you know we're finally getting there and i i hope that it just keeps growing chuck and that that was at uh malagro at los luceros that meeting you got me it was fancy and looked like it was adobe [Laughter] i think there was later meetings at that spot where uh i'm not sure what happened to that you know i wanted to ask you sterling uh you did that series here in uh santa fe uh just a few years ago was that the one you referred to as scalp yeah that was scott and what network and how was that experience because it was wgn and it was interesting um the show runner was doug jung and he hired me because i had a good reputation and he wanted me as a kind of consulting producer but also uh to direct some episodes and to write and that's why i said yes um because i feel like i can make a difference um came out it was a you know it was a big cast it would have been the first native all-native cast um we made the pilot and in the middle of making the pilot wgn got bought by sinclair group and they weren't gonna they're kind of conservative and they they they weren't going to make the show so kind of like right in the middle of making that pilot we knew it was it's uh it was over you know and um so it was an interesting experience but i also learned a lot and it actually helped me in what i just did in this show know what i can ask for know what i can fight for um you know because i i had to fight battles on that show with with some of the art department and you know the the costumes and like you know like the way to make the world you know i wanted it to be real um and reflect real nativeness and this was based on a comic book and you know uh every day i would say things like hey that turquoise necklace is too big and that's ridiculous take it off they got too much turquoise on this is uh supposed to be south dakota they wouldn't wear that much turquoise put some beaded earrings on her you know like uh or like or like that that that indigenous woman wouldn't dress like that at the casino like her aunties come in here you know like like it was just like little things like that to try to like keep this train on track and like show our reality but also make a good show um it taught me a lot and kind of prepared me for this and i'm grateful for it because i don't think this show would have been made without that show but also if that show would have been made i don't think this show would have been made so um i'm grateful for the opportunity i'm also you know it's a bit bittersweet because i care about doug young and everything but like i don't know that this show would have been made if that would have went forward right reservation dogs premieres august 9th and sterling tell us how we can become bigger fans how we can see some of your previous feature films and if we can support your work in any way what our listeners can do yeah i mean there's you know you could find this maybe last time mikko on amazon and different things like that um i have a podcast called the cuts with sterling harjo also uh gary mentioned my documentary love and fury hopefully i can get that to be shown out there it's a it's a new film that i made about artists and it's kind of like um fly on the wall just following artists as they do their work it's inspired by those old less blank documentaries from the 70s and yeah it's a good it's a fun film so hopefully we can show that out there as well thanks so much for joining us this was another episode of film talk weekly and we'll be back next week with mark boone jr [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Film Talk Radio

Views: 16,419

Keywords: sterlin harjo, native film, indigenous, gary farmer, taika waititi, wes studi, reservation dogs, fx, fx networks

Id: WyUPgWAtn_s

Length: 35min 18sec (2118 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 29 2021