More Than a Career
The Art of Acting Can Be a Tool for Change
BY BARBARA SORENSEN

Why would a young woman from a quiet community in Liberty, Oklahoma drop everything and move to Los Angeles to pursue an unpredictable career in acting? According to Delanna Studi, Western Band of Cherokee, her impulse to relocate was accompanied by an unfl inching belief in her own creative ability and an identity that is still very much grounded in tradition.

Studi recently starred as Carla McKinney in Showtime Networks’ original feature Edge of America, opposite James McDaniel and Tim Daly. The film, directed by Chris Eyre, Cheyenne/Arapahoe, was the opening night selection at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and premiered on Showtime on November 21, 2005. Studi’s performance in Edge of America won her the best actress award at the Los Angeles Native Film and Television Review and a best actress nomination at the American Indian Film Festival. Studi acknowledges that hard work and a commitment to give back to her Native community play a strong role in all that she has achieved.

Forging a Path
The niece of acclaimed Native American actor Wes Studi, DeLanna Studi began her acting career at the age of three, performing in regional and community theaters in Arkansas and in her hometown of Liberty. Studi is the daughter of a trained Cherokee medicine man and still speaks the language and practices many Cherokee traditions.
Some would assume that being Wes Studi’s niece would have accorded Studi a sort of “silver-spoon” treatment. However, it was her father’s rules and restrictions that forced Studi to forge her own path. Studi explains: “I was finishing my general education requirements at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. I was one semester short of graduating and my childhood dream of acting wouldn’t go away. When I told my father my plan he was remarkably calm, but he told me I couldn’t touch my savings and that I had only two months to fulfill five goals. He believes in fate, so to him, imposing those particular restrictions was just a matter of course. Within two months, I would have to drive out to Los Angeles and find a place to live; get a job; enroll in acting classes; hold someone else’s Oscar in my hands; and be in some sort of video or ‘real’ production. To fulfill the last requirement, I imposed my own condition: I told my dad I would appear in a Smashing Pumpkin video. He said that was quite a lofty goal, but if it was meant to be, it would happen.”
Through a series of twists and turns, Studi was able to achieve all of those goals within her father’s designated time period. Holding an Oscar was courtesy of her uncle’s father-in-law, Jack Albertson, who won an Oscar as best supporting actor in 1978. Her appearance in a Smashing Pumpkins video was purely by chance.
Studi studied acting with instructor Judy Weston. Studi insists that agents and producers look at local credits in an actor’s repertoire and this is more important than where an actor attends college. Who an actor is studying with is considered, as well as names of films, television shows, or videos in which an actor has appeared.

Offering Hope and Help
Studi admits that living in Los Angeles can easily make someone jaded. “You get so bogged down in acting and making a living that you can forget who you are,” she admits. To offset that barrier, Studi began to live by her motto: “For everything good that comes your way, give something back.”
For Studi, it was painfully apparent that roles for Native women are few and far between. Lead roles are often reserved for men and there is a shortage of Native contemporary pieces being written by young playwrights. And, of course, more Native directors are needed. Studi knew that all good change must begin with youth.
To begin her commitment to “giving back,” Studi volunteered at the National Conference for Community and Justice’s Los Angeles Brotherhood/Sisterhood Camp. This camp is designed for L.A. youth from different backgrounds to help them develop a multicultural, interracial, inter-religious community through dialogue.

However, Studi is most proud of her mentoring role with Native youth for the program Young Native Playwrights. “In addition to urban Indians, we bring in many kids who have never been off the reservation, never thought of college and have had limited role-modeling,” Studi explains. “My colleagues and I run one-week writing intensives where the kids create one-act, two-character scenes, or profiles that contain conflict resolution scenarios. We push them to develop their characters, to sharpen and clarify them. As an instructor, you really get a glimpse into these students’ lives. We believe by writing through metaphor, these kids will more easily understand the process of play-wrighting.”
Hired actors then perform the young play-wrights’ plays on a com-munity stage. This is the best part for Studi. “You can see the light in them going on when their plays, their words are being presented,” she effuses. “Here is a child who is being respected and acknowledged by his or her peers.”
Remarkably, Studi still finds time, as she has for the past five years, to also work with Native Voices at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles, a staged reading showcase of Native American playwrights, directors and actors.

Actors Tim Daly and DeLanna Studi in Edge of America

All the Backing in the World
Studi views all of her work as a way to change perceptions of Native people in film and on stage. Her most recent role in Edge of America exemplifies this belief, not just for Indian people, but for all minorities. The premise of the story involves an African-American man escaping his past by choosing to coach basketball on a reservation. But there’s no escaping the racial tensions that develop and the story evolves around the difficulty of overcoming stereotypes.
Expressing admiration, Studi says, “Chris Eyre is an amazing director. He is so brilliant, yet he uses a very ‘hands-on’ approach to directing. It’s as if he’s been an actor himself. He was able to handle these powerful issues in an understated and subtle way.”
Studi has faith that the general public will soon be treated to many more insights into Native perspectives. “All these young people I’ve seen know who they are and where they came from,” she affirms. “I tell them, ‘Stay grounded and know that whenever you present yourself, all your ancestors are behind you.’ It’s a powerful incentive. Everything we have is about roots. We’re like road maps.”

Barbara Sorensen is senior editor for Winds of Change magazine.