“I saw that one. Now, the Native guy was okay, shoulda gotten the Oscar. But the rest of it was a yawn.” —Edgar K. B. Montrose (Graham Greene) on Dances With Wolves
It kind of embarrasses me that the first thing I think of Graham Greene in is a so-so Mel Gibson picture. On the other hand, he totally steals the movie—from Jodie Foster and James Garner, even. He plays the role of Joseph with wry humour and a certain bitterness, meaning more depth than most roles written for Native* actors are permitted. Being a character actor is easiest if you’re white. It’s a little more challenging if you’re black, Hispanic, or East Asian. Or Middle Eastern, if you don’t mind playing the occasional terrorist. But Native? That’s a whole new level of challenge.
He’s been in nearly a hundred and fifty movies and TV shows. I’m always a little surprised when I encounter Canadian TV shows he hasn’t been on—seriously, Murdoch Mysteries, how have you not written a role just for him yet? He is probably the Native actor the most people can name, leaving aside Iron Eyes Cody, who was born Espera DeCorti of Italian parents. Greene is actually Native, an Oneida born on a reservation in Ontario. He’s been in some notable stuff over the years in addition to things like Heritage Minutes, a series of public service announcements for Canadian television.
Graham Greene is one of those actors who always makes me smile when I see him. I can’t remember what it was, but I saw a movie once where he played a cop who spent most of the movie sitting in his squad car snacking, and that was a fun role. I’ve never seen any of the Twilight movies, and I suspect mostly his appearance in New Moon would just make me want to escort him by the hand into a better movie, but still. He’s done Murder She Wrote, Numb3rs, and L.A. Law, and another thing I wonder is how both the Law & Order and CSI franchises missed him, though I acknowledge neither of those are known for a strong Native presence.
Usually, though, I feel as though I’d follow the Graham Greene character into its own story. I don’t know if that’s his ability as an actor, or if it’s his skill in choosing roles. Maybe it’s the way he projects personality into the characters. I always feel as though there’s something going on inside their heads, and maybe it’s that it seems that Greene is thinking about what he’s doing in ways that aren’t necessarily written. I don’t know. But discovering he’s in a Twilight movie is the closest I’ve ever gotten to watching one.
The thing I’d note about his performance on The Red Green Show is that there’s seldom anything about the character of Edgar that makes him explicitly Native. He appears to be Native because sometimes, people are. Possum Lake would have a few Native people living there, so Edgar is. Most of his characters, however, seem to be Token Native Guy in a more pointed way. Edgar seems more like colourblind casting than the majority of Greene’s roles. It makes me wish all the more I’d seen his performance as Shylock, so I’d know how they handled that.
*Which term for this particular ethnicity is the preferred one is something I’ve never been able to untangle; I’m pretty sure I’ve heard Graham Greene himself use at least three different ones at varying times. The preferred Canadian term according to their government is First Nations. But I’ve also heard people of that ethnicity use “Native,” “Indian,” “Native American,” “Aboriginal,” and probably a couple of others that I’m forgetting. There’s also the argument that you should only use the specific term that applies to them—as in, only refer to Greene as Oneida. Which makes it difficult to make certain broader points. For the purposes of this article, I’m going with “Native,” because I wanted to use the Red Green quote, which uses it.
