Speaker 1: Hey fam, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Today on the bright Side, we're joined by women's boxing
Speaker 2: World champion, Emmy nominated actress and writer Kaylee Mcquinninogg Reese.
Speaker 2: Can the mindset of a champion carry from the ring
Speaker 2: to the screen?
Speaker 1: We'll find out. It's Tuesday, August twentieth.
Speaker 3: I'm Danielle Robe and I'm Simone Boyce and this is
Speaker 3: the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where
Speaker 3: we come together to share women's stories, laugh, learn and
Speaker 3: brighten your day. Okay, y'all, Today's guest is a barrier
Speaker 3: breaker and a history maker. During her career as a
Speaker 3: professional boxer, Kaylee ko mcquinnanoggu Reese earned six world titles
Speaker 3: and was the first Indigenous woman fighter to become a
Speaker 3: world champion. Most recently, Reese made history by becoming one
Speaker 3: of the first Afro Indigenous actors to be nominated for
Speaker 3: an Emmy for her supporting role in the HBO series
Speaker 3: True Detective Night Country.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: If you haven't watched the season of the show, Reese,
Speaker 3: who stars alongside Jodi Foster, plays the role of Evangeline Navarro.
Speaker 3: She's a state trooper investigating a cold case and the
Speaker 3: disappearance of a group of Arctic scientists. What I loved
Speaker 3: about this season is that it immersed us in a
Speaker 3: culture and a subculture that we don't often get to see,
Speaker 3: and the way that they brought it to life on
Speaker 3: the screen was just so rich and dynamic and layered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're used to the leads in that show
Speaker 2: being men. This season it was women, So it was
Speaker 2: cool to watch. And Kaylee's a woman of many talents.
Speaker 2: She's one of those people that just will not be stopped.
Speaker 2: She and her five siblings were raised by their mother
Speaker 2: in East Providence, Rhode Island. At just thirteen years old,
Speaker 2: she found refuge from a tumultuous adolescence in the boxing ring.
Speaker 2: She went on to win nineteen fights during her career,
Speaker 2: five by knockout, and in twenty eighteen, she made history
Speaker 2: when she participated in HBO's first ever women's televised fight.
Speaker 3: And even though Reese has already earned an Emmy nom,
Speaker 3: she's actually relatively new to Hollywood, which is so surprising.
Speaker 3: I mean, before True Detective Reese had only appeared in
Speaker 3: two films before she was cast for the show, and
Speaker 3: the HBO series marked her entry into TV.
Speaker 4: Acting, and in.
Speaker 2: Real life, she's an active supporter of the Missing and
Speaker 2: Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Movement, which combats the widespread
Speaker 2: issue of violence against Indigenous people. So her advocacy in
Speaker 2: the Native community led her to co write and act
Speaker 2: in the twenty twenty one film Catch the Fair One,
Speaker 2: which told the story of a boxer searching for her
Speaker 2: missing younger sister. That performance, which was her acting debut,
Speaker 2: earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination.
Speaker 3: So after the break, Kaylee Reese tells us how she
Speaker 3: went from boxing champion to Emmy nominated actor and how
Speaker 3: she's bringing her activism to the screen and beyond.
Speaker 5: Stay with us, Kaylee become to the bright side.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: We're so happy to have you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've been looking forward to this for a minute.
Speaker 3: Kayleie mquinnanogue Reese, correct, good job, Thank you. Will you
Speaker 3: tell us the meaning of your Native American name?
Speaker 6: So, my Native American name it means many feathers and
Speaker 6: many talents, and I got it given to me by
Speaker 6: my mother.
Speaker 3: Well, how do you just so naturally embody that like
Speaker 3: you are?
Speaker 6: That My mom's very special, So she must have known
Speaker 6: I was just destined for this journey.
Speaker 4: I had no idea what she would have gave me
Speaker 4: a heads up, right, But it's all good. It's it's
Speaker 4: all blessings.
Speaker 2: Indigenous traditions and stories are so deep and there's so
Speaker 2: much resilience in them. A lot of times, is there
Speaker 2: a specific teaching or story that you grew up with
Speaker 2: that your mom told you that sticks out to you.
Speaker 6: The stories of how strong and how our society and
Speaker 6: how our people are so matriarchal, and how our women
Speaker 6: are so sacred, and where the strength and the backbone
Speaker 6: of our people. That's something that she my grandmother, great grandmother,
Speaker 6: and all the women and all the aunties aunties and
Speaker 6: all the moms and mama bears I had around, they
Speaker 6: really instilled in me of how strong we are and
Speaker 6: where the strength of our people comes from. And even
Speaker 6: the men in the tribe and our people were always
Speaker 6: constant reminders. But my mom, even without saying words, was
Speaker 6: just you know where we come from. You know we
Speaker 6: come from where. Anawan's people, which was masasi Osumikin, was
Speaker 6: a great leader of the Wapamog people.
Speaker 4: And he had a war chief named Anaalon.
Speaker 6: He used to say autash, which needs means stand strong
Speaker 6: to our people, and that's where we come from, a
Speaker 6: warrior of people.
Speaker 4: I had to actually tattooed on my back autash.
Speaker 6: So it's just kind of like a constant reminder of
Speaker 6: how we have to just always stand strong.
Speaker 4: You know where you come from. I do know where
Speaker 4: I come from. I'm so proud of it.
Speaker 1: To what my question is is where are you going?
Speaker 2: Because that many feathers, many talents could take you a
Speaker 2: lot of places. Yes, you just got an Emmy nomination
Speaker 2: for True Detective Night Country.
Speaker 4: Congratulations.
Speaker 6: Yes it is huge, And it's just that's a good
Speaker 6: question where I'm going because I have no idea, but
Speaker 6: I know that I'll be prepared for it. So whatever
Speaker 6: I get put in front of me, whatever blessings I
Speaker 6: get with other opportunities I get.
Speaker 4: I'm a workhorse.
Speaker 6: I know I got I have the capability to do it,
Speaker 6: and if I think I don't.
Speaker 4: I'll figure it out, man, I'll figure it out.
Speaker 2: So I will say I have a question about the
Speaker 2: Emmy nomination because I think awards mean different things to
Speaker 2: different people. We've talked to some people on the show
Speaker 2: that were like it was validation some people said, I
Speaker 2: don't really care. It's just something to hang on my wall.
Speaker 2: What does it mean to you.
Speaker 6: You know, just to be nominated, especially in this such
Speaker 6: a special time for Indigenous storytellers and creators and just
Speaker 6: Indigenous people and whole. I don't think about it as
Speaker 6: a me thing. It's more like a wee thing, and
Speaker 6: it's just, you know, to be nominated for an Emmy
Speaker 6: alongside Gladstone as well. She's also Indigenous, but I I
Speaker 6: just said this, like, we are both Indigenous, from two
Speaker 6: totally different areas to totally different tribes nations. She has
Speaker 6: a different story than I do, but we are there together,
Speaker 6: and she blew the hinges off the doors getting nominated
Speaker 6: for an Oscar. We're in a golden globe and we're
Speaker 6: holding it open, so we're bringing everybody in. And then
Speaker 6: to be kind of checking a few different boxes as well,
Speaker 6: because I'm not just Indigenous, I'm kepe verning as well.
Speaker 4: I'm from New England and I'm from Island.
Speaker 6: I'm from you know, seaconk Wapanoog from the first Contact people.
Speaker 6: So that's like a couple of boxes to be checked.
Speaker 6: Being mixed black Indigenous, you know, that's just so many
Speaker 6: things to talk about that I'm in a position to
Speaker 6: talk about with such confidence. I mean, that'd be go
Speaker 6: to win. But I'm not just to be here, to
Speaker 6: be able to you know, be in these conversations and
Speaker 6: then I'm just excited for what this could.
Speaker 4: Lead to for the collective kind of thing.
Speaker 3: This role though, playing a detective, an Afro Indigenous detective,
Speaker 3: this is this is a really personal role for you,
Speaker 3: not just because of your own heritage, but also because
Speaker 3: of some of the experiences that you've had with police.
Speaker 4: Yes, it is. It was a very weird experience.
Speaker 6: So back in twenty twelve, I got badly assaulted by
Speaker 6: a Providence police officer doing my job. So I had
Speaker 6: bad PTSD from it. I went through a really dark
Speaker 6: time in my life with it. It was right after
Speaker 6: a bad motorcycle accident, so I had a really bad experience.
Speaker 6: You know, use derogatory language towards me, racist, sexist, all
Speaker 6: the above. So I had to do a lot of
Speaker 6: work getting myself out of that. So to put on
Speaker 6: a police officer uniform, to have to play that and
Speaker 6: then be an indigenous black indigenous mix, it was definitely
Speaker 6: a visceral kind of a cathartic type of thing, but
Speaker 6: I knew it needed to be done because there are
Speaker 6: a lot of especially women police officers and Native police
Speaker 6: officers that have to live that every day.
Speaker 3: It's really interesting that just the act itself of putting
Speaker 3: on the uniform brings up conversations and complex emotions for
Speaker 3: people in your community.
Speaker 6: It was very, very rad I even had a couple
Speaker 6: of conversations with some of the other Indigenous women on set,
Speaker 6: and they already they kind of gave me that look like, yeah, how.
Speaker 4: Do you feel.
Speaker 6: I'm like, I don't really know right now, like, but
Speaker 6: I know. It actually gave me a really good character work.
Speaker 6: I built a whole backstory for the Navarro and the
Speaker 6: reason why she even got into the military and then
Speaker 6: made the decision to be a police officer was a
Speaker 6: It was a kind of a two part answer necessity
Speaker 6: and because she is kind of good at that type
Speaker 6: of thing, So it gave me kind of a it
Speaker 6: was a real feeling for my character too, of like
Speaker 6: I gotta put this uniform on, man, like one of
Speaker 6: those things that But the uniform doesn't make Navarro. It's
Speaker 6: just something she reals very well, and she commands respect
Speaker 6: and authority, but she doesn't command it in a disrespectful
Speaker 6: I'm better than you way. It's like, listen, I'm trying
Speaker 6: to do the best I can for us, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean, her, her sister, for her in our
Speaker 6: community that she doesn't really know if she's accepted by.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of Navarro soul layers. It's a a
Speaker 6: never running onion of layers of Navarro layers.
Speaker 2: You're a world champion boxer. I'm sort of struck by
Speaker 2: the fact that this encounter with this police officer put
Speaker 2: you into such a tail spin, like it's so upsetting
Speaker 2: to hear did you press charges?
Speaker 4: I actually did.
Speaker 6: We come to find out he was an older police
Speaker 6: officer and he had been assaulting just regular patron since
Speaker 6: the year I was born, oh since eighty six. Because
Speaker 6: there was quite a few people, a lot of women,
Speaker 6: who came forward and said he did some things that
Speaker 6: he wasn't supposed to put hands on people, was using
Speaker 6: excessive force, and every time they went forward with trying
Speaker 6: to press charges, they'd get threatened by his colleagues and
Speaker 6: they'd get scared into not pressing charges. That happened to me.
Speaker 6: Hence the reason why I went into a hole. I
Speaker 6: was like a full blown alcoholic moved away from home
Speaker 6: because after that happened to me, his colleagues would like
Speaker 6: follow me from work and follow me car I was
Speaker 6: getting harassed and so I was a little nervous, but
Speaker 6: I'm a fighter at heart, so I was like, he's
Speaker 6: not going to punk me out of pressing charges.
Speaker 4: So I just followed through.
Speaker 6: And then he had a book of all these different
Speaker 6: names of people that he assaulted, and we went forward,
Speaker 6: got fired and I actually got a whole thank you
Speaker 6: from the city of Providen.
Speaker 4: It's like, thank you for following through. We got rid
Speaker 4: of them. Kind of a thing.
Speaker 6: And I hope you watch True Detective. This is a
Speaker 6: big few to you. I look better in the uniform
Speaker 6: than you do.
Speaker 4: Elly.
Speaker 2: That takes real strength, mental and physical toughness.
Speaker 4: Yeah it was.
Speaker 6: It was a doozy, but it's just another story that
Speaker 6: no matter how far down you think you are, it's
Speaker 6: not You don't got to stay there.
Speaker 2: There's something that you said about boxing that I want
Speaker 2: to ask you about. You described it as your ceremony
Speaker 2: and your prayer.
Speaker 4: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 6: So, as you know an indigenous person and just kind
Speaker 6: of how I grew up. Everybody has their medicine. I mean,
Speaker 6: your medicine could be you the best fry cooker at
Speaker 6: Burger King, and you just you get a certain type
Speaker 6: of energy. Energy doesn't have any prejudice, doesn't have a
Speaker 6: certain language.
Speaker 4: It speaks.
Speaker 6: It speaks to everybody in a certain way. So if
Speaker 6: you when you do something, whatever you love to do,
Speaker 6: whether it's put your hair up in the morment, it
Speaker 6: just gives you that really good high energy, high vibration,
Speaker 6: that's your medicine. Fighting again, is always been in my blood,
Speaker 6: and it wasn't the act of the violence. It was
Speaker 6: the art of it and the fact that okay, I
Speaker 6: can get better at this. There's a skill you have
Speaker 6: to have here. It's not just anger. You actually have
Speaker 6: to be really grounded and calm to fight. The more
Speaker 6: angry you are, you can't you get clouded. So more
Speaker 6: and more I found kind of like this solace in
Speaker 6: boxing found me at a time where I really needed it.
Speaker 6: I found it was my medicine. And then you know,
Speaker 6: fast forward to when I went professional, and then I
Speaker 6: really want to try to find my purpose in it,
Speaker 6: making the decision and making my culture part of my entrances.
Speaker 6: I just knew how powerful and how proud I was.
Speaker 6: Whenever I hate the pow wow drum, I'm like, all right, well,
Speaker 6: you know, I can come out to biggie or something,
Speaker 6: but what means something to me? This is really important
Speaker 6: to me. That's when I started coming out with dancers
Speaker 6: and drummers. I came here at California a few times
Speaker 6: and I asked, first of all his protocol, like tribal area,
Speaker 6: thank you for having me in your territory. Who he
Speaker 6: is here that wants to be part of this with
Speaker 6: me to sing their song to represent I don't tell
Speaker 6: them what to sing, like you're gonna sing fancy shawl
Speaker 6: dance and I want to push ups and all this
Speaker 6: other stuff. It was like, listen, this is a ceremony.
Speaker 6: I'm fighting for my people, so to be able to
Speaker 6: do that, have our dance be displayed not as a spectacle,
Speaker 6: but as proud as people we are. And that's what
Speaker 6: I mean about my ceremony, my prayer, and just the
Speaker 6: energy and the intention I put behind fighting again.
Speaker 4: Yes I want to get the win, Yes I want
Speaker 4: to get the belts.
Speaker 6: That's great, but the representation I have as this platform is.
Speaker 6: You know, people see me as an athlete. There's not
Speaker 6: a lot of native athletes out There's not a lot
Speaker 6: of capabrity athletes out there, a mixed person at such
Speaker 6: as myself. So that is my prayer to have representation,
Speaker 6: have those children and I have those people, even older
Speaker 6: people that like, wow, oh my god, she's on TV.
Speaker 6: She looks like me, she's from where we're from. That's
Speaker 6: what I mean about our prayer. There's hope, there's ceremony
Speaker 6: in it, and we you know, we have a meeting
Speaker 6: behind everything, and that's just my strength and I'm good
Speaker 6: at something. Why not bring positive attention to it.
Speaker 2: We have to take another quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 2: right back with Kaylee Reese.
Speaker 3: And we're back with Kaylee Reese. So you're a world
Speaker 3: champion boxer. Tell me what happens next. How do you
Speaker 3: get into acting?
Speaker 4: By the grace of the creator, I have no idea, Like, honestly,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 6: How I even got into it was the director writer
Speaker 6: of the first movie I did call Catch the Fair One,
Speaker 6: splitting my DM on Instagram. Honestly, I've always meant interested
Speaker 6: in acting. It's never been something that I'm.
Speaker 4: Like I'm going to grow up and be in Hollywood
Speaker 4: and me an actor brock.
Speaker 6: But you know, my mom and grandmother us to put
Speaker 6: me in a little plays and I had this little character.
Speaker 6: Used to do it for my mother when she came
Speaker 6: home from work.
Speaker 4: But what was the character?
Speaker 6: Her name is Mary and she smoked a peck and
Speaker 6: every day of Dylan and gather a little duncan down't's
Speaker 6: cool feet?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 6: I used to like dress up in her hot clothes
Speaker 6: like and she used to. I still do it now.
Speaker 6: Her name is me How old were you?
Speaker 4: And I had to be like I don't know, seven
Speaker 4: or eight.
Speaker 6: I always love people watching and I would just like
Speaker 6: there's a come farms is like as a Rhode Island
Speaker 6: like a gas station, and like can you go to
Speaker 6: companies and get me ladge dunking in the Pakistani Like
Speaker 6: like I just used to watch these people around the
Speaker 6: neighborhood and just like you know, just imitate.
Speaker 4: But it's it's my mom's do marry do marry? Yeah?
Speaker 6: This this director reached out to me the point of
Speaker 6: my life where I was. Boxing has always been an
Speaker 6: outlet for me. It's it's taken a lot, but it's
Speaker 6: given me a lot. I've missed birthdays, holidays, my mom's wedding,
Speaker 6: but I was in New Zealand fighting for a world title, you.
Speaker 5: Know what I mean.
Speaker 6: It's given me a lot, but I've traveled the world
Speaker 6: and it's actually led me into acting. But he caught
Speaker 6: me a time where I was really vulnerable and I
Speaker 6: was in a weird spot because we had just lost
Speaker 6: one of my brothers to brain cancer, and it was
Speaker 6: a spot where boxing was our thing.
Speaker 4: He was my biggest fan.
Speaker 6: I brought him to the gym after he was in
Speaker 6: remission to get his motor skills back.
Speaker 4: How was our thing? So it was just not doing
Speaker 4: it for me and I was just trying to find
Speaker 4: a way to grieve.
Speaker 6: And he kind and I was like for whatever reason,
Speaker 6: I'm like, all right, boxing didn't have a longevity and
Speaker 6: I need to do something. I always have a plan
Speaker 6: a through z and you know, I'll figure it out
Speaker 6: kind of a thing. But acting just kept poking at
Speaker 6: me like I don't know where to start, Like what
Speaker 6: do you do? Like auditions had no idea, but this
Speaker 6: meant for me, it'll find me. A week later, he
Speaker 6: inboxed me on Instagram, like I'm like, who's this creep?
Speaker 6: But he's just like, you know, I'm so and so
Speaker 6: you've ever thought about acting? And I'm like, yeah, I've
Speaker 6: thought about it. But he's like, I have this script.
Speaker 6: He's a direct he did check out yet a feature film.
Speaker 6: He's a TV director, really successful. He just got to
Speaker 6: know me, and I was like, you know, in a
Speaker 6: weird place. He just came to the house. We did
Speaker 6: a couple of interviews. I read a script. Never read
Speaker 6: a script. I'm like, oh, this is cool. I've never
Speaker 6: acted in my life, but I understand the art of storytelling.
Speaker 6: What happened was I read the script, became interviewed me,
Speaker 6: and I was like, well, dude, I'm training for a fight,
Speaker 6: so you can interview me. But I go O the
Speaker 6: jemas far and he came with me and he like
Speaker 6: whatever he saw, He's like, I see something. And from
Speaker 6: there he asked me to help him write this story.
Speaker 6: And then I'm like, I got ideas and I'll give
Speaker 6: you all the experiences that I've had from based around
Speaker 6: missing murder indigenous women. But that's when he started incorporating
Speaker 6: my real life into this story.
Speaker 2: I want to give everyone a little context that role
Speaker 2: you're talking about was a boxer in the film Catch
Speaker 2: the Fair One, and you play an Indigenous woman who's
Speaker 2: searching for her missing sister, which is fictional, but as
Speaker 2: you said, you brought some of your real life experiences
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And as far as the acting goes, he we
Speaker 6: would like practice different scenes.
Speaker 4: He had a friend of his that was an actor.
Speaker 6: We just did some bouncing off back and forth and
Speaker 6: he would give me all his knowledge he knew about acting,
Speaker 6: and then I was like, okay, so, but he kept saying,
Speaker 6: you got it, k you got you got the you
Speaker 6: got the sauce. I'm like, way sauce sweets ausa. I'm like,
Speaker 6: what do you mean. He's like, you got something. I'm
Speaker 6: like okay. And I knew from him saying that sometimes
Speaker 6: you only need that one person see something.
Speaker 4: You might not understand it. But he said.
Speaker 6: I was like, well, if you believe it, and I
Speaker 6: see that look in your face and all right, So
Speaker 6: I don't want to let you down.
Speaker 4: So I'm just gonna go hard.
Speaker 6: I'll do my best, And that's really how I got
Speaker 6: into acting, and from there I got nominated for Best
Speaker 6: Actress Since at the Spirit Indie Spirit Awards for that
Speaker 6: is a huge deal, which is a huge on my
Speaker 6: first and it was the intention behind it was just
Speaker 6: let's tell this story the right way.
Speaker 2: I mean, the most recent data I could find was
Speaker 2: from twenty sixteen and it said that in the US
Speaker 2: about six thousand Indigenous women and girls were reported missing
Speaker 2: or murdered, but only one hundred and sixteen of those
Speaker 2: cases were logged by the US Department of Justices federal database,
Speaker 2: only one hundred and sixteen. And those stats are probably
Speaker 2: much lower than the reality because so many cases go unreported.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's reported.
Speaker 6: To talk about the reported part first, you know, I've heard,
Speaker 6: not experienced, but I heard because I've sat down with
Speaker 6: a lot of survivors, a lot of families of these victims,
Speaker 6: and sometimes they have to be strategic on do we
Speaker 6: even report that she's missing, because number one, the authorities
Speaker 6: will say, well, she's probably just drunk somewhere.
Speaker 4: Well, she's probably just ran away victim blaming.
Speaker 6: Yeah, or sometimes it may be that the true, but
Speaker 6: why are they running away or she we were just
Speaker 6: reporter as white, because a reporter as Native, they're not
Speaker 6: going to look for her. And then it becomes a
Speaker 6: thing of jurisdiction. If it's a sovereignation whose jurisdiction doesn't
Speaker 6: fall under is it federal, is its state?
Speaker 4: Is it tribal?
Speaker 6: Those types of really really complicated things, and then logged wise,
Speaker 6: whose job is it who handles these special missing cases
Speaker 6: of Native people, especially when it's a Native girl who's
Speaker 6: registered to a sovereign nation, a federally recognized tribe.
Speaker 4: That gets really complicated.
Speaker 6: And then you get to the kind of elephant in
Speaker 6: the room their native and no one cares, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean, no one really cares about them because
Speaker 6: first of all, the average person thinks that Native American
Speaker 6: people Indigenous people are like ex thinks like we're dinosaurs
Speaker 6: and that we all live in tepees, which is insanity,
Speaker 6: or we all live on reservations and everybody's a drunk
Speaker 6: and we go to the casinos. That's getting better, But
Speaker 6: when it comes to the reporting in these stats, there's
Speaker 6: a lot of organizations, grass through organizations that have to
Speaker 6: take it into their own hands because there's nobody looking
Speaker 6: for their loved ones.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really sad.
Speaker 6: There's a label that that Native people are expendable and
Speaker 6: that we are in the past and that we don't
Speaker 6: matter kind of a thing. I think that has a
Speaker 6: lot to do with it. And then when we have
Speaker 6: that context, it trickles down to the people, to the kids. Oh,
Speaker 6: we don't matter, nobody's going to look for us, so
Speaker 6: we need to run away. And there's so many things
Speaker 6: that going to what I can think about why hence
Speaker 6: the reason why when we made this film, Well, I
Speaker 6: gave him the information I had. I said, this is real.
Speaker 6: This is the reality of this. There's no happy there's
Speaker 6: very few happy endings. It's an epidemic that's been happening
Speaker 6: that needs to stop and something needs to be implemented.
Speaker 6: And that's why I'm so loud about it because I'm
Speaker 6: trying to make it a big deal, because it is
Speaker 6: a big effing deal, Like we need to highlight this
Speaker 6: and the fact that there's not databases, there's things being
Speaker 6: implemented now because of things like hashtag and iw missing
Speaker 6: and more Indigenous women that had to happen.
Speaker 4: I wish we didn't have to have that happen.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's just an epidemic that is an unexplainable.
Speaker 4: Sad, very frustrating problem that we have here.
Speaker 6: And I think, you know, it has a lot to
Speaker 6: do with the invisibility of Native people as a whole.
Speaker 6: It's just really something that needs to change, and it
Speaker 6: is changing.
Speaker 3: Do you feel empowered by the work that you're doing, though,
Speaker 3: because you really are at the intersection of art and
Speaker 3: activism through the stories that you're telling on screen.
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 6: And it's funny because I don't really I call myself
Speaker 6: an activist. A lot of people call me that, and
Speaker 6: I'm like, okay, I can see that, But I know activists,
Speaker 6: and I know the grassroots people that are boots on
Speaker 6: the ground, working tirelessly, working with families directly, you know,
Speaker 6: having these organizations.
Speaker 4: I'm more of a mouthpiece.
Speaker 6: I believe that it's very empowering that I do get
Speaker 6: to speak about things like this that people don't normally
Speaker 6: hear about that. News channels don't necessarily want to dive
Speaker 6: into that. Podcasts don't want that. Film doesn't really want
Speaker 6: to dive into. Now it's like a oh, okay, great,
Speaker 6: I want to tell stories that matter like Marvel's great,
Speaker 6: But you know when Marvel did echo something like that
Speaker 6: the highlight Indigenous stories.
Speaker 4: I do feel really empowered.
Speaker 6: I feel very, very blessed to be in the position
Speaker 6: I am because I represent so much and the fact
Speaker 6: that I'm in something that everybody watches movies, everybody loves
Speaker 6: to be entertain But if there's a I'll say, I
Speaker 6: call my Dave Chappelle way of kind of like learning
Speaker 6: them in with some comedy, learning men with music or entertainment,
Speaker 6: and then dropping some knowledge on some real and real
Speaker 6: heavy stuff that maybe we're not so fun to talk about,
Speaker 6: right initially, like, I feel really empowered and really blessed
Speaker 6: to be able to do that.
Speaker 3: Well, you mentioned comedy. I actually hear that you want
Speaker 3: to do comedy.
Speaker 4: I do. What kind of comedy are we talking?
Speaker 3: What do you got thinking on?
Speaker 6: I mean, you know Native people of Funny's House stories.
Speaker 6: I would love to do something with with like a
Speaker 6: native comedy. There's so there's so much out there right now.
Speaker 6: It's but like plays, there's this there's a lot of
Speaker 6: we're funny people.
Speaker 2: You're right, those are really untapped stories, Like we haven't
Speaker 2: heard those stories.
Speaker 4: You know, it's funny in Indian country.
Speaker 6: There's all kinds of movies and shows and comedians that
Speaker 6: are hilarious, but it's not mainstream. We have humor to
Speaker 6: get us through all the bullshit that we've been through. Like,
Speaker 6: we love to laugh, we love to tell stories. There's
Speaker 6: and there's so many stories like I can make a
Speaker 6: movie about one night out a cup, like I swear
Speaker 6: I could. Yeah, So those types of stories of life experience.
Speaker 6: I would love to do something like that. The things
Speaker 6: that we laugh about amongst ourselves, those types of stories
Speaker 6: that I'm like, no, this is funny. The fact that
Speaker 6: Reservation Dogs highlighted the movie Willow, and I was obsessed
Speaker 6: with Willow my entire life as a kid. It's like,
Speaker 6: oh my god, I feel seen like those types of things,
Speaker 6: It's like awesome. I would love to.
Speaker 3: Have you had conversations with people about pursuing comedy, because
Speaker 3: I feel like one thing that happens in Hollywood is
Speaker 3: like people start to know you for doing one sort
Speaker 3: of thing, and then you've got to like really be
Speaker 3: intentional about pivoting and have you started having those conversations.
Speaker 6: Every chance I get that, people ask me, like, because
Speaker 6: clearly I do darkness and death and really intense.
Speaker 3: Dreams, so much more than that. I know you can
Speaker 3: do so much more than that.
Speaker 6: So I know what I could do. And obviously the
Speaker 6: physicality of being like an action hero. It's great and
Speaker 6: I know I got that down. So I do have
Speaker 6: those conversations frequently. So I'm like, oh, no, I want
Speaker 6: to do comedy, like dude, I want to do like
Speaker 6: action of core like drama of course, but yeah, I
Speaker 6: do have every chance I get, like sitting down at
Speaker 6: take away tet. So, guys, I wanted to like a
Speaker 6: k action comedy.
Speaker 4: You'd be so good in that. That would be awesome.
Speaker 4: Mix it all yes, mix it all up.
Speaker 1: Okay, have a really serious final question.
Speaker 2: Okay, what was tough for boxing Jessica Kamara or the
Speaker 2: arctic conditions you were in filming True Detective.
Speaker 6: Boxing Jessica Kamara. Man, that's we are friends and congratulations therea.
Speaker 6: She just won the WBA in term defeating mey CHOI.
Speaker 6: But I will say I'm not taking anything away from Jessica,
Speaker 6: but I was in a really health pit in twenty
Speaker 6: twenty two, so fighting her not to mention.
Speaker 4: She's a fierce.
Speaker 6: Fighter anyway, and I knew that going in. I'm like,
Speaker 6: we friends, holdie, but we gotta put it on the line.
Speaker 6: So I knew it was gonna be a great fight.
Speaker 6: But the fact that my health was in the toilet.
Speaker 6: That was I had to dig down to the depths
Speaker 6: of hell and onother dimension to get through that fight.
Speaker 6: Like I'm sitting on the stool and I had literally
Speaker 6: nothing left, and I'm watching the roundcod girl go by
Speaker 6: and she's holding up round four.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh shit.
Speaker 6: Oh god, how am I gonna do this? Like that
Speaker 6: was tough, but that's the one thing I was willing
Speaker 6: to die. And I'm not kidding, I was willing to die.
Speaker 6: I'm like, well, if this is how I go, I'm
Speaker 6: gonna go out swinging kind of a thing. But I
Speaker 6: was like, I'm not gonna stop until I can't swing anymore.
Speaker 6: And that's what that was.
Speaker 4: That was hard. I can't believe you have to fight
Speaker 4: your friends. This is something I never thought about.
Speaker 3: I never thought about the fact that you might be
Speaker 3: in the ring with the Psychologically that is such a
Speaker 3: head trip.
Speaker 4: But it was cool because I know she's bringing and
Speaker 4: I'm like, I know she's she can, she can hit hard,
Speaker 4: she's skilled, she listened, she's in condition.
Speaker 6: But I want that. I don't want to fight the
Speaker 6: person I can beat. I want to fight the person
Speaker 6: people think they're gonna beat me.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: See, that's the opposite of most boxer's mentality though, because
Speaker 2: they just want to run up there.
Speaker 6: No, I don't need Instagram files. I'm a stupid pad
Speaker 6: work again. Oh my god, I got this pretty thing on.
Speaker 6: It's funny because until I had my manager and promoted,
Speaker 6: I was fighting in the same short, same taped up
Speaker 6: shoes like I'm like, yo, just put the.
Speaker 4: Gloves on, ring the bell. I don't care like just
Speaker 4: I just want to fight kind of a thing.
Speaker 6: So that's how you can tell it difference between a
Speaker 6: fighter now it's fights. Fighting box sounds a little different
Speaker 6: now as you can tell it different. You can't teach heart.
Speaker 6: You know. I'm not the most skilled fighter, but I
Speaker 6: got heart, I got dog, I got warrior, and I'll
Speaker 6: figure it out. There's a lot of fighters out there
Speaker 6: now that if things aren't going their way in the
Speaker 6: ring and then that things aren't perfect, you can mentally
Speaker 6: see them break down. I won't name any fighters, well,
Speaker 6: you can see people, men and women, fighters breakdown when
Speaker 6: things are all flashy and not the sunglass, the pretty thist,
Speaker 6: the pretty that you can tell a difference.
Speaker 2: Hayley, thank you for bringing that fighting spirit to the
Speaker 2: bright side. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Haylee Reese was the first Indigenous woman fighter to become
Speaker 3: a World champion and was the first Afro Indigenous actor
Speaker 3: to be nominated for an Emmy.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's show.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow, it's time for another Wellness Wednesday. We're joined by
Speaker 2: gastar entrologist doctor Robin Hutkan to talk gut health, antibiotics
Speaker 2: and probiotics. Listen and follow the bright Side on the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4: I'm Simone Boye.
Speaker 3: You can find me at Simone Boice on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's r O
Speaker 1: b A. Y.
Speaker 4: See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.