Get the latest gossip

‘True Detective’ Star Kali Reis Embraces Her Afro-Indigenous Heritage: “I Have Two Rooms I Can Stand In”

The boxer-turned-actress was honored at a brunch celebrating Native women in film and television on Friday.

“I’m the first generation of my line who was actually able to grow up in the culture,” said the True Detective: Night Country star of being from the Seaconke Wampanoag people. The actress, a former world champion boxer, received the Misty Upham Award for her continued advocacy on behalf of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement, which during her athletic career included placing a handprint on her boxing trunks to draw awareness to the issue and led to her casting (and co-story credit) in her Indie Spirit-nominated debut, 2022’s Catch the Fair One. Also speaking at the brunch were trailblazing Alaska Native and First Nations actress Irene Bedard, Killers of the Flower Moon actor Tatanka Means (son of the late Oglala Lakota activist Russell Means), Montana Film Office commissioner Allison Whitmer and RNCI board member Susan Masten, as well as L.A. supervisor Lindsey Horvath and allies Rebecca Brando (daughter of Marlon, and also an RNCI board member) and actress Mary McDonnell.

Get the Android app