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Rewriting the Native American movie script: Meet Erica Tremblay — part of a new generation disrupting Hollywood’s telling of the Native American experience

Meet Erica Tremblay — part of a new generation disrupting Hollywood's telling of the Native American experience.

Yet once, in a New York City elevator, she was wearing a pair of beaded earrings of the sort you might find at this gift shop, when a white woman with a yoga mat told her she should “think twice before appropriating other people’s cultures.” Never mind that Tremblay grew up on reservation land, with a mother who was on the tribal council. The same halls that welcomed her have also embraced Taika Waititi, who went from directing independent films to the Oscar best picture-nominated “Jojo Rabbit” and blockbusters like “Thor: Ragnarok”; Sydney Freeland, whose credits include massive properties like Marvel and “Star Trek” as well as her recent Netflix feature, “Rez Ball”; and Sterlin Harjo, whose “Reservation Dogs” brought raw Native stories to mainstream television. She realized — quickly — that she needed health insurance and a livable wage to survive, so she found work in advertising and publishing that eventually took her from LA to New York City, where she had a chic corporate office leading video teams for some major publications, including Esquire, Marie Claire and Bustle.

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