The Grizzlies

Today on That Digital Take, I am joined by award-winning actor, filmmaker, and host, Anna Lam.

Originally from Iqaluit, Nunavut, Anna has built an incredible career on screen from her breakout role in The Grizzlies, The Trickster, and True Detective, and now as the leading lady of the acclaimed series North of North on CBC Gem and Netflix.

Her performance as Ciaya earned her best lead performer in a comedy series at this year's Canadian Screen Awards, and her career is truly only continuing to grow with some major projects on the horizon.

Today, we're getting into the acting side of things, what it means to be a lead of a series, life on location, incredible fashion and craftsmanship that we love to see on North of North, navigating an evolving career in this industry, and of course, what she has planned for TIFF, just because I'm curious.

Wow.

Auditioned for it, even though I thought, you know, it's not something that makes sense for me.

I was very shy, very introverted and ended up getting accepted into this workshop to be able to then learn about uh film and television and uh art and performance art um that would then prepare us to audition for the actual film called the grizzlies um i went through that whole week and was like oh i really enjoy this but even more so i really enjoy all the people that i get to do this with and like what it means to to storytell um so i auditioned for the film did grizzlies and then i never really thought about like acting or the arts again it still was just one of those things that i was like I, I'm going to go into academia.

I want to like move back to Ejder or to live in Nunavut.

These characters existed in my head for quite a while.

Um, but then we actually, like, we'd been working together for a really long time, but, um, we really got into the trenches together again making The Grizzlies, uh, movie that we made.

Mm.

And it was from there that we were like, "Let's keep doing this.

I think we can do something really special together, and, um, if so, what are we gonna make?"

[laughs]

And so we just kind of, with our producing partner, you know, we were there f- supporting her and, um, you know, giving a lot of our, our, our feedback and, you know, for, for The Grizzlies, and sh- she turned around and was like, basically, "I wanna support whatever story you guys wanna tell now." So, um-

Our turn

I did, you know, seven seasons of an all Inuktitut language comedy show that aired on APTN, and every season of that show we were trying to think bigger, learn more, do more.

And so when Qanurli ended, that feeling didn't end of, "Okay, now what? M- what's next? What, what's, what's bigger? How can I take what everything that I've learned and go further?" And y- you know, Alethea, Miranda, and I, we made The Grizzlies together.

Mm.

Which was a 10-year-long project with very heavy subject matter.

And coming out of The Grizzlies, we knew that we wanted to do something that was a lot more joyful and funny and felt like something, like, of our community because The Grizzlies is just one part of our story in the Arctic, and it's a real thing, but the Arctic that we experience every day is so colorful.

It's cold out, but it's so warm.

And I think Alethea and I, having grown up there and still are living there, just wanted to come together and make something that felt real to us.