When we connect in early July to discuss the third and final season of Reservation Dogs that’s debuting on August 2, Paulina Alexis is hyped to talk about her other love: horseback riding. The Indigenous Canadian actress, who plays Willie Jack on the groundbreaking FX series, is in Calgary to relay race at the famed Calgary Stampede. It’s a 10-day Western extravaganza featuring everything from bucking broncos to competing chuckwagons. (As an avid equestrian myself, I’m totally game to talk horses.)
“The Calgary Stampede is literally the greatest show on earth,” says the 22-year-old. “I taught myself how to ride about two years ago, and I just fell in love with relay. It’s in my blood, because once upon a time, we couldn’t live without horses.”
A horse girl to the core, Alexis spends every minute she’s not working riding. Her discipline of choice, Indian relay, is an extreme sport dating back centuries that involves bareback riders leaping from one horse to another at high speeds. In short, it’s not for the faint of heart, and Alexis loves it for the adrenaline rush. (Perhaps it’s not surprising that she also plays hockey.)
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In fact, Alexis has tried bringing her passion with her onscreen. From the early days of Rez Dogs, she tried to convince the showrunners to make her character a rider. “Before we started filming season 1, I was like, ‘Can you please, please, please put Willie Jack on a horse and have her do relay? Somebody’s gotta do it, because Natives love relay.’” Alas, that didn’t happen, even—spoiler alert—in season 3.
Still, Alexis and her co-stars have had plenty of substantial material to work with on Rez Dogs since the revolutionary dark comedy debuted in 2021. The brainchild of co-creators Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, the stereotype-smashing series follows four Native American teens trying to find their way on an Oklahoma reservation, showcasing real Native life in a way the world has never seen before. And it’s being done in an authentic manner, with an all-Indigenous team of writers, directors, and regular actors. The singular series has even garnered accolades like a Peabody Award, Independent Spirit Awards, and a Golden Globe nomination.
Of the four main characters, Willie Jack stood out to me from the very beginning. Expertly portrayed by Alexis, she is equal parts wisecracking and wise beyond her years—the ultimate “shitass,” to quote the character. Beyond her rejected horse girl ask, Alexis has had plenty of say in shaping Willie Jack, from what she wears to how she speaks and carries herself. After all, the character was originally intended to be a boy until Alexis auditioned for the female lead, Elora Danan (played by Devery Jacobs), prompting Harjo and team to rework the part for her. Hence Wilhelmina Jacqueline Sampson was born.
“Once I got the role, I got to really help out on how she dresses and talks,” she says. “I knew she’d be the bro with the braids and the hat; she’d be a cozy queen but colorful and also a hunter. It wasn’t really that hard to bring her to life, because it’s basically me. My dad is like, ‘All they have to do is turn the camera on; she is Willie Jack.’”
Growing up on the rural Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation reserve in Alberta, Canada, Alexis had plenty of opportunities to develop her acting chops. Her dad has his own production company making documentaries at powwows and hockey tournaments, and she and her three older brothers would mess around filming skits. But that doesn’t mean she had instant entrée into the industry. Quite the opposite: She was regularly passed over for commercials and other acting spots as a kid.
“It was always my dream to be an actress, because I love movies,” Alexis says. “But I kept getting shot down and thought I wouldn’t make it because I’m Native. Now, I just want to help the next generation believe in themselves and show them they can make it out of the rez.”
Suffice to say she’s done that, even this early in her career. After getting her first big break with Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Alexis joined the award-winning Rez Dogs ensemble alongside fellow Indigenous talents like Jacobs, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (who plays Bear Smallhill), and Lane Factor (Cheese). Thanks to ingenious writing and undeniable chemistry, they immediately won over both Native and non-Native audiences—an impressive feat for a show depicting the many hardships Indigenous peoples face, like disproportionately high rates of poverty, suicide, addiction, and disease.
But as fans know, Rez Dogs isn’t just about trauma; there’s also plenty of humor mixed in. “Laughter is medicine,” says Alexis. “The show is so real, because we go through a lot as Native people, but we always have our humor and love no matter what.” She is responsible for a lot of those laughs, having grown up on a steady diet of David Spade, Chris Farley, and Jack Black.
Alexis has also driven some of the show’s most profoundly touching moments. Case in point: In season 2’s penultimate episode, “Offerings,” Willie Jack visits her late cousin Daniel’s mom (played by Lily Gladstone) in prison to seek guidance. Together they pray and summon her ancestors—generations of medicine people and caretakers—who appear behind her in a semi-circle of support. This stirring scene foreshadows what’s to come for Willie Jack in season 3, as she embraces her role as a future medicine woman.
Alexis pauses as she reflects on filming that scene. “At the time, I was really homesick, and I had lost my cousin and a couple friends that year—so crying on command wasn’t a problem,” she recalls. “I felt a lot of my past relatives present when we were filming that scene. It felt so real.”
In addition to working alongside Harjo and the tight-knit cast while filming on the Muscogee Nation, Alexis got to learn from some of the most notable Native stars who helped pave the way for her generation of Indigenous actors—everyone from Zahn McClarnon to Wes Studi to Gary Farmer, with more cameos to come in season 3. “They’re all legends in my eyes,” she says. “I was starstruck, but I just played it cool. Now, they’re all just like family.”
Superfans like myself were of course disappointed to hear that the forthcoming season of Rez Dogs would be its last, but we also trust that Harjo and Waititi know when to call it. The cast learned this might be their last hurrah halfway through filming season 3. “Sterlin pulled us all aside and told us they were writing it like it was going to be the last season,” Alexis recalls. “I was heartbroken, but it just made me appreciate my time with everybody even more. I felt like it got even more fun after he told us.”
Understandably, being a part of this trailblazing series has been a dream for Alexis. “Even if I wasn’t on the show, I would be obsessed with it,” she says. “It’s the first time it’s ever been done—Native writers, cast, and crew—and we’re doing it in a truthful way that everybody can relate to. I remember watching movies when I was young and whenever they’d show Native people, it was always mystical-like characters standing on a mountain singing to some spirits. Finally after all these years, we have our own show we can call home.”
While it may be hard to accept that Rez Dogs is ending, Alexis says it isn’t over—and gives fans a glimmer of hope. “I don’t feel like it’s closing out; maybe there will be a spinoff in a couple years,” she says.
For now, Alexis is focused on summer relay race season, then she’s moving to Los Angeles to try her hand at directing, producing, and the like. She plans to follow in Harjo’s footsteps, putting as much Indigenous talent both behind and in front of the camera. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” she says. “Now, more Native people are going to start telling their own stories. I just can’t wait because it’s going to be crazy.”
This interview was conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
An Alaska Native Tlingit tribal member, Kate Nelson is an award-winning writer and editor living in Minneapolis.
