Irene Bedard

Irene Bedard is an American actress, who has played mostly lead Native American roles in a variety of films. She is perhaps best known for the role of Suzy Song in the 1998 film Smoke Signals, an adaptation of a Sherman Alexie collection of short stories, as well as for providing the speaking voice for the titular character in the 1995 animated film Pocahontas. Bedard reprised her role as Pocahontas in the film's direct-to-video follow-up, Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998) and for a cameo in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018).

Early life
Bedard was born in Anchorage, Alaska, to an Iñupiaq mother and a Cree/French Canadian father. She is an enrolled citizen of the Native Village of Koyuk in Alaska. Bedard graduated from Dimond High School in Anchorage, Alaska in 1985. Bedard attended The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she studied musical theater.

Career
In 1994, Bedard appeared in her first role as Mary Crow Dog in the television production of Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee, which depicted the 1970s standoff between the US government and citizens of several Native nations, including many of the Pine Ridge Reservation, at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. For this role, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film. She is probably best known as the voice of the eponymous heroine in the 1995 Disney animated film Pocahontas, the direct-to-video 1998 sequel Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World and in the 2018 film Ralph Breaks the Internet. She appeared in a different take of the story in Terence Malick's 2005 film The New World, as Pocahontas's mother, Nonoma Winanuske Matatiske.

In 1995, Bedard was chosen as one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People".

In 2001, Irene Bedard hosted the Ninth Annual First Americans in the Arts (FAITA) Awards from the Beverly Hilton Hotel. In 2002, at the Tenth Annual FAITA Awards, Bedard won Outstanding Guest Performance by an Actress in a TV Drama Series for The Agency.

In 2005, she was cast in the television mini-series Into the West as Margaret "Light Shines" Wheeler. Bedard has been very active in environmental groups to protect sacred lands. In 1997, she co-hosted with Floyd Westerman a benefit for the Dine' People of Big Mountain at The Loft Theatre, in Pasadena. In 2015, she appeared in Chloé Zhao's debut feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me. In 2016, Bedard announced an agreement with the Catawba Nation of South Carolina to join in a production agreement. In 2017, she appeared as a recurring character in the TV series The Mist. Bedard made an appearance in the music video for Jay-Z's 2017 song "Family Feud".

In 2020, Bedard played a recurring character in seasons one and two of the drama series FBI: Most Wanted. She then was a starring cast member in the Paramount+ miniseries The Stand, as Ray Brentner, a gender-swapped version of Ralph Brentner from the 1994 adaptation. In 2022, she was cast as Yagoda in the 2024 Netflix series Avatar: The Last Airbender and as Sylvie Nanmac in Alaska Daily, the mother of a missing indigenous woman.

Personal life
In 1993, Bedard married musician Denny Wilson. Between her films, the pair toured for several years with other musicians in a band called "ID," which came from the initials of their first names, Irene and Deni. In 2012, the couple divorced following Bedard's allegations of Wilson abusing Bedard. Denny however, denied all these accusations.

Legal issues
In 2020, Bedard was arrested twice in three days. The first arrest was for alleged domestic violence, assault, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and criminal damaging; the second was for alleged disorderly conduct. In 2022, she was again arrested for disorderly conduct in Xenia, Ohio.