Irene Bedard

Irene Bedard (born July 22, 1967) is an American actress who has played many Native American characters in a variety of films. She is perhaps best known for the role of Suzy Song in the film adaptation of Sherman Alexie's Smoke Signals as well as for providing the voice of the title character in the animated film Pocahontas.

In 2012, she started "Sleeping Lady Films" and "Waking Giants Productions" with Canadian businessman Thom Denomme. The production companies, based out of Anchorage and Santa Fe, New Mexico, are dedicated to bringing stories that are both positive and inspirational from Indian Country to the world.[citation needed]

Early life and career
Bedard was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and is of Inupiat, Yupik, Inuit, Cree and Métis ancestry. Her first role was as Mary Crow Dog in the television production, 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. She is probably best known as the voice of the eponymous heroine in the Disneyanimated film Pocahontas and its direct-to-video sequel Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World. Bedard was also the physical model for the character. 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. Bedard attended The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she studied Musical Theatre. In 2005, she was cast in the television mini-series Into the West, portraying the half-Lakota, half-white adult Margaret "Light Shines" Wheeler.[citation needed] In the 2017 music video for "Family Feud" (a song by Jay-Z), she plays a Co-President of the United States in the future.[2][3]

She was chosen in 1995 as one of People magazine's '50 Most Beautiful People'.[4]

Personal life
Bedard married singer Deni Wilson in 1993. They have a son, Quinn Wilson born in 2003. In November 2010, it was revealed that Bedard was being sexually and physically abused by Wilson throughout their marriage, taking her earnings and forbidding her to work in her career field, unless he specifically approved the project, said her niece Alia Davis. The couple eventually divorced in 2012.[5]