Hollywood newcomer Medium Amber Dogs stunned at Tuesday’s Los Angeles premiere of Hulu’s “Prey.”
“This is from the Sky-Eagle collection,” she told me of her dress on the arrivals carpet at the Village Regency Theater in Westwood. “Throughout this press tour, it was very important to me to always incorporate a designer or some Indigenous jewelry or something. So every look I got, there was something native.
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“Prey,” the fifth film in the “Predator” franchise, is set in the Comanche Nation in 1717. Midthunder, who is a registered tribal member at the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Indian Reservation, plays Naru, a young warrior rescuing her tribe of a Predator (Dane DiLiegro).
Here, Midthunder talks more about her fashion choices, working alongside an all-Native cast, and what it was like to dub the movie in Comanche.
Michael Buckner for Variety
Why was it so important to incorporate Indigenous designs into your red carpet looks?
It was never a question for me. Indigenous artists and designers have so much to offer and are truly an untapped resource, whether it’s fashion, film or business. When you look at our art and clothing, we have things you don’t often see, whether it’s patterns or materials like shells and beads or earth paints. Being able to incorporate this into street fashion is really fun.
How was the first day on set, when you looked around and saw that all the protagonists were native?
It was very surreal. I get chills just thinking about it. The first day we arrived everyone was in gear and I looked around and saw teepees and buckskin people. It just became so transcendent and somehow very real. At some point in history, that was how things really looked. That’s how it was for some of my ancestors. To see that and to think of what we were accomplishing was just amazing.
What was it like dubbing the film in Comanche?
The film was originally pitched to shoot entirely in Comanche. When we auditioned, we did all of our scenes in English and Comanche to make sure we could do it and how it would play out. We ended up doing the film in English, but coming back to Comanche is very special in terms of preserving the language. We also write history. Never has a movie been released in a native dub when it was originally released. I think that’s a huge win and a huge thing for us as a people to claim. And just to familiarize myself with the Comanche language – it’s not at all like the language I grew up in [with] — it was a personal gift for me to become so intimately acquainted with the culture and the language.
“Prey” premieres August 5 on Hulu.
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