Irene Bedard

Irene Bedard is a Native American actress, who has played many Native American characters in a variety of films, most notably Pocahontas in the 1995 film Pocahontas.

Bedard was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and is of Inupiat, Yupik, Inuit, Cree and Mtis 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 police and Native Americans, 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 Disney animated film Pocahontas and its directtovideo 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 Malicks 2005 film The New World, as Pocahontass 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 miniseries Into the West, portraying the halfLakota, halfwhite adult Margaret Light Shines Wheeler.

Source: Wikipedia