Anna Lambe returned home to Iqaluit, Nunavut for the making of Netflix’s latest hit series North of North, which follows a young Inuk mother’s journey after she publicly ends her marriage and works to rebuild her life in the fictional Arctic town of Ice Cove, Nunavut. The light-hearted comedy, which is already sitting in Netflix’s Top 10 TV shows, felt like a “full-circle” moment for Lambe, whose hometown community in the northernmost part of Canada rallied around production to help create an experience that she called the “highlight” of her life.
“The sense of community that comes through in North of North, or at least that I think comes through, was crafted by community, by people actually showing up for us and helping us,” Lambe told DECIDER in a recent interview. “And without Iqaluit, without people from Iqaluit, this show would have struggled immensely trying to get finished because shooting in Nunavut is no easy feat.”
With Lambe’s “actual community” acting as extras in the background and helping out on set, she was initially nervous about portraying her character Siaja’s very public, at at times “really embarrassing,” outbursts.
“There’s always a little piece of you that’s like, ‘What are people going to think of me?’” Lambe said. “But getting to Iqaluit and actually filming, it was completely fine.”
Of all the outrageous things Siaja did in North of North, perhaps the most head-turning was when she made out with Alistair (Jay Ryan), the new silver fox in town who, in a shocking turn of events, was revealed to be her long-lost biological father. According to Lambe, she was just as shocked as the rest of us when she found out about the plot twist during her screen test.
“I dropped to the ground and I was like, ‘No, no! No! You guys wrote that? That’s so bold. It’s so risky. It’s so gross. I love it. I want this role. How can I make it happen?’” she recalled. “Yeah, the air was taken out of my lungs.”
When Lambe visited DECIDER’s studio, she also talked about Siaja’s relationship with her mother Neevee (Maika Harper), that fairytale “Inuk Bridgerton” scene, and what she hopes people will take away from North of North. Check out the full interview below.
DECIDER: North of North is such a fun, light-hearted show and it taught me a lot about Arctic living. I know you are from Nunavut, so what was it like to be able to film a show about your home?
ANNA LAMBE: It felt really like a full-circle moment going back home. The first project that I did was a film called The Grizzlies back in 2016. I was 15 years old at the time and had no idea what I was doing or what I was getting into. I just knew that we were making something and it was really fun. And to kind of go off with my career and get to see the world and travel with work and all that kind of stuff, to have the gem of my career be this show, going back home to Iqaluit, was just so exciting. And it felt like everything’s kind of lined up for this moment.
And it feels so special to be able to work with Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Aletheia Arnarquq-Baril again, who were producers on The Grizzlies and were the showrunners of this show, and Miranda de Pencier, who directed The Grizzlies and was a producer on this show. And to just be surrounded by community and people that I love and to be with my family again was really cool. The sense of community that comes through in North of North, or at least that I think comes through, was crafted by community, by people actually showing up for us and helping us. And without Iqaluit, without people from Iqaluit, this show would have struggled immensely trying to get finished because shooting in Nunavut is no easy feat. So going back home and seeing the community come together to tell this story and being able to be just one part of it was, yeah, it’s really been a highlight of not just my career but my life.
In what ways did the community rally around you guys? Because I imagine it’s a small town.
Yeah, it’s pretty small. It is the capital of the territory, but it’s about 8,000 people. It’s a fly-in only community as all communities in Nunavut are. So it’s very remote. It is very isolated. And even though we are very connected to the rest of the world, physically, we are a bit far. So Iqaluit is not a place that is built for film and TV. There is no real infrastructure there to support a production the size of what we were shooting. So, there were many times where, you know, we just needed people’s support. When we needed background to come in, people were flocking in, people were finding their family members, telling them to come in and then fill these different spots. People really made a lot of space for us. When you’re a crew of 80 to 100 people suddenly appearing in a town of 8,000, that makes a little bit of a splash. And I’m sure there were times where we were taking up space and blocking roads and blocking people’s access to the store with the cheapest cigarettes, as I’ve been told. But people were so patient and so kind. And whenever they had an issue, they let us know and gave us so much grace to be able to figure out what it means to make a show in Iqaluit of this size, of this caliber, and how that happens. So without the community, I can’t imagine how different it would have been.
What are you hoping people will take away from the show about Inuit people and their homeland up north? Are there any misconceptions you hope it clears up?
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think when so many people think of the North, they think of this empty place that’s just an ice desert and nobody exists and people used to exist there, but they don’t exist anymore. And to just show that we’re a very real, living, breathing people, our culture is very much still alive, our language is still alive, we exist. And also that our communities are just so full of warmth and are so welcoming and there’s just so much brightness and joy and there’s also a lot of hardship and a lot of trauma that Inuit have experienced due to colonialism. But the way that we navigate that and the way that we come together is through humor and I think this show was such a good example of that and it’s just exciting for people to really see Nunavut, the Arctic, Inuit as we truly are and as we know ourselves and to be able to kind of control the way that we’re represented and what feels most authentic to us is really exciting.
I want to talk about your character, Siaja, who kind of blows up her life as she knows it to pursue her own dreams. When you were reading the script, what did you think of her very public declaration that she wanted to end her marriage?
It was scary and exciting. I had gotten the scripts after booking the role. And I remember going through them. And as I got through each script, I would text the showrunners and the producer, we had this little group chat, and I would be like, “You guys are wild. What are you guys writing? What goes on in your brains?” And, you know, that’s a very consistent theme throughout so many of the episodes and especially in Episode 6. I remember getting to the end of reading it and I was like, “Scandalous! You guys!”
So it was really exciting in the sense of like the range of stuff that we’re going to get to do, the swing of emotions is going to be so much fun and it’s going to be so fun to shoot that. But it was also the fear of having to do these really embarrassing things, these really public things in front of my actual community and there’s always a little piece of you that’s like, “What are people going to think of me?” But getting to Iqaluit and actually filming, it was completely fine. [There were] definitely moments I was still deeply embarrassed while we were filming and I was blushing and I was like, “Oh, God, please don’t look at me.” But for the most part, everything just was like – in between takes, people would come up and say that they’re proud or they’re excited about the show, or they can’t wait to see how it turns out. So, those moments of going through the script and being like, “I’m really going to have to kind of put my pride aside and just go for it.” But it just, yeah, kind of heated up the excitement for what we were about to create.
One wild thing Siaja does is make out with Alistair, the new silver fox in town who turns out to be her long-lost biological father. What did you make of that twist?
So, I found out about this twist in the screen test because we were testing the scenes when I was auditioning and this kind of arc, this plot line, I didn’t know about it yet and I kept asking questions. I was like, “Can I just have a little bit more context for this? How is this going to change? Or what can I know that can change what I’m doing? Or how can we stretch? Just to show that I can take your note and whatever you give me, I wanna do it.” And it was like a, “So by the way, this guy’s your dad.” I dropped to the ground and I was like, “No, no! No! You guys wrote that? That’s so bold. It’s so risky. It’s so gross. I love it. I want this role. How can I make it happen?” Yeah, the air was taken out of my lungs and I was like, “Whew, you guys are – I trust you, I trust whatever you guys wrote and that it’s gonna be amazing. But that’s wild.”
I think I had the same reaction when I watched it.
We laughed about it and everything. But when we were doing the screenings in Canada before the show came out, we showed it to an audience in Toronto, and then we showed it to audiences in Iqaluit when we did a home screening. And to sit in the theater knowing what was coming, and as Siaja kind of walks out of the community center and that whole moment happens, people were shouting at the theater screen. People were like, “No! That’s her dad!” And I was like, “Yup. That’s exactly how it feels.”
Did you watch The White Lotus? It reminded me a bit of the Saxon/Lochlyn plot point, but way less intense. It’s interesting that that’s the risky plot point that keeps coming up in shows.
Yeah, it is so interesting. It’s so interesting that you bring that up. I’m curious how and why and what it is. But I guess it’s just kind of something to — you really want to capture the audience’s attention. And it works, indeed.
Siaja has a very complicated relationship with her mom, but we learn that perhaps a lot of the way she is now stemmed from her first child being stolen by the older white man she got pregnant with as a teenager. How did you manage the overall comedic tone of the show with these darker themes of how indigenous people have been treated over the years?
Yeah, I think what I really loved about North of North was that we had quite a broad range of emotion and experience in what we were doing and the stories we were telling. It goes all the way from, like, high comedy, clown, physical comedy, very silly, to heartbreaking and devastating and something that really punches you in the gut. And so, being able to explore those moments and find when the right time to laugh the darkness away and the right time to lean into the darkness when that would be was an interesting dance that we were always conscious of because, you know, it is a comedy at the end of the day and striking the right balance and making sure that you don’t scare your audience away was important. But it’s really nice that throughout the season, we really earn the difficult conversations that we have at the end of the season and the truth that gets revealed and the vulnerability that gets exposed. It just feels right to me. And I think comedy that is able to do that range, it just pays off really well, in my opinion, and strikes a really nice balance and gives a comedy just a bit more depth and some more relatability. Because it’s complicated family relationships, family trauma, complicated community relationships – those are all very real things that people know and understand. And so being able to talk about that while also being a bit silly is nice.
I have to say I loved that very Bridgerton-esque dream sequence Siaja had when she was running to Kuuk in that beautiful dress to an orchestral version of “Somewhere Only We Know.” Did you also get Bridgerton vibes from that scene? What were your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I mean the scene was inspired by Stacey Aglok MacDonald, one of the showrunners, who kind of had this dream of, like, an Inuk Bridgerton. And it, you know, just was so romantic and beautiful. The day that we shot it was actually really cold and it was just kind of like getting through the day. The dress was beautiful. I remember putting it on and feeling like a princess and then, you know, holding my breath and getting sewn into it. It took like half an hour to put the dress on. But kind of running through the tundra and all of the dreamy moments of it were so much fun and it was so different from what we were shooting in all the other parts of the show. And it just turned out to be a really, really beautiful sequence. And the dress that was designed by Debra Hanson, our head of costume, and Nooks Lindell, our Inuk designer. And the work that they did together to make something that’s just so dreamy and beautiful and kind of that Bridgerton-esque while also making it super Inuk was just so amazing.
Speaking of steamy scenes, Siaja has quite the rendezvous with Olivier. She’s kind of trying to get her groove back, but of course this guy has a dog fetish and he’s making her bark and howl and do all of these crazy things. How did you keep a straight face filming that scene? Can you walk us through what that was like?
There was definitely a lot of laughter behind the scenes. I remember when we were filming it, when we get to the whole part in bed and he’s holding on to my hair and he was, you know, “Mush, doggy, mush.” I could hear Zoe Hopkins, who was our director, behind the privacy screen watching the monitor trying to stifle her laughter. And I was mortified. I was like, “Oh, my god, this is so ridiculous. What is my job?” But Dan, who plays Olivier, is such a lovely, lovely guy. He’s so kind and he’s so sweet and just really leaned into the ridiculousness of the scene of Olivier and how kind of cheesy and strange he is. Yeah, it made it easy and smooth and just really silly and I think that going into the day and just being like, “Let’s just have fun, let’s make something really silly,” took a lot of the pressure off and any of the fear and anxiety.
While some themes are wrapped up by the end of Season 1, there are certainly some cliffhangers that make room for a second season. What would you like to see for Siaja in a potential Season 2?
For Siaja, I would love to see how she supports her mom. She’s opened up this big can of worms, for lack of a better word, and this truth that she’s been grappling with for a long time. I think to open up and be so vulnerable is just the first step and it’s the unraveling and the kind of finding out what now having your truth out in the world, what that means for you. I’d just love to see Siaja support her in finding out where her sister is, if she’s anywhere.
I think that would be really powerful and some closure for Neevee as well – to know where her child went and where she is and that story. And I just want to see how she grows as a community leader, really, and somebody who just wants to do what’s best for her community, how she works with Helen, what the new satellite station, the research station is, and what happens with Alistair and Neevee. Where do they go, if anywhere? I don’t know. I have so many questions for the showrunners, the writers … So hopefully we get aSeason 2 and we get to explore all the roads.
I can’t let you go without bringing up the fact that you were just cast in a movie with Brad Pitt. How are you feeling about that? Have you met him yet? We want to know everything!
My lips are sealed. But yeah, it’s very exciting. And you know, I just think it’s just really fun and I’m looking forward to everything that comes next.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
North of North is currently streaming on Netflix.
The post Anna Lambe Talks ‘North Of North’s “Bold” Plot Twist When Siaja Accidentally Made Out With Her Father: “It’s So Risky. It’s So Gross. I Love It.” appeared first on Decider.
