Before Kali Reis starred opposite Jodie Foster in True Detective: Nightlandshe was a six-time world champion by knocking out opponents in the boxing ring.
While collecting victories in her early 20s, Reis, who hails from Providence, RI, and is of Cape Verdean and Seaconke Wampanoag descent, discovered the Missing and Murdered Native Women (MMIW) movement, a social campaign to raise awareness of the epidemic of violence with which indigenous women meet.
“I had a family member [go missing] so it hit close to home,” Reis tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “But we are often like little children: we need picture books. We don’t want to read the words.”
So Reis, 37, tried to paint a compelling picture of some harsh truths: Indigenous women are ten times more likely to be murdered than women of other ethnicities, and more than four out of five have experienced violence. She began advocating for MMIW at conferences, on social media, and even during fights, with special insignia sewn onto her trunks.
Jodie Foster and Kali Reis in ‘True Detective: Night Country’.
Michele K. Short/HBO
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“I didn’t set out to be an activist,” she says. “I just used my voice with the platform I had.”
2021 saw that platform grow bigger, with her film debut in the Catch the Beautiful One, about a boxer who is half Indian, half Cape Verdean, who follows her kidnapped younger sister. The film’s screenwriter and director Josef Kubota Wladyka approached Reis on Instagram about a role in the film. Reis was confused at first.
“Josef saw something in me that I didn’t even know I had,” says Reis, who also contributed to the film’s story. “I thought, ‘Why do you trust me to tell this? I’m not an actor, but I’ll do my best.’ He just said, “You got juice, okay?”
Her moving performance caught the eye of Foster, who suggested Reis for the role of Evangeline Navarro, an Alaska state trooper of Iñupiaq descent, in True Detective: Nightland. The six-episode fourth season of the HBO anthology crime drama follows Foster and Reis’ characters as they investigate the mysterious deaths of eight scientists in the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska, with a strong Native American cast and touching on the theme of MMIW.
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Kali Reis and Jodie Foster.
Max Cisotti/Dave Bennett/WireImage
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Reis says he bears some similarities to his character, who creator Issa López made Alaska Native after learning that rural Alaska is mostly populated by Iñupiaq.
“Issa took her time and really composed and created this character with so much care and so much time, and she was quite a stubborn little Scorpio,” jokes the actress. “I had to meet her where she was, basically.”
Next, she will play a native of the northeastern forests in a crime drama River of Wind: Growing, with Scott Eastwood and Alan Rucka.
“I keep getting opportunities to give voice to the voiceless,” she says. “The stories that will be [shared]the faces that will be seen, the truths that will be told — I’m so excited about it all.”For more on Kali Reis, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE on newsstands Friday or subscribe here.
Seasons 1-4 of A true detective are available for streaming on Max.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education