Irene Bedard

Bedard was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and is of Inupiat and French Canadian/Cree (Metis) ancestry.[1] Bedard graduated from A.J. Dimond High School in Anchorage, Alaska in 1985. Bedard attended The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she studied Musical Theatre. Her first role was as Mary Crow Dog in the 1994 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. For this role, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film.[2] She is probably best known as the voice of the eponymous heroine in the 1995 Disney animated film Pocahontas, the direct-to-video 1998 sequel Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, and in the 2018 film Ralph Breaks the Internet. 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.

In 2001, Irene Bedard hosted the Ninth Annual First Americans in the Arts (FAITA) Awards from the Beverly Hilton Hotel.[3] In 2002, at the Tenth Annual FAITA Awards, Bedard won Outstanding Guest Performance by an Actress in a TV Drama Series for The Agency.[4]

In 2005, she was cast in the television mini-series Into the West as Margaret "Light Shines" Wheeler.[5] Bedard has been very active in environmental groups to protect sacred lands.[6] In 1997, she co-hosted with Floyd Westerman a benefit for the Dine’ People of Big Mountain at The Loft Theatre, in Pasadena. In 2017 Bedard announced an agreement with the Catawba Nation of South Carolina to join together in a production agreement.[7]

In 1993, Bedard married musician Deni Wilson. Between her films, the pair toured for several years with other musicians in a band called "ID," which came from the initials of their first names, Irene and Deni. In 2012, the couple divorced, following allegations by Bedard of being a victim of spousal abuse. In November, 2020, Bedard was arrested twice in three days for alleged domestic violence, assault, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and criminal damaging and the second was for alleged disorderly conduct.[8]

• Irene Bedard Biography at who2.com
• Irene Bedard at IMDb
• Irene Bedard at AllMovie