Michelle Thrush

Michelle Thrush is a Canadian actress and First Nations activist for Aboriginal Canadians and the other Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Thrush, who is Cree, was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, by parents she admits were chronic alcoholics. She recalls being called "Squaw" at Bowness High School and bullied because of her parents' illness. In grade nine she changed schools and attended Calgary's Plains Indian Cultural Survival School. There she felt accepted for the first time. She learned about herself, her language, culture, singing and drumming. She remembers: "They filled in a lot of the voids that my soul was just begging for." Her childhood hardships affected her profoundly. Though she acted in her first film at 17 with a role of Sally Littlefeathers in Isaac Littlefeathers (1984), it did not occur to her it could be a career. She planned to become a social worker and help children. She met Gordon Tootoosis, a First Nations actor, who told her: "If [acting] is what your heart wants, you need to follow it and be true." At this point her parents were sober. With no other ties to Calgary, at age 20 she moved to Vancouver and found an agent. Thrush has said it's been only the last 20 years that Indigenous people have been able to tell their truth through their own stories, though she credits such luminaries as Tantoo Cardinal and Graham Greene for kicking down the doors for Indigenous people in the industry. Thrush has had a prolific career since its beginning in the 1980s. She began her acting career in film while attending high school. She got her first theatre job when she moved to Vancouver at age 20. She had a small part in the play The Ecstasy of Rita Joe. She portrayed numerous recurring and guest roles in the television series Madison (1993), Northern Exposure (1990), North of 60 (1992), Highlander (1992), Forever Knight (1992), Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy (1998), Moccasin Flats (2003) and Mixed Blessings (2007). She has starred in many notable films throughout her career, particularly in films that deal with issues about Indigenous peoples of the Americas, ranging from Canadian Aboriginals to Native Americans/American Indians (U.S.). These include Isaac Littlefeathers (1984), Unnatural & Accidental (2006), Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007), Skins (2002), Dead Man (1995), DreamKeeper (2003) and Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian (2013). Thrush has also won numerous awards and special recognition, including multiple Awards for her role of Gail Stoney on the dramatic series Blackstone, such as Best Performance by an Alberta Actress 2015 Rosie Awards for the role in Deeper & Deeper (2014), Best performance by an Alberta Actress at the 2014 AMPIA Awards for the role in Never Gonna Stop (2013), and Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role in 2011 CSA (Gemini) Awards for the role in Suffer the Children (2011) and Best Guest Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Series at the 2011 Leo Awards in Vancouver for the role in Arctic Air (2012). In 2011, Thrush wrote the one-woman play Find Your Own Inner Elder. She has performed the show, most often under the title Inner Elder, across Canada. It premiered at One Yellow Rabbit's High Performance Rodeo in Calgary in 2018 and has since been performed with Nightwood Theatre and Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto (2019). Inner Elder is a structured monologue which recounts Thrush's personal life and experiences. Despite the credits and the awards, her desire to help children has never faded. In fact, she says acting has opened the door to helping in a way that social work could not. For the past 10 years, Thrush has traveled to aboriginal communities and shelters across Canada to perform as Majica, a therapeutic healing clown. Majica performs for young kids and teenagers, and also has a show for parents. "Beyond film, my passion in life is working with our families and helping to defragment the damage that was done through residential schools to our families," she says. "You cannot disconnect the child from the parent without huge damage being done. When it happens generation after generation, it destroys the family system."