'Reservation Dogs' Star Devery Jacobs Wants to Be the Change in Hollywood - Vanity Fair

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The star of Reservation Dogs almost called it quits before the FX show came along. Now she’s determined to build a better future for her younger Native American costars.

By David Canfield

June 21, 2023

Ryan Pfluger

When Reservation Dogs won big at last year’s Independent Spirit Awards, the feeling was bittersweet. The victory marked a watershed moment for Indigenous representation and success in Hollywood, with the show’s cast of young up-and-coming stars joyously taking the stage. But as Devery Jacobs remembers it, being surrounded by A-list celebrities and Oscar contenders also felt somewhat isolating. “It feels like, How the hell did we get invited? How are we here?” she says. “Even now, it kind of feels like we’re strangely siloed in the industry…. I look forward to the day when we’re not the only table of Native creatives in these spaces.”

Speaking with Jacobs over Zoom, one gets the sense that there’s a better chance of that happening because of her. Playing Elora, the eldest member of the Res Dogs crew—a group of teenagers making their way through life in their Oklahoma hometown while dreaming of bigger things and grieving the death by suicide of their friend Daniel—she’s stepped into a kind of “big sister” role after a decade of struggling to break into the industry. She’s showing her costars the ropes, telling them the things she was never told when she was coming up—and all while relishing the richest role of her career, one that’s asked her to go to both absurdly comic and heavily dramatic places. Jacobs also joined the writers room in season two—she’s currently on strike as a WGA member—meaning that, as the show heads into season three, she’s in a period of thrilling creative fulfillment. (And that’s to say nothing of her upcoming role in the MCU series Echo, centered on Alaqua Cox’s Maya Lopez.)

“I’m feeling tired, but I’m feeling really grateful. I’ve never had a chance to sit with a character for so long,” she says as we get to chatting. “I’m just feeling excited.”

Jacobs in Reservation Dogs.

Vanity Fair: You were kind of a workhorse before Reservation Dogs. You had a lot of credits every year, moving from project to project. As a performer, when did it click that this was a role you could stay with for a while and really marinate in?

Devery Jacobs: I have kept myself busy and worked my way up and have gotten a lot of experience, but I’d never experienced a show or character like this before, in the sense of exactly like you said—either being in guest-spot roles where it’s a little bit quicker or even being the only queer or Native person on set oftentimes. Whereas here, there’s an ease in getting to tell the story because everybody just gets it. There’s such a shorthand between our communities that we are able to really bridge that and get on the same page. Obviously, when you first come to a project, you’re still finding the character and you’re still figuring them out. But then when you come back for season three, everybody knows exactly where this character is sitting, exactly where you left her. We’re able to deepen things a lot more quickly. I’ve never had a chance to sit with a character this long before—and who knows if I’ll ever be able to again? And that’s kind of how I treat everything in Res Dogs. We’re just going to throw spaghetti at the wall and do our things so that we satisfy ourselves and tell the stories that we want to tell. The fact that we’re back for season three, it feels like permission to play.

To your point of not getting to have that experience before, I would imagine it’s a different kind of muscle to work as an actor. As you’ve gotten deeper into Res Dogs, have you shown yourself what you’re capable of in a different kind of way?

I think so. In each of the seasons, getting to branch out and dive even more deeply into Elora’s mind were really the moments where I felt I was challenged, but that excited me as an actor. I feel like, with each season, it’s only deepening. Getting to play with this character, it’s less forceful and it’s a little more exploratory. Because we know them so thoroughly, I can walk through the world as Elora and see what arises, as opposed to trying to force anything.

This is the kind of show where stuff happens and you kind of roll with it. That’s how it is for a viewer too.

I know not everybody is a huge fan of the open-endedness of it. A lot of shows are very clearly about, like, Oh, they have to achieve this task. And then once they do, then the show is done. But our show isn’t like that. For me, that just feels more reminiscent of life and experiences.

One thing I love about the show, and I think it’s reflected both in what the show is and the making of it, is the connection between art and community. You have a groundbreaking writers room and an incredible array of talent behind the camera with this show. As someone who went behind the camera more in season two, how did you experience that part of the show informing what you’re doing onscreen—being part of this kind of artistic community, and then telling a story about community?

When the show first came out, and even in the second season, I remember asking some of my friends and peers in the industry, “People are saying this is groundbreaking, but is this really that different from anything we’ve seen before?” Because for me, it almost felt invisible. I grew up on my res surrounded by my culture. So this felt normal. It felt like what I had seen before. And then people were like, “No, we haven’t seen this before. We haven’t seen anything like this.” As soon as there’s that familiar feeling of home in the creation of Res Dogs, as soon as there’s that feeling of the experiences we each had growing up in our communities, that’s kind of the guiding force behind Res Dogs, when it feels invisible, when we are not even noticing, but we’re just so attuned to our own experiences. When white viewers and white people aren’t even part of the conversation—when we are having our own experiences and our own feelings outside of them—that feels like when we’re in the pocket of portraying our experiences in our communities.

We’re only one show, and this is through the lens of [cocreator] Sterlin [Harjo], who’s a Muscogee and Seminole filmmaker, whereas we all come from different tribes and nations across Turtle Island. The idea of us representing this community feels a little all-encompassing when this is a story based on experiences we’ve each had, based on our connections to our communities. But at the end of the day, we’re about one story and one of the few who’ve been let through this door that we’re trying to keep open and get as many cousins and people through as we can while we’re here.

As someone who’s been acting for a few years now, you’re more experienced than your fellow cast members, at least in the industry. Does that help with perspective?

I definitely feel like a big sister of the group. Elora is kind of a big sister to all of them, but me-as-Devery is very much a big sister to each of my costars. I feel like I’m always giving them unsolicited advice: “Here are the names of accountants and here the names of entertainment lawyers,” and making sure that they have the support that they need that I so desperately wish I could have had coming up. But there aren’t many people in the industry who are Indigenous and queer, let alone from either of those communities that have gone through this experience. And so it is a lot of trial by fire and has been a lot of having to learn the hard way and go through it myself. In the success of uplifting Indigenous kids from communities into the industry, there also has to be the component of the business side of things. It’s also giving people the knowledge and tools on how to sustain that and how to make sure that we are able to continue this for careers, because that’s definitely not something that we’ve been taught growing up.

Right. You’ve talked about feeling ready to leave the industry before Res Dogs came along. Making the show has been an emotional experience for all of you. Can you take me into a particularly emotional episode, like the season two finale? What’s it like to play that?

It was a release in a different way—in the sense that we had just gone through a season that was pretty relentless, where filming in Oklahoma is no joke. We shoot in the middle of tornado season and we’re battling elements, we’re battling weather; our shoot’s primarily outside. It’s a really quick schedule. For one of the shoot days, we had 21 scenes in one day. So it was a tiring season, but one that there was so much release for, and we had been building this idea of grief and this idea of the pain associated with Daniel for so long that getting to be there and getting to be there with him and having him jump into the ocean, even though it was fucking freezing, was a release that felt reenergizing. It helped to get reenergized because I went directly from LA, where we filmed the finale, to Georgia, where I was shooting Echo for the summer.

Let’s talk about that. Echo is quite a shift in basically every way.

Yes. [Laughs]

Res Dogs is true auteur TV, I think. And now you’re walking to a pretty big operation.

Totally. I always thought that Res Dogs is like indie-film TV.

You did win at the Spirit Awards.

Yeah, it felt fitting. If there were to be any television show that has that spirit of indie films, it’s that one. But yeah, then I moved on to the MCU, which was unlike anything I’d seen before. It was bougie, it was really bougie. [Laughs] It was so cool just to be able to walk on set and to see so many newcomer Indigenous voices, people like Alaqua Cox, who is deaf and Indigenous, playing Maya Lopez. And then also to see icons who I’ve idolized forever, people like Tantoo Cardinal, people like Graham Greene, on a set like Echo, on a set in the MCU—to be on this bougie set was one of those pinch-me moments that I never knew if I would see in my lifetime. I love Marvel movies. And it feels like they’re a measure of success and recognition in society. I remember watching Black Panther and crying in the theater, just being so moved by seeing Black superheroes onscreen. And the same for Shang-Chi, going to the movies and watching all of these Asian superheroes kick ass. It feels really validating. And so to be in a show like Echo and for it to be unapologetically Indigenous, unapologetically Native American—to see those elements in there was just so rewarding for the little-kid version of myself who got lost in the movies and in those Marvel projects.

You mentioned it feeling bougier. What felt materially different?

Everything was bougier! The types of cameras, I’d never worked with cranes before, like in that way of the camera movements. Getting to see two Indigenous women at the helm, Sydney Freeland and Catriona McKenzie, who were directing and operating the whole thing. The trailers were nice. It was also a lot of work. We were shooting in the Atlanta summer heat, which was real time. We were all diligently learning ASL for Alaqua so we could sign with her. I’m still learning. [Signs] Still practicing. But it was incredibly rewarding work that I’m so proud of.

When Res Dogs won at the Spirit Awards last year, you all took the stage in this very moving moment. You’re in the same room as a bunch of Oscar contenders—what has navigating those kinds of spaces been like for all of you?

It’s wild. It feels like, How the hell did we get invited? How are we here? Even now, it kind of feels like we’re strangely siloed in the industry, where when we go to these events and everyone knows each other and everybody’s been working together forever, and here—we’re not necessarily rookies because we’ve all been working for decades. Like Sterlin, all of the writers and producers and directors, myself, we’ve been working for a literal decade, so we’re not newcomers, but we’re newcomers to this space. That’s been trippy. When I go to those spaces and I see different communities and how they’ve built whole industries—when I look at the Black community or I look at the Asian American community and how there’s familiarity within them and it’s growing—I look forward to the day when we’re not the only table of Native creatives in these spaces. It’s incredible to be in those rooms with people I’ve idolized forever. And it still feels a little isolating at the same time.

You all are in production amid the WGA strike. As a writer on staff, how are you navigating that?

In the writers room, we’ve known of this impending strike and have very much been in favor of it. I voted yes. Because we knew it was coming, we made sure that our scripts were ready so that we could finish the season and see it through. The production writers, Tazbah Chavez and Migizi Pensoneau, just worked day and night making sure that the scripts were handed in on time. There’s a few surprising things in the season that I think audiences will be really moved by and will be really surprised by. But now that the strike’s done, this is it. There’s no going in and changing the scripts and adjusting them. We’re following through on what’s on the page.

What are you excited to do as Elora this coming season? What’s feeling fresh?

It’s just the mindset for Elora. She’s let go of this really heavy thing. And now she’s looking towards what’s next in her life. What’s the next chapter? She’s being a support system to a lot of the people around her, whereas I think she was the person who needed a lot of support in previous seasons but might not have known to reach out for it. There’s also just shenanigans that feel like quintessentially Res Dogs. I was like, Fuck yeah! That was such a Res Dogs moment.”

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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