'The uncle that all of us looked up to': Members of local film, TV industry remember Graham Greene

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Oscar-nominated Canadian First Nations actor Graham Greene is being remembered by his friends in the Alberta film industry as a pioneer who blazed a trail in film and television for generations of Indigenous performers.

Greene, who died Monday at the age of 73, was a busy character actor who excelled in both comedy and drama during his decades on screen. While not from Alberta, he participated in a number of film and TV projects here, including the first season of HBO’s The Last of Us. Calgary’s Michelle Thrush, who worked with the actor on a number of projects starting in the 1990s, says his impact as an Indigenous actor cannot be overstated.

“As Indigenous artists, our veterans in this industry — including Graham, Gary Farmer, August Schellenberg, Gordon Tootoosis, Tantoo (Cardinal), Chief Dan George — those are the ones who really kicked down the door so that our generation could come through,” Thrush says. “I was part of that generation walking through those doors. As a community, we were so grateful for the work all of them did through the years to make sure the journey was a little bit easier for us.”

Thrush first worked with Greene on the 1990s Alberta-shot drama North of 60, which was primarily shot in Bragg Creek and ran from 1992 to 1998.

She also worked with him on the 2002 crime-drama Skins, shot in South Dakota; the B.C.-shot drama Bones of Crows in 2022, the 2024 Alberta-shot drama The Birds who Fear Death and 2003’s Dreamkeeper.

Greene also appeared in Alberta-shot projects such as the 1993 television film Medicine River and the 2005 miniseries Into the West.

“He was central to the Alberta Film Industry,” I.A.T.S.E. 212, the local chapter of the film and TV union, wrote on its Facebook page.

In The Last of Us, he had a memorable and comedic turn as Marlon, a survivor of the zombie apocalypse who lived with his wife in the Wyoming wilderness.

“He was one of the first in our community to start playing human beings, instead of Indigenous roles,” Thrush says. “He really advocated to play just regular human beings that didn’t have anything to do with being Indigenous or the issues of our community. He did a lot of groundbreaking work in that.”

His other high-profile roles included 1992’s Thunderheart opposite Val Kilmer, 1995’s Die Hard with a Vengeance with Bruce Willis, 1999’s The Green Mile with Tom Hanks and the 2005 cult film Transamerica with Felicity Huffman.

But he is probably best known for playing Kicking Bird in Kevin Costner’s 1990 western epic Dances With Wolves. He received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.

“When Dances with Wolves came out, that was phenomenal watching one of our own sitting in that audience in a place that we really don’t find ourselves in,” Thrush says.

Tom Jackson said his friendship with Greene ran deep

Calgary actor, singer-songwriter and philanthropist Tom Jackson first met Greene in the late 1980s when Dances with Wolves was in post-production. They were working on the play The Book of Jessica at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto, and Greene, who had already been acting for a number of years by that point, was also building sets and later ran sound for a band Jackson was involved in.

“He was a jack of all trades and a master of them all,” Jackson says. “He was committed to this business. He found a very comfortable place and he and I became very good friends over the years. It was fantastic. My friendship with him and his wife goes very deep.”

They did more theatre together at the National Arts Centre and worked together on North of 60. They also worked on Medicine River and the series Spirit Bay in the early 1990s.

They played the lead roles in Medicine River, a film based on a novel by Thomas King. Jackson says it was the most memorable project he did with his friend.

“Hands down,” he says. “We had known each other by then for a number of years.  It’s hard to describe. All of the times I was with Graham were all memorable. We didn’t get enough time to do it as often as we would like. But show business is like that. Projects overlap. So when you’re finished one project you move onto another project and make a new family. So there aren’t necessarily very many people that you have a long-lasting relationship with.”

The two also did charity work together, which included touring the country to raise money for food banks. After the 2013 flood in Calgary, Jackson and Greene participated in the Halo High Water Flood Relief concert at the Southern Jubilee Auditorium to raise funds for the Red Cross.

“It wasn’t just art for the sake of art, Graham committed his time,” Jackson says. “If you look at Graham’s history — and you should go and see what Graham has done because you probably don’t know all of it — and you realize that’s not just a legacy, it’s a life. It’s a story to pass on.”

Jackson last saw his friend in June, when Greene was presented the 2025 Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement in Ottawa, where they spent time “hanging out and ignoring the rest of the world and laughing,” Jackson says. His sense of humour and penchant for storytelling made him popular on sets.

“Working with Graham was like a non-stop comedy show,” Thrush says. “He continuously pulled out these stories that cracked everyone up. He loved having an audience. Every lunch hour on film sets, everyone wanted to sit with Graham and hear stories about working with Val Kilmer and all the greats he worked with. He had such an ironic sense of humour.”

He also had a commanding screen presence and was equally adept at comedy and dramatic roles.

Thrush remembers filming a powerful scene with him in South Dakota for the drama Skins.

“He had to lay inside of a coffin while we were filming his death scene,” she says. “When that coffin opened he was just standing there and just held me and cried. It’s really hard for an actor to do that, to face your own demise. He was just a vulnerable, kind human being. He also had his very grumpy days. He could be very grumpy, too, but we all knew that. He was the uncle that all of us looked up to.”

evolmers@postmedia.com