Tiger Lily Actress Alyssa Wapanatâhk Says 'Peter Pan & Wendy' Finally Does The Character Right
Tiger Lily rides a horse, fights pirates, speaks Cree and saves the day in the new Peter Pan & Wendy film on Disney+, and for Canadian actress Alyssa Wapanatâhk, that means everything.
The 25-year-old from Bigstone Cree First Nation makes her feature-film debut as Tiger Lily in the new flick, and she's well aware of the baggage that has plagued her Indigenous character in the past.
Wapanatâhk says the 1953 version of Peter Pan is the one she grew up with as a child in Alberta, and she can only imagine what it would've been like to see this version of Tiger Lily — and herself — when she was young.
"I think it would have given five-year-old Alyssa a huge boost of confidence," she said. "I think it would have given something to look up to, and something to look forward to, even to see yourself up there on the screen. To be celebrated — that would have been everything for me at five years old."
She added that the whole experience has been "the biggest dream I could have asked for," especially since Tiger Lily speaks Cree, just as those in her community do.
"I don't speak it fluently myself, but my parents and all the older generations in my family do," she said. "I would just call them all the time on set and be like, 'Hey, am I saying this right?' I don't want to let anybody down!"
Peter Pan & Wendy Q&A with 'Tiger Lily.'Narcity | Youtube
Tiger Lily was depicted as a princess in distress in Disney's 1953 Peter Pan animated film, which included songs widely seen as racist toward Indigenous peoples. Disney has since added a warning about offensive depictions in the movie, while attempting to set things on a better path in this latest version of the J.M. Barry tale.
Wapanatâhk says she knew that Disney would do the character justice when she saw the Peter Pan & Wendy audition scenes, and she got even more excited after they cast her and gave her the full script.
"I was like, 'I can't believe this is real,'" she said. "This needs to be done right."
Not only was she thrilled with the result, but she was moved to tears when she saw the set for Tiger Lily's village, which was shot on Sts'ailes Nation land in British Columbia.
Wapanatâhk says the Sts'ailes tribe performed a dance before the shoot and her mosom, who is an elder from her community, also led a ceremony for everyone on hand.
"A lot of people don't really know about Native people and what we had to go through to get to this point. And so I wanted him to come and just give everybody a little bit of a message, and a prayer to take care of the film in the best way possible," she said.
"That day that we filmed at Tiger Lily's camp was the best day ever. There were so many tears, and you kind of just felt it... it's one of those moments where you don't want it to end."
Peter Pan & Wendy stars Alexander Molony as Peter, Ever Anderson as Wendy, Jude Law as Captain Hook, Yara Shahidi as Tinkerbell and Wapanatâhk as Tiger Lily.
You can stream it on Disney+ beginning April 28.
A table showing the findings from St. Bernard's Mission residential school in Grouard, Alberta.