Spirit Awards: Taika Waititi Presents Best Ensemble Cast Award to His ‘Reservation Dogs’ Stars

Taika Waititi took the stage at the 2022 Film Independent Spirit Awards on Sunday to present the best ensemble cast award to Reservation Dogs, a show he created with Sterlin Harjo.

Waititi presented the award to the cast that is “so deserving, very hardworking, also a cast that I hand-selected with my friend for our show…. I’m literally giving an award to myself,” Waititi said. “This is what has become of us. This is what we’re doing now…and you wonder why they all hate us. This is what we do on our Sundays: come down, sit in a tent. If you’re in a tent, you’re camping. Get over yourselves, you’re fucking camping.”

“It’s a universal story that also is a genuine reflection of their unique perspective,” Waititi added, noting that the winner had already been previously announced. “Guys, the nominees are…there are no nominees because they already fucking won, so suck it!”

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Reservation Dogs was created by Harjo and Waititi and follows four Native American teenagers growing up on a reservation in eastern Oklahoma.

“This prize is so much bigger than ourselves, just ourselves,” star Devery Jacobs said on stage. “Each of us come from different nations across Turtle Island who survived 500 years of colonization. And in the 100 years of film and TV, Reservation Dogs now marks the first project with all indigenous creatives at the helm.”

Actor D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai added: “This is an ensemble cast and there are so many reservation dogs that deserve recognition but can’t be on stage with us today…. And to our leader, our uncle, our cousin Sterlin Harjo, you created the show that all of us really needed to see growing up. You gave us a chance to laugh, to mourn, to heal and to celebrate with our communities and captured it all on screen.”

Co-star Paulina Alexis thanked all the “family and community members at home and to all our res kids…we love you, and we hope we made you proud.”

Jacobs dedicated the award to those who “came before us, working in Hollywood playing antagonists in western movies and mythic stoic and savage Indians to native creators who have to endure and break down tropes in this industry. We are here accepting this award because of you. We are walking on the very path that you fought for us and carved out for us. We hope that this can mark a new beginning. Native artists have so many stories to share. And we’re only beginning to scratch the surface.”

The show also won the best new scripted series award.

Backstage, Harjo told members of the press that it’s been the “craziest year of my life. Stressful, beautiful, very rewarding…. It’s been a whirlwind, my life’s changed and to be able to share what we share with this show has been a blessing and I think people really needed something that was hopeful and truthful during this pandemic that we’re in, and I think people really responded to the show because of it.”

He added: I think it was about just getting the opportunity to tell the story the way that we did. Taika and Garrett made that happen at FX; I was a guy off the street, there’s no reason that I would’ve even got in the lobby. But they walked me through the lobby into a room where there were executives with money and they greenlit the show and let us make the show and to FX’s credit, they also just trusted us and let us hire indigenous writers and filmmakers to tell a story and they give us the freedom to do that. I’m more proud about what’s going to come out after this because of what we proved, that they gave us the opportunities and we stepped up and we did it.”

Actor Zahn McClarnon also took the microphone to note that “it’s just a wonderful time for native representation. We waited a long time for this kind of stuff so I’m happy. Thank you Sterlin, Taika, wherever you are.”