The actor and director of Corner Gas fame talks with U of A student Norma Dunning, '12 BA, about why northern humour is nothing to laugh at

I've studied a lot of native history, and native history in our country is really nothing to be laughed at. But when I'm in a room with native students, we sure laugh a lot. What makes native people be filled up with so much laughter?

It's just our different outlook, our upbringing. We're not so caught up in the materialistic, capitalistic, European world. We come from a different background altogether that used to and still does have a connection with everything all around it. That's important.

Even when I was a kid, I remember sitting around all of my aunties and uncles and hearing them speaking in Cree and just laughing, laughing, laughing. Then there'd be a real serious moment, and after that someone would say something funny to alleviate the tension.

When we were kids, if we were in a bad way, my mom would say, "There's no sweat in the Arctic." Then, whatever your problem was, it just diminished. Do you think our laughter remains generational?

Yes, it's one of the things that's being passed down. It's the same with our people still living the traditional ways and doing the ceremonies and singing the songs that will keep us strong, that have worked for us for thousands of years.

At the university there are always elders available, and often students will go in a smudge [a traditional First Nations method of using smoke from burning herbs to purify a space]. It's really beautiful to have that on campus. Did they have that on campus when you were here?

It was available, and we did have a native centre, but there weren't a lot of us. There were maybe 14 of us in the whole university.

You would have stood out a little then, eh, Lorne?

Yeah, I was the only native guy in the whole BFA program.

How did you handle that when the eyes turned toward you? I know in class, if I say I'm a "beneficiary of Nunavut," someone is going to say, "You're the whitest Eskimo I've ever seen." And I just laugh and think, "Well, you haven't seen a lot of us."

When we were growing up, my brother [U of A PhD student Lewis Cardinal] and I, we went to all non-native schools. My dad made sure we went to all-white schools. So, I went through that a lot: when anything native came up I felt the whole class turn and look at me like I'm supposed to give a nod of approval or disapproval. But slowly things are changing.

In the BFA program, it was very challenging. I learned the technique of European theatre, European and American playwrights, and none of them of any colour. It was very tough. But every summer I'd go treeplanting*, living in a tent for three months and just enjoying being outside among the cedar trees. That gave me time to pause and reflect and absorb stuff.

You said you studied mainly European acting techniques. Was it challenging, then, to reimagine a very European play like King Lear for an all-aboriginal production, the way you did at the National Arts Centre this summer?

The biggest challenge with doing the Learproject was because we set Lear in early 17th-century Canada, in Algonquin Territory. I got to assistant direct, as well, and the thing I got to help with was working on our script: where to take words out like "knight" and "castle" and find other words that would reflect where we were. The challenge was to get rid of those images that were so ingrained in my mind and think of canoes and wigwams and forests.

The people who did the best work, who made it look so easy and flawless, were people who didn't have any Shakespeare training. So they just picked up on the rhythm of the language and adapted it to themselves. It was like a dance hearing them fling out Shakespeare in Cree accents, hearing Tantoo Cardinal and Billy Merasty just tear up the dance floor with Shakespeare language. It was fantastic. We did a lot of laughing then, too.

When you started out, were you stereotyped?

Yeah, I always saw myself as Richard III. That's who I wanted to play. Once I graduated university, I was telling an actor friend of mine what I wanted to do and play all the main parts, and he just smiled and said, "Well, it's not going to happen. You're going to be pigeon-holed and stereotyped. You're going to play a lot of leather and feathers." And he was right.

I've lost some roles because some producer or director didn't think I looked native enough, so it just tells you that the producers and directors are still dictating what "native" is. But we're getting more filmmakers and directors and writers out there telling our stories.

Was there ever a time, when you were trying to get roles, that humour saved you?

I did one show right after university, a big production down in Denver called Black Elk Speaks, and it was 26 native actors and musicians telling the American story of Columbus all the way to Wounded Knee in 1890. It was 23 different nations telling their stories, and it all ended in massacre, massacre, massacre.

We had one person of every nation represented in that cast, so at some point we'd look over and see a cast member sobbing, and we'd find out that the person had relatives at that massacre. Then we'd say our prayers and leave our grief and somebody would tell a joke at some point to get our energy up and get our focus back. We did a heck of a lot of laughing during those rehearsals.

What's the biggest difference between northern and southern humour?

Southern humour's not so sexy. If you can't make an innuendo out of something, then you're not doing it right.

*Correction: The print edition of this story contained an error. It originally stated that Cardinal had gone treeplanting "with my dad."