In 2012, Stevie Nande moved from Fort Liard to Ottawa in hopes of becoming an actor. A little over a decade later, it’s safe to say he has achieved his goal, having landed a role on the hit Netflix series Avatar: The Last Airbender.
“Even right now, it still feels like a dream to me,” Nande, 32, said from Vancouver, where he moved after completing the theatre arts program at Ottawa’s Algonquin College.
“It’s super surreal. I never thought I would be in Netflix’s number one show worldwide.”
Nande appears on the final episode of the series, which is based on a popular Nickelodeon anime series of the same name, and has ranked among the most popular shows on Netflix since it arrived on the streaming platform.
He plays the father of a young boy, and filmed his scene with Indigenous American actress Amber Midthunder, whose resume includes the lead role in Prey, the fifth instalment of the Predator film franchise.
“[Working with Midthunder] was one of the coolest things,” he said, adding that he “learned a lot” from his colleagues.
“Working with the other actors, I saw how committed they were to their roles, and they just made me want to be even more committed to future roles.
“I learned a lot about being on set with the crew too, because it’s so technical. I learned how actors would move on set for editing purposes. That was one of the biggest things, just learning how to work with the crew in technical aspects.”
Appearing in Avatar has been the biggest moment of Nande’s career to date, but from the sounds of it, the Fort Liard-born actor is just getting started. He has already landed several more auditions since his Netflix debut.
“[Avatar] gave me more exposure,” he said. “I auditioned for three big TV shows. I can’t really say which ones, but they approached me and they asked for audition tape requests. I did that, and then I sat down with them and, right now, I’m just doing the whole waiting game.”
While Nande’s career seems to be taking off, he admits it hasn’t always been easy. He called the film and television industry “super competitive,” and remarked that good opportunities can be very difficult to find, particularly for people from small communities like Fort Liard.
However, he also believes the North is full of talent that is waiting to be discovered, and noted that several of the costumes used on Avatar were designed by Indigenous NWT artists Agnes Firth, Christina King and Donna Wolki.
“I’m hoping that there’s more talent that can come from the North,” he said. “There were even some artists from the North that did costumes for Avatar. It just shows how much talent there is in the Northwest Territories. There’s so much talent there, and I’m just waiting for that one kid out there to make it into this industry as well.”
Nande said inspiring the next generation of NWT actors is one of his “biggest motivations” at the moment – even as he takes his own career to the next level.
He encouraged anyone looking to follow in his footsteps to “keep going.”
“Whatever it is you see yourself doing in the future, don’t give up on it,” he said. “I didn’t have many role models in the acting industry that I could look up to, so I had to believe in myself and believe that I could do it.
“Just believe in yourself because there’s a lot of people out there that believe in you too.”