How Tantoo Cardinal Got Ready for the 2024 SAG Awards

The first time Tantoo Cardinal had the opportunity to walk a red carpet, she didn't take it. It was in Lac La Biche, Alberta, Canada, she recalls, where they filmed Loyalties. "The community was so beautiful," she says. "They really wanted to honor us, and they laid out the red carpet, and I was just too shy. I couldn't do it. I found a side door to go in, rather than walk down the red carpet, which I regret. I should have just taken it—but I wasn't able to at the time. I felt too strange, and it felt too weird. I felt like it was an honor for other people; I didn't feel like I could boldly walk down the red carpet like it belonged to me."

Decades later, Cardinal has been able to claim that space—and this year, she's been on many, many red carpets in support of Killers of the Flower Moon. Time, she tells Town & Country, taught her the boldness.

At the 30th annual Screen Actors Guild awards this weekend, Cardinal made a statement on the carpet in custom Gucci and a dazzling Naawikwegiizgig hat. At the show, she was nominated for outstanding cast with the Killers of the Flower Moon crew—Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brendan Fraser, John Lithgow, and Jesse Plemons. Cardinal, 73, who plays Lizzie Q, Mollie Burkhart's mother, in the film, holds her own.

"In Killers, I don't have a great big role," she says. "I'm in there in a different way—it's not a major role, and many of my roles are like that, but I know they mean something to people, because I've had the opportunity to have conversations, and meet people in communities and get a feel for how my work has felt to them, how it's impacted their lives. And so I honored them. And that's made [awards season] a lot easier." Here, Cardinal takes T&C behind the scenes of getting ready for 2024 SAG Awards.

Spotlighting Indigenous designers is very important to Cardinal. "Our clothing got taken away from us," she says. "Everything got taken away from us: our names, our families, our community, our land, our way of life, our language, our knowledge keepers. We were outlawed. For me, every moment [is about] bringing things back."

She adds, "When I went to Cannes, I was the only one on that carpet [wearing] an Indian designer. She really gave it heart. Our designs are so unique; our designers, they're connected to the culture and, and who we are. It's been such a long haul getting to where we are now."

Cardinal has been waiting for an opportunity to wear her medicine hat, which she purchased in 2019. "I've been waiting for some place where it could seen," she says. "It really means well. It reverberates a history, but it's very contemporary and bright. It's overt without being bossy about it."

Wearing it to the SAG Awards, she says, was the perfect "opportunity for the artist's work to be seen."

Cardinal loves working with Darrell Redleaf (pictured here), a Lakota/Hidatsa hair and makeup artist. "They know the events, they know this territory, and they've been here for so many years. They know the looks that are appropriate for whatever the event is," she says. "I'm learning a lot from them."

"Thank you Martin Katz! It was a great opportunity to shine and to be glistening in some kind of value."

"It's a moment in time to be doing all these red carpets and getting all done up," Cardinal says. "That whole world... it's just fun and interesting to be on the inside of it."

"I always see my Indigenous world as a place of my medicine—where my soul and spirit and everything feels strong and feels good. It's nice to be able to have [the medicine hat] on my head, and go through the night like that."

As Cardinal wraps up her press tour for Killers of the Flower Moon, she is reflecting back on her last blockbuster film, Dances with Wolves. "That was was opportunity where [Indigenous peoples] were presented as human beings," she says. "So much of Hollywood, up until that point, presented us as savages and hoodlums and trouble. It was a good bouncing off place, to have that dialogue."

In 2024, Cardinal sees a reemergence of Indigenous history and culture. "There's a rallying saying 'We've been away too long. We're coming out,'" she says. "We've had colonialism and genocide and femicide and all of these blankets have been covering us. This is the time when we're coming back. We're taking the blankets off."

"I don't think anyone could complain about the evening," Cardinal says of the 2024 SAG Awards. "Being there in that space—and Barbra Streisand [getting] that lifetime achievement [award]! It was just crazy." She adds, "SAG really belongs to the actors. We've all come through a rough spot, and people were feeling pretty good in the night."

Pictured here Tatanka Means, who features in the film.

Styled by Linda Medvene
Hair/makeup by Darrell Redleaf at AIM Artists
Suit: Custom Gucci
Shoes: Zvelle
Jewelry: Martin Katz
Hat: Custom Naawikwegiizhig by artist Adam Avery

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