cool um well hi Lily my name is Claire Peterson I'm with kpx which is a TV station in Missoula Montana I don't know if you remember from your days over here um I never had cable TV or like TV when I lived there but I do remember kacks okay well I'll take that as a compliment that's good um cool well we can just get right into it if you don't have any questions for me um I'm sure you've gotten a lot of these today um but yeah so I was just kind of curious um you know growing up in in you know rur
al Montana and uh Browning in the black feet Indian reservation and everything like that you know having this big Spotlight on you now what does it mean for to you to be able to kind of shine use that Spotlight to shine a light on Browning and you know Northern Montana and these rural communities and things like that I mean having this moment it's a lot for one person to hold it's a lot of history it's a lot of representation it's you know it's a lot that this film is saying and I just always th
ink back to just when I was doing my first plays Missoula Children's Theater rolling through with the little the little red truck and giving you know my my goofy little self this Outlet um just this pent up Creative Energy had an outlet and how um how immediately my community identified that and embraced it and would tell my parents you know my parents encouraged me so much the first time they saw me do Cinderella I was playing one of the evil stepsisters but I walked out on stage and we watchin
g the video Everybody cracked up because you know my hair is all crazy and I've got this this nuts clown looking suit and makeup on but um just how my parents said they looked at each other then and like is that our kid it's like they they didn't recognize me they said I dis appeared into that and I felt that you know and the way that everybody kept saying back then oh we're going to see her in Hollywood someday like I think a lot of small town Montana kids who are creative know what that feels
like it's like your community just roots for you and um when you're good at something there's a lot of Pride that's taken in you and then particularly where I come from it's like just embedded in US culturally when kids are good at something you just encourage that because it benefits every body so yeah it's um any Spotlight that I'm holding I'm not just one person we're all many people we're all the community that we come from and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that early early childhood s
upport and you know people just really really encouraging me along this path I probably would have given up on it a long time ago yeah definitely I love the moods of the children's Cedar love love love everybody there is just always so awesome um and you know speaking of you know the Miss theater and just like kids in U Montana who are kind of trying to follow in your footsteps I loved hearing how you kind of made time to speak to students at the University of Montana with your B busy schedule t
his year um and you worked as a educator with the Roxy you know theater Academy and all that what is like teaching Montana kids kind of what you've learned what does that mean to and why is it important so important that you've kind of built it into your schedule I suppose because it's um it built me you know it's always built into my schedule because that's where it started like I know what it is to grow up in you know a rural community and I know every rural community in Montana has different
like relationships like like this and I know reservations especially feel it it's um if there's any kind of semblance of an arts program it's because somebody has taken the initiative to put it there and to you know moving to Seattle when I was in Middle School and going to middle school and high school there it was amazing to me how just handed uh everybody was like the the Arts education the access to an entire instrument room where you could just check one out from the instrument library or y
ou know just the the wealth discrep or disparity where it was just there was access in this little suburban school that I would go to and I just remember being so blown away by that because of how tooth and nail you have to you have to fight for it when um it's just not it's just not there in the curriculum so to be I just remember how much it meant to me when MCT would come through and you know taking up some of these opportunities to do media storytelling workshops and um you know film Mak cam
ps with kids theater camps with kids in rural Montana locations it's like I know in every single one of those classes there's a little me somewhere yeah definitely um and and then also you know just your time at um you kind of talked about how they taught you behind the scenes and in front of the scenes things and and you kind of made you a well-rounded um actress um can you talk a little bit more about that in the unique kind of education EXP experience that was able to provide you and and how
that kind of has helped your success yeah absolutely I mean I chose um going to an East Coast school I was of course like any any theater kid you know had juliard in my mind had NYU the Tish School in my mind um every one of these programs was so outstanding because of this Conservatory approach that they took so when I did but I was also so just in my bones lonely for Montana been in the city long enough so I came back you know it ended up being that after one campus visit to um seeing what the
theater program was there but it did take on this really well-rounded full Conservatory approach for the actor but then also built into the curriculum you know it's like you learn how to hang lights you learn how to do wardrobe you learn how to do your own makeup um you learn writing directing all of those things made me a better actor because you know kind of like being a member of any Community you're a part of a whole something that's making something happen and the more respect you have for
the job that other people have the more knowledge you have about it um you just kind of understand you understand how to be a part how to be uh you know a player in a much bigger um Circle and media arts was the same way when I was there it was a fledgling program it was the first class going through media arts at um but pretty early on I was ENT identified by um media arts as being a camera friendly actor so I was doing a lot of that there and when I left um I felt miles ahead of where I proba
bly would have been if I'd come out of like the Tish School and had gone right into the New York acting Circle because I left school with a full reel um a lot of actors when they moved to New York or Los Angeles or whatever like spend years just getting enough roles together to have a reel to show what they can do I graduated with that so I found literally everything that I wanted in an arts program at um it was at home and I could also double major at the time you know minor in Native American
studies at the time in 2004 it was the only Standalone Native American studies program in the country and that was really important to me too and um yeah it kind of sealed it when Davidson Honors College accepted me as well and just felt like exactly the right place and turns out it was and um that's one thing I definitely want to also highlight is a lot of the people who graduated from our class who moved to New York and La um found a lot more momentum in their careers when they decided to move
back to Montana there's you know everything is everywhere I think when you have the hometown Advantage it really does help um if you can be where you're known where you're familiar and where you want to build something like building the film community and the theater community in Montana was a very very fulfilling thing through my 20s you know it's um I found a lot of purpose doing that and then it just so happened the right production rolled through the state one day that just kind of set me o
n the trajectory that I'm on now so you don't need to leave home like truly Hollywood is everywhere but La now um You can if if you have a passion for it you just find a way to do it and there's absolute Ely you know Montas know how to make it happen if they want to do it yeah definitely yeah I'm glad that you kind of have those Hometown routes still that's awesome um cool is there anything else you feel like you want to say about Montana I know we have you kind of have to go to your next thing
but um yeah yeah just say hello to my res say hello to all my friends I'm repping some Montana native designers got Elias Not Afraid and got Roose roses oh awesome just I I miss it very much I can't wait to come back soon yeah definitely yeah I hope you get to come come home soon get a little bit of a break probably late late at the end of next month I should be popping around a little bit okay there you go awesome well thank you so nice to meet you and I appreciate you making the time um I hope
that your the rest of your day goes pretty smoothly and not too tiring or anything so talk to you Claire thank you yeah nice to meet you all right bye
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