On top of the second season of North of North, actress Anna Lambe appears in two major Hollywood films scheduled for release in the next months.May Truong/The Globe and Mail
Each month, generations reporter Ann Hui takes readers along to hang out with fascinating Canadians – regular people and celebrities, teens to seniors – joining them in their favourite pastime for up-close and candid conversations.
Standing under a bridge by the Don River in Toronto, a photographer is aiming her lens at Anna Lambe, when the 25-year-old actress does something unusual.
She picks up a camera of her own and aims the lens back at the photographer. She presses the shutter. Click.
“I was just thinking,” she said, “‘I want to remember this moment.’”
And no wonder. Lambe has already achieved what many would consider huge success for a Canadian actress. But in this moment, standing under the bridge, she’s poised to see her career catapult into another stratosphere entirely.
Growing up in Iqaluit, population: 7,400, Ms. Lambe’s career goals were firmly grounded in the North. Her mother’s family had roots in Grise Fiord – the northernmost community in Canada created out of the forced relocation of Inuit families in the 1950s.May Truong/The Globe and Mail
She appears in not one but two major Hollywood films scheduled for release in the next months: there’s Heart of the Beast, where she stars with Brad Pitt, and Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning, alongside Jeremy Allen White. On top of that comes the season premiere of season two of North of North, the CBC comedy in which she plays series lead, Siaja.
Not bad for an Inuk kid growing up in one of Canada’s most remote, northernmost communities.
“This,” she said, gesturing around her – at the setup for this photoshoot, at the Toronto skyline behind her – “was far too big a dream.”
Growing up in Iqaluit, population: 7,400, Lambe’s career goals were firmly grounded in the North. Her mother’s family had roots in Grise Fiord – the northernmost community in Canada created out of the forced relocation of Inuit families in the 1950s.
That’s where she spent her first few years, before the family moved to Iqaluit. Her mom was a flight attendant and her dad an RCMP officer.
She feels fortunate to have grown up in Iqaluit. There were challenges, of course. Suicide, addiction and tragedy were a part of everyday life.
“There’s so much trauma, and no degree of separation,” she said. “All of that is a very real part of growing up there.”
But it taught her empathy. “It’s about how we come together as a community,” she said. “How people support another going through difficult times.”
Ms. Lambe aspired as a child to attend university, then work for the Inuit Circumpolar Council, a multinational NGO.May Truong/The Globe and Mail
Her goal, as a kid, was to attend university, and then work for the Inuit Circumpolar Council, an NGO that supports Inuit communities around the world. She wanted to work on the housing crisis, which she saw as connected to so many other social challenges around her.
But in high school, life took an unexpected turn. Her drama teacher saw a posting about a small indie film shooting in the area and looking for Indigenous actresses. She suggested Lambe try out. That became The Grizzlies, a 2018 film about teen suicide in Nunavut that debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival.
From there, there was Trickster, the CBC series based on the Eden Robinson novel, in which she played Sarah. And in 2024, she played Kayla in the fourth season of True Detective.
She kept up her schooling throughout, studying international development at the University of Ottawa, where she’s based in now. But over the past year – with her busy work schedule, and much to her father’s dismay – she’s had to put a pause on her studies.
Even with her career appearing poised to take off, she’s trying to manage her own expectations.
“I try not to think too far ahead of anything,” she said. “I’ve been trying to practise being present, and allowing life to happen with the belief it’s happening as it’s supposed to.”
She’d chosen Toronto’s recently opened Biidaasige Park for this rare break in her schedule. Biidaasige, Anishinaabemowin for “sunlight shining toward us,” was built by the city in collaboration with Indigenous leaders, with Indigenous design and values in mind.
“My identity, my culture, it informs everything that I do,” she said. In a country where, only decades ago, entire systems were set up to eradicate the culture of Indigenous Peoples, she said, “my existence is inherently political.”
And even within Indigenous communities, she tries to think deeply about her identity, and is careful about how she shares her spotlight. She understands that relative to many others in her community, she’s privileged – being half-white, speaking English with no identifiable accent, and having grown up in a stable, two-parent household.
As an introvert, Ms. Lambe has had to find techniques to overcome her embarrassment in front of the camera. One of the methods is photography.May Truong/The Globe and Mail
“I have to really think about how I take up space in this industry, and what that means,” she said. “Am I doing enough to empower and improve other community members? Am I speaking too loudly?”
Speaking of loudly. Sitting on a bench at Biidaasige on a weekday afternoon, there’s barely anyone else around. There’s only light wind, and the low din of traffic.
Even so, Lambe’s careful, quiet voice is often hard to make out. She’s not at all an extrovert, not someone who naturally seeks attention or the spotlight.
So as an actress, she’s had to learn techniques to overcome this.
For one, she tries to remember that it’s far more embarrassing to hold back. It’s better to fully commit.
And when she’s being interviewed, or photographed, or sent to promote a film or a show, she tries to remember that each project is the collaboration of hundreds of people – not just her. That it’s their time and energy on the line too.
“I think it’s really cool to care,” she said.
“I’m sick of this rejection of caring, of trying. Sick of this nonchalant culture.”
Another solution she’s found for getting over embarrassment? She gestures at her camera, still slung around her shoulder.
It’s a hobby she took up a couple years ago. These days, she brings her film camera along with her everywhere. She’ll take pictures during breaks from shooting. She’ll go for walks in parks just like this one and take photos of everything around her.
When she’s the one taking the picture, she said, she’s not judging the people she’s photographing. “I just want to capture them as they are.”
And that’s a freeing thought on the other side of the camera.
“It’s not necessarily a reclamation, but it is a way of taking control,” she said
“It makes me feel powerful.”