Kiawentiio
Kiawentiio is an actor, born 2006.
Kiawentiio is a Mohawk actress and singer from Akwesasne, born in 2006, and she got the job the way almost nobody does: through an open casting call. Anne with an E went looking for a young Indigenous actress for its third season, which reached Canadian screens in 2019, and she was cast as Ka'kwet. It was her television debut, and the role gave her some of the heaviest material the series ever attempted.
Her film debut followed in Beans, which is not among the credits listed here. Then came Rutherford Falls as Maya Thomas, a very different register: a comedy where the humour is dry and the politics are worn lightly. Playing straight-faced comic scenes at that age, opposite adult sitcom performers, is not an obvious next move after a period drama.
Since 2024 she has been Katara in Netflix's live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender, a job that comes with a large and openly critical audience attached to an animated original many of them can quote. Whatever you make of the adaptation, the casting is the interesting part of her career so far: three roles in three formats before twenty, none of them repeating the last.
TV (3)
Where to start with Kiawentiio
Go to the third season of Anne with an E, where she arrives. The series is warmer and more political than the book adaptations that came before it, and her storyline is the hardest thing in it, played by a first-time actor with no visible strain.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is the reason most people will find this page. Come to it with realistic expectations about live-action remakes and watch her specifically: Katara is the role that has to carry the emotional load, and she plays it earnestly rather than winking at the source. Then finish with Rutherford Falls, the lightest and funniest thing she has done, and the best evidence that she can do comedy at all.