Anna Lambe came to work. In the pistachio-coloured library at the University Club of Toronto just before Christmas, the Iqaluit-born actor gave off a quiet intensity that focused the room – intent when taking direction, self-possessed with an audience of editors, stylists and makeup artists watching her, keen to get the shot. In between setups, back in her jeans, T-shirt and slippers, she spoke about her love of buttered toast (she could – and often does – eat it every day) and travels in Northern Ireland with her partner and True Detective co-star, actor Finn Bennett.
The 25-year-old plays the lead character in North of North, the CBC, Netflix and APTN series that follows a young Inuk woman, Siaja, who feels trapped by marriage and motherhood and decides to blow up her life. In mid-January, shortly after this shoot, Lambe began production on the show’s second season in Toronto before heading back to Nunavut, where the cast will continue filming into April.
The first season of the show – Netflix’s first original Canadian series – was produced on-location in Iqaluit in what can only be described as a Herculean feat of filmmaking and collective will. With essentially no existing film infrastructure, shooting in the north is a “logistical nightmare,” Lambe says.
The earrings that Lambe’s character, Siaja, wears in North of North are a style standout for fans. Here, the laser-cut pieces are by Muskowekwan and Peepeekisis First Nations designer Alex Manitopyes.Josh Tafoya brocade jacket through joshtafoya.com; Sacrd Thndr acrylic earrings through sacrdthndr.com
The sets for the fictional town of Ice Cove were built in Toronto, then disassembled and flown to Nunavut, where they were reconstructed inside the local curling club. The production’s unprecedented scale caused the power to blow multiple times; the days were long and the temperatures hit minus-20. Lambe lived at her childhood home during the epic four-month shoot.
“We just had to give everyone and each other so much grace,” she says. “This is the first time a show of this size has been shot entirely in the north, so we’re all figuring it out for the first time.”
A striking aspect of the series, created by Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, is the degree to which it centres Inuit language and culture. Elder characters speak primarily in Inuktitut, and cultural references (bum hopping, walrus dick baseball, seal hunts) are dropped in without over-explaining for non-Indigenous audiences.
The vibrant parkas, handmade kamiks and beaded earrings by Taalrumiq, Lavinia van Heuvelen and Tammy Hannaford (sourced by costume designers Debra Hanson and Nooks Lindell) are scene stealers in their own right, bringing a sense of authenticity to a story set in a place where, as Lambe tells it, people are dressed to the nines to go to the grocery store.
One of the goals was to represent the multiplicity of Inuit experience, and like diverse Arctic communities themselves, the series is not just one thing. Though officially billed as a comedy, North of North swings from Parks and Recreation-style bits to dramatic depictions of pervasive intergenerational trauma wrought by residential schools. Like many stories set in hyper-specific worlds, with all their idiosyncrasies and flaws and beauty, the series has resonated on a universal level, named one of the best shows of 2025 by the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone.
Growing up, Lambe did not harbour big-screen dreams. She describes her upbringing as working class, with the world of film and television “so far away.” She was an apprehensive, reserved kid (she is still, by her own admission, incredibly anxious and shy), and in high school enrolled in a drama class only because she needed the credit. When she was 15, casting directors for The Grizzlies came to Iqaluit looking for Inuit teens to audition for the film, based on the real-life youth suicide crisis in Kugluktuk, Nunavut. At the urging of her drama teacher, Lambe auditioned, almost backing out at the last minute due to intense nerves, and was cast as one of the leads, Spring.
Despite a positive experience with the successful film – critics penned favourable reviews, and Lambe was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 2019 Canadian Screen Awards – she never considered that she would have a future in acting. “It was more so a feeling of, ‘well, that was interesting,’” she says.
After graduating from high school, Lambe enrolled at the University of Ottawa to study international development and globalization, with the goal of returning to Nunavut to address the increasingly urgent housing crisis.
“That’s something that I’ve always been really passionate about,” she says. “I think that’s at the core of so many issues within our communities, and if we can’t solve the housing crisis, we’re not going to be able to deal with the trauma that people are facing.”
Then, in 2018, barely into her first semester, The Grizzlies premiered at TIFF and Lambe was thrust into promoting a film that was opening up real conversations about issues facing Indigenous communities. It was then that she realized advocacy and acting could go hand in hand, and that a role could even amplify her activism work.
“Press is an opportunity to say something important, and that’s how I’ve always approached it,” Lambe says. “Even the most simple questions can be turned into something meaningful.”
That ethos extends to the actor’s personal style, with Lambe gravitating to labels like Lesley Hampton, Korina Emmerich and Victoria’s Arctic Fashion for red carpets and photo shoots.
Roles in CBC’s Trickster and Amazon Prime Video’s Three Pines followed, before the young actor hit the big time with the Jodie Foster-led series True Detective: Night Country, which debuted on HBO in 2024. It was on the heels of that buzzy, big-budget turn that Lambe first came across MacDonald and Arnaquq-Baril’s Untitled Arctic Comedy, which would become North of North.
Immediately and intuitively, she needed to be a part of it. She knew Inuit women like the protagonist, Siaja, women who always put everyone else before themselves and were expected to care for their families and serve their communities while remaining “unproblematic.”
“I just had so much fire to try and be a part of the show in any way that I could, and I was so annoying about it,” Lambe says. Throughout the four-month audition process, she offered to try out for other roles, even volunteering to join the crew or be a coffee runner.
“In real life, Anna is incredibly poised, introspective and articulate, so she had to prove to us that she could also be the delightfully messy and impulsive Siaja,” MacDonald says.
Arnaquq-Baril describes a moment during auditions when Lambe finally allowed herself to let go. “It was hilarious and everyone was laughing except for her – she actually cried. But as she was crying, she said, ‘Oh, I get it now.’” With that, she convinced them that she could do it.
As the series’ January, 2025, premiere date approached, Lambe’s greatest anxiety was not about whether people would like it (“It’s good, it’s funny, it’s incredibly well-written and the cast is great,” she says), but the possibility of having to defend her community’s humanity to those who didn’t – or were unwilling to – understand their way of life.
She anticipated criticism around hunting rights and wearing fur, which, for her, amounted to a denial of Inuit people’s basic right to a dignified life. “For a period of time, I would engage in online arguments and do panels and discussions about why we do what we do,” Lambe says. Eventually, she decided that it wasn’t worth the effort.
For many artists from underrepresented communities, there can be tension between the burden of representation and the desire to share one’s story with the widest possible audience. “There is an undercurrent of how much responsibility is on people’s shoulders to represent accurately and authentically because it hasn’t been done well for so long,” Lambe says.
But she’s optimistic about the future of Indigenous film and TV, in no small part due to the overwhelming success of North of North. “There are so many projects that have come out that are about a wide range of Indigenous communities – it’s not just a kind of pan-Indigenous identity,” she says.
In a climate where many in the entertainment industry shy away from speaking out about socio-political issues, Lambe will say what she believes. In the mould of activist actors like Jane Fonda and Tantoo Cardinal, she is thoughtful yet unapologetic in her ability to make herself heard. It helps that she is the kind of speaker you can’t help but pay attention to – quietly assured, intelligent, open.
As for North of North’s second season, slated to premiere later this year, Lambe just wants to see Siaja make good. “It’s so embarrassing, but when anything good happens to Siaja or somebody is nice to her, I cry,” she says. “It makes me so happy that this person that I think is so annoying and messy and complicated but also so genuine and well-intentioned is getting the grace that so many people deserve but are not extended [in our communities].”
We forget, she continued, how important grace is, that people make mistakes and we can’t just cast them out for trying. Coming from someone else, it might have sounded trite, but with Lambe, it’s all heart, sweat and tears.
Makeup and hair by Ronnie Tremblay for Dior/P1M.ca. Manicure by Nargis Khan for P1M.ca. Styling assistant: Raisa Berkowitz.
Photo assistants: Dalia Rahhal, Abe Roberto.
Photographed at the University Club of Toronto (uclubtoronto.com).
