Kali Reis hits hard. Thatâs true whether sheâs co-starring opposite Jodie Foster in the fourth season of HBOâs âTrue Detectiveâ as a troubled state trooper investigating a mysterious mass murder just as Alaska has entered its darkest time of the year, or as a pro boxer with 19 wins and two weight-class world championships to her credit. She also contains multitudes, with Cape Verdean ancestry and as a member of the Seaconke Wampanoag tribe whose husband is Jewish and Sicilian. (During holidays, she quips, âWe have seven fishes, the dreidels and lots of candles.â)
Reis got on Zoom with The Envelope to talk about light in the darkness, Indigenous stories and taking on the bullies of the world.
As a Rhode Island native you know about New England winters, but were you prepared for the bitterness of Iceland and Alaska, where âTrue Detective: Night Countryâ was filmed?
I know what itâs like to go through brutal cold. So that helped me prepare, but it was still freezing. Iceland hits different with the wind. I love heated socks now. We are set in Alaska, and I absolutely look up to and love the Indigenous people whoâve lived there for centuries. Theyâre real badasses, the way they survive.
How much of the appeal of your role as Evangeline Navarro was the ability to lean into playing an Indigenous character?
Iâm not Iñupiat, so this was a chance for me to go outside my own community. This was a chance for me to learn. I donât speak for all Indigenous people â especially being somebody of mixed race. But it was an opportunity to do it the right way.
Whatâs bothered you in the past about other portrayals of Indigenous culture and life that youâve seen?
The whole cowboys and Indians, the savages â itâs beyond the film industry. The portrayals piss me off â the one-dimensional look where a Native person is always the same â drug addict, alcoholic, beat-up woman. We are funny, have everyday lives, weâre trying to fight for our culture, our lands, our people â and still live in 2024. Weâre not in the 1500s or 1600s, weâre here, and we still go through generational trauma. Native people are hilarious. We love to tell stories. We donât shut up. Weâre long-winded. Thatâs the type of things I want to see now.
And how do you feel this seasonâs showrunner, Issa LĂłpez, handled all that?
She did a really good job, including seeing whatâs practical and that thereâs a reason for how we think and what we believe. I always say, âThe land does not belong to us, we belong to it, and the people of those Indigenous lands know what it needs.â
Youâre reasonably new to acting, so what did you learn from working with veteran Jodie Foster?
I hadnât even realized that a lot of my top movies featured her. The closer it came to me going to Iceland, the more nervous I got. But it was amazing working with her. I learned a lot. Sheâs hilarious. Youâll hear her say, âThis is really Navarroâs story. I want to support that.â
What did you pick up from watching her?
Donât take things so seriously. She takes her work very serious, sheâs very serious about her prep. But once you get there, and I know this from boxing, itâs like, âLetâs see what we can do.â Iâm a Virgo and I try to make everything so competitive. But with her I [learned to be] like, âYo, just chill, man.â
Youâve been a star in the boxing ring. Why give acting a try?
Iâve always been interested in performing creatively. I would ransack my momâs closet and come up with these characters. I needed a break from boxing for health reasons. When I was around 22, I went through menopause, and then 10 years later things woke back up again, so I was dealing with the aftermath of that. The entire year of 2021, when I was training for those last two fights, I was losing too much weight too fast, things were not [the right] hormone levels. My body was like, âHave a seat.â Things have ironed out now.
So youâre not retired from boxing?
You donât know how to retire. I havenât officially hung [my gloves] up. Acting has taken the front seat, and itâs something that has more longevity than combat sports. There are one or two fights Iâd come up out of my chair for.
I got punched in the face once as a kid and that was one time more than I ever wanted. So why did you go into a sport where you get punched a lot?
I used to fight in the street as a kid. Iâd try to fight the bully who was bullying kids. I didnât like that. Getting punched is as dumb as it sounds â but it doesnât hurt. Itâs more like the art of it. Itâs like thinking on your toes. Itâs not fun to get punched in the face â but itâs a lot of fun to be able to dance and create that whole story.