Foggy Melson | Mel Gibson and Irene Bedard Interviews on "Pocahontas" (May 8, 1995) @foggymelson | Uploaded September 2023 | Updated October 2024, 11 hours ago.
Pocahontas is a 1995 American animated musical historical drama film based on the life of Powhatan woman Pocahontas and the arrival of English colonial settlers from the Virginia Company. The film romanticizes Pocahontas' encounter with John Smith and her legendary saving of his life. The film was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 33rd Disney animated feature film and the sixth film produced and released during the Disney Renaissance.
The film was directed by Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg (in his feature directorial debut) and produced by Jim Pentecost, from a screenplay written by Philip LaZebnik, Carl Binder, and Susannah Grant. The voice cast features Irene Bedard and Mel Gibson as Pocahontas and Smith, respectively, with David Ogden Stiers, Russell Means, Christian Bale, Billy Connolly, and Linda Hunt providing other voices. The score was composed by Alan Menken, who also wrote the film's songs with lyricist Stephen Schwartz.
After making his directorial debut with The Rescuers Down Under (1990), Gabriel conceived the film during a Thanksgiving weekend. The project went into development concurrently with The Lion King (1994), and attracted most of Disney's top animators. Meanwhile, Disney studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg decided that the film should be an emotional romantic epic in the vein of Beauty and the Beast (1991), in hope that like Beauty, it would also be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Screenwriters Binder, Grant, and LaZebnik took creative liberties with history in an attempt to make the film palatable to audiences.
Pocahontas premiered at Central Park on June 10, 1995, and was released in the United States on June 16, to mixed reactions from reviewers, who praised its animation, voice performances, and music, but criticized its story with its lack of focus on tone. The film's historical inaccuracies and artistic license received polarized responses. Pocahontas earned over $346 million at the box office. The film received two Academy Awards for Best Musical or Comedy Score for Menken and Best Original Song for "Colors of the Wind". According to critics, the depiction of Pocahontas as an empowered heroine influenced subsequent Disney films like Mulan (1998) and Frozen (2013).[4]
Irene Bedard (born July 22, 1967) is an American actress, who has played mostly lead Native American roles in a variety of films. She is perhaps best known for the role of Suzy Song in the 1998 film Smoke Signals,[1] an adaptation of a Sherman Alexie collection of short stories, as well as for providing the speaking voice for the titular character in the 1995 animated film Pocahontas.[2] Bedard reprised her role as Pocahontas in the film's direct-to-video follow-up, Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998) and for a cameo in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018).
Early life
Bedard was born in Anchorage, Alaska and is of Iñupiat and French Canadian/Cree (Métis) heritage and a citizen of the Native Village of Koyuk in Alaska.[3][4] Bedard graduated from Dimond High School in Anchorage, Alaska in 1985. Bedard attended The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she studied musical theater.
Career
In 1994, Bedard appeared in her first role as Mary Crow Dog in the television production of Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee, which depicted the 1970s standoff between the US government and citizens of several Native nations, including many of the Pine Ridge Reservation, at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. For this role, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film.[5] She is probably best known as the voice of the eponymous heroine in the 1995 Disney animated film Pocahontas, the direct-to-video 1998 sequel Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World and in the 2018 film Ralph Breaks the Internet. She appeared in a different take of the story in Terence Malick's 2005 film The New World, as Pocahontas's mother, Nonoma Winanuske Matatiske.
In 1995, Bedard was chosen as one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People".[6]
Pocahontas is a 1995 American animated musical historical drama film based on the life of Powhatan woman Pocahontas and the arrival of English colonial settlers from the Virginia Company. The film romanticizes Pocahontas' encounter with John Smith and her legendary saving of his life. The film was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 33rd Disney animated feature film and the sixth film produced and released during the Disney Renaissance.
The film was directed by Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg (in his feature directorial debut) and produced by Jim Pentecost, from a screenplay written by Philip LaZebnik, Carl Binder, and Susannah Grant. The voice cast features Irene Bedard and Mel Gibson as Pocahontas and Smith, respectively, with David Ogden Stiers, Russell Means, Christian Bale, Billy Connolly, and Linda Hunt providing other voices. The score was composed by Alan Menken, who also wrote the film's songs with lyricist Stephen Schwartz.
After making his directorial debut with The Rescuers Down Under (1990), Gabriel conceived the film during a Thanksgiving weekend. The project went into development concurrently with The Lion King (1994), and attracted most of Disney's top animators. Meanwhile, Disney studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg decided that the film should be an emotional romantic epic in the vein of Beauty and the Beast (1991), in hope that like Beauty, it would also be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Screenwriters Binder, Grant, and LaZebnik took creative liberties with history in an attempt to make the film palatable to audiences.
Pocahontas premiered at Central Park on June 10, 1995, and was released in the United States on June 16, to mixed reactions from reviewers, who praised its animation, voice performances, and music, but criticized its story with its lack of focus on tone. The film's historical inaccuracies and artistic license received polarized responses. Pocahontas earned over $346 million at the box office. The film received two Academy Awards for Best Musical or Comedy Score for Menken and Best Original Song for "Colors of the Wind". According to critics, the depiction of Pocahontas as an empowered heroine influenced subsequent Disney films like Mulan (1998) and Frozen (2013).[4]
Irene Bedard (born July 22, 1967) is an American actress, who has played mostly lead Native American roles in a variety of films. She is perhaps best known for the role of Suzy Song in the 1998 film Smoke Signals,[1] an adaptation of a Sherman Alexie collection of short stories, as well as for providing the speaking voice for the titular character in the 1995 animated film Pocahontas.[2] Bedard reprised her role as Pocahontas in the film's direct-to-video follow-up, Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998) and for a cameo in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018).
Early life
Bedard was born in Anchorage, Alaska and is of Iñupiat and French Canadian/Cree (Métis) heritage and a citizen of the Native Village of Koyuk in Alaska.[3][4] Bedard graduated from Dimond High School in Anchorage, Alaska in 1985. Bedard attended The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she studied musical theater.
Career
In 1994, Bedard appeared in her first role as Mary Crow Dog in the television production of Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee, which depicted the 1970s standoff between the US government and citizens of several Native nations, including many of the Pine Ridge Reservation, at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. For this role, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film.[5] She is probably best known as the voice of the eponymous heroine in the 1995 Disney animated film Pocahontas, the direct-to-video 1998 sequel Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World and in the 2018 film Ralph Breaks the Internet. She appeared in a different take of the story in Terence Malick's 2005 film The New World, as Pocahontas's mother, Nonoma Winanuske Matatiske.
In 1995, Bedard was chosen as one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People".[6]
