Jessica Matten

Jessica Matten (born November 30, 1985) is a Canadian actress, fashion model, and film producer.

Early life, family and education

Matten was born in Edmonton, Alberta. She has British-Chinese ancestry through her father, as well as Red River Métis/Saulteaux–Cree from her mother, Therese Ducharme, an activist, performer and former model. Matten is a descendant of Cuthbert Grant, the first rebel Métis leader who was known for the Battle of Seven Oaks in Canada.

From the age of six, she assisted with her mother's First Nations modeling agency, Mystique Models, around Canada.

Matten graduated from the University of Alberta with a bachelor's of science degree in human ecology with a minor in marketing. She studied acting at Shoreline Studios Vancouver Acting School and modeling at Central Saint Martins and London College of Fashion.

Career

Matten continued to work as a model as an adult. Some of her work was on fashion runways, and other jobs were in TV commercials such as for Nature Valley and Nintendo Wii. She worked for her father in marketing in London for several years before becoming an actor. She worked "a little stint at ''Elle'' magazine in an internship as well.

Matten appeared in five international/Native People’s television series in eight years including the Discovery Canada and Netflix series ''Frontier'' starring Jason Momoa, and the CW Network and CBC drama series '' Burden of Truth''. In 2020, Matten began starring in ''Tribal'' on the APTN Network. She plays the newly appointed chief of an indigenous police force in Alberta, Canada. She was also an associate producer on the series.

She also previously starred in the short film ''A Red Girl’s Reasoning'' which received an award at the Imagine NATIVE Film Festival. In 2020, Matten appeared in the horror movie '' The Empty Man'' for Disney/20th Century Fox studios.

Beginning in 2022, Matten has co-starred in the TV crime drama series ''Dark Winds'' as Bernadette Manuelito, the only female sergeant on a Navajo reservation police department. She starred in the film '' Rez Ball'' (2024), about a Native American high school basketball team from Chuska Valley, New Mexico, that is competing for the state championship title but lose their star player.

Matten voices Katara in the upcoming Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender movie set to come out on the 9th of October 2026, and posted an instagram story of the recording studio. Although Mae Whitman voiced Katara in the original Avatar: The Last Airbender, she announced that despite having been honoured to play her, she's excited to see this new iteration. According to the casting director for the new Avatar movie, Jenny Jue, the decision to recast the prinicipal characters of the show was due to an increased emphasis on matching voice actor's ethnic and racial backgrounds to that of the character that they are portraying, that arose in the industry after the conclusion of the original series.

Matten is also the president of 7 Forward Entertainment, an Indigenous-owned production company based on the West Coast of Canada.

Other activities

Matten has worked for over 25 years in suicide prevention and addiction counseling for Native communities, particularly for youth.

She is a co-founder of Counting Coup Indigenous Film Academy (CCIFA), an educational environment for creative work, where emerging and aspiring First Nations, Métis and Inuit artists can gain expertise and experience in film. Partered with Old Sun Community College, it also offers training for stunt combat.

She has been additionally characterized as "a Cree community organiser who runs the viral campaign #N8Vgirls, to publicise the same issue as #mmiw (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women), a Canadian hashtag campaign on Twitter to honour the lives of those who have been devalued and discarded by the nation-state as well as by individual (predominantly white male) agents of violence."

Personal life

Matten resides in her hometown, Edmonton. Although she is very private about her personal life, she shared social media posts that she was dating Brendt Thomas Diabo, a Mohawk actor, artist and rock musician. Both of them performed in the Netflix series ''Frontier''.

Partial filmography

Notes

References

External links

Jessica Matten
on Instagram
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Colours of the Wind
- ''AFI Magazine'' photo essay featuring Jessica Matten at dariaperevez.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Matten, Jessica
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
21st-century Canadian actresses
Actresses from Edmonton
Canadian television actresses
Canadian people of Métis descent
University of Alberta alumni
Canadian people of Saulteaux descent
Canadian people of Chinese descent