Sera-Lys McArthur facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Sera-Lys McArthur
McArthur in 2021
Born	1986 (age 38–39) Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Alma mater	East 15 Acting School
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1999 – present

Sera-Lys McArthur is a talented Canadian actress. You might know her from TV shows like Arctic Air, where she played Hailey Martin, or Hard Rock Medical as Amanda. She also starred as Kodie Chartrand in Burden of Truth. Sera-Lys is very proud of her Assiniboine heritage. She hopes to be a role model for young actors from all different backgrounds. She even voices Mina "Thunderbird" Sky, a Canadian character in the video game Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege.

Growing Up and Learning to Act

Sera-Lys McArthur was born and grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan. Her father was Nakota/Assiniboine from the Pheasant Rump Nakota First Nation. Her mother was a German-Canadian actress.

Sera-Lys started acting, singing, and dancing when she was in high school. She took part in musical theatre and workshops for TV and film. When she was 18, she moved to the United States. There, she studied musical theatre at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City. After that, she moved to British Columbia. She continued her acting studies, learning different techniques like Method and Meisner technique. She also studied general arts at Capilano University in Vancouver.

She then went to England to study acting even more. She attended the East 15 Acting School at the University of Essex. She became a classically trained actor and earned a Master of Arts degree. Sera-Lys moved back to New York City and Toronto. She has compared her acting career, which involves a lot of travel, to "following the buffalo." This is how her Nakota/Assiniboine ancestors used to live, moving from place to place.

Sera-Lys's Acting Journey

Sera-Lys first appeared on screen when she was 13 years old. This was in 1999, in a CBC TV movie called Revenge of the Land. She played the daughter of another Indigenous actress, Carmen Moore.

In 2004, Sera-Lys played Azrael in the movie The Lost Angel. From 2012 to 2014, she played Hailey Martin in 8 episodes of CBC's Arctic Air. In 2014, while filming Skye & Chang, Sera-Lys did many of her own stunts. She had trained for three months in taekwondo and martial-arts beforehand! She was proud that her work on Arctic Air and Skye & Chang showed different cultures. She also felt honored to be a role model for young Indigenous people, just like actress Tantoo Cardinal was for her. The TV movie Skye & Chang won an award for best short live feature at the American Indian Film Festival. Sera-Lys was also nominated for best lead actress for her roles in Skye & Chang and The Wolf of Waubamik Woods.

Between 2015 and 2018, Sera-Lys played Amanda in 13 episodes of Hard Rock Medical. In 2018, she was the main female character in the film Robbery, which you can find on Amazon Prime. In 2019, she appeared in one episode of the TV series Outlander as Johiehon, a Mohawk healer. In 2020, Sera-Lys starred as Kodie Chartrand in 7 episodes of Burden of Truth. Her character, Kodie, was of Ojibwe heritage.

Two short films starring Sera-Lys were shown at the 2020 Indianer Inuit: North American Film Festival in Stuttgart, Germany. She played Sasha in Magic Madeleines and Amanda in Blood Lineage. Sera-Lys also starred in the film Monkey Beach, which was shown at the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival in 2020. In 2022, she won the Best Actress award at the American Indian Film Festival for her role in the movie Broken Angel.

Filmography

Film

Television

Awards and Recognitions