Brían Wescott
On joining Falling Like Stars:
I was honored that Judy Sandra asked me to consult with her in developing the Alaskan Native role of Hank in “Falling Like Stars”. I look forward to portraying Hank and also appreciate how Judy has taken pains to create an authentic and contemporary Alaskan Native character.

The magical realism of this love story set in the desert really grabbed my attention. My people have been telling stories under the stars for thousands of years, for it’s at night when the spirits come out to play. This script has that wonderful magic. And the songs are gorgeous. The desert in California is as beautiful and stark and powerful as the Arctic tundra. I love the idea that though these characters might not always know it, the universe will indeed take care of them.

 

Brían Pagaq Wescott
(SAG-AFTRA)

Hank Star Bird

Brian (pronounced BREE-an) is a born and bred Alaskan, raised in a small cabin without running water at the end of a long dirt road, where the Milky Way and northern lights can be seen in winter. He is a member of the Yup’ik and Athabascan nations. His ancestral Yup’ik name, Pagaq, given in ceremony, means the lines in one’s hand or the lines in the grain of wood. He grew up loving movies and now spends most of his time in Los Angeles, where he is a proud member of Native Voices at the Autry (NVA), the nation’s only indigenous Equity company.

In 2017 at NVA. he originated the role of Tim in “They Don’t Talk Back” for Alaskan playwright Frank Kaash Katasse in a rolling premier that continued to the La Jolla Playhouse and Perseverance Theatre in Alaska. He often performs at Perseverance, where he also originated Walter in “William, Inc.” for Native playwright Lucas Rowley.

From 2010 to 2019 he was the Lead Artist in the role of Sidney for “The Winter Bear Project,” an unusual play and suicide-prevention endeavor modeled on "The Laramie Project".  The annual tour took him across the sprawling state, in small planes and boats, to tiny Native villages from Utqiagvik in the Arctic to Juneau in the Southeast and finally to Unalaska in the Aleutian Islands, an adventure even for a lifelong Alaskan.

Films he has appeared in include the feature “The Pipeline,” with Wes Studi and “Christmas in the Clouds,” the first feature comedy set in a Native community. He played the role of Burris in Diane Glancy’s “Four Quarters,” which Glancy was inspired to write when she saw Brian drive to rehearsal in his academic mother’s Volvo in arid Southern California. The film centers on two Native academics driving across the desert back to the rez in an old Volvo, trying to regain their childhood dreams, with DeLanna Studi (Cherokee) in the role of Keelee, Burris’s wife.

Brían serves on the Native committees at SAG-AFTRA and the WGA and has conducted acting workshops across the country for the SAG-AFTRA National Native Americans Committee.

In going from Alaska to Los Angeles and back again often, Brían has reversed the course of his Irish-American father, who grew up in Los Angeles and hitchhiked north to follow his dreams. A geophysicist, he studied the aurora borealis and discovered new kinds of lightning (dubbed “sprites,” as on Prospero’s Island).  Brían pursues the same magic on stage and screen.