Paulina Alexis
1 min read
Paulina Alexis (born September 10, 2000, on the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation Reserve, Alberta, Canada) is a Canadian actress of Stoney Nakoda heritage. She grew up on the reserve and in Edmonton, where she played hockey from an early age and later pursued acting. Her Stoney Nakoda name is Wǎgíyaŋ Čížaŋ.
Alexis landed her first professional screen role at eighteen in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), playing Bunny, a local Summerville teenager. Director Jason Reitman brought her in for a live audition after reviewing a video submission, and the role gave her first feature film credit.
She followed Ghostbusters: Afterlife with the semi-autobiographical Canadian film Beans (2020, directed by Tracey Deer) and the inter-generational drama Bones of Crows (2022). Her best-known ongoing role is Willie Jack in the FX on Hulu comedy-drama Reservation Dogs, a character that was originally written as male; showrunners asked Alexis to read for the part after casting the female lead, and Willie Jack developed over the run of the series into a central voice of the ensemble. Her performance earned a Critics Choice Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2023.
