Devery Jacobs

Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs (born August 8, 1993) is a Canadian Mohawk actress. For her performance in Rhymes for Young Ghouls, she garnered a Canadian Screen Awards nomination for Best Actress. In 2023 and 2024, for her role on Reservation Dogs, she was nominated for a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series.

Career Jacobs began acting in the late 2000s with roles in the television series The Dead Zone (2007) and Assassin's Creed: Lineage (2009). In 2013, she played the lead character in Rhymes for Young Ghouls, which premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. For her work in the film, Jacobs was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Actress in a leading role.

In 2019, in the second season of American Gods, Jacobs played a young Cherokee college student, Sam Black Crow, who identifies as "two-spirited". In an interview, she said that Neil Gaiman (author of the novels on which the series is based) advocated strongly for her to be cast in the role, but noted, "I identify as queer, and not two-spirited, because I'm Mohawk and we don't have that."

Also in 2019, Jacobs played a recurring role as Lilith Bathory in the first and second season of the Netflix series The Order. From 2021 to 2023, she played a leading role on the acclaimed TV series Reservation Dogs about a group of Indigenous teenagers growing up on a reservation in rural Oklahoma. For the role, she was nominated for a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series in 2023. In season 3, she directed episode 7, 'Wahoo!'.

In 2024 she was named as co-winner, alongside Lamar Johnson, of the Radius Award at the 12th Canadian Screen Awards. She also voiced Alasie in Ark: The Animated Series. In an interview by The Eastern Door, she noted she began recording for the role in summer 2020, with sound equipment shipped from Los Angeles to her apartment in Toronto, calling the process "at bit chaotic," but described the show's story as "really beautiful" and the Inuk character (Alasie) she voices, as comic relief, like a "little kid sister who can sometimes be annoying, but is really silly." She also revealed that she has recorded most of the lines for Alasie before she voiced Kahhori in What If...? season 2 and described the ability to "have fun with the role with letting myself be free" while voicing acting, and the witnessing the creative process on Ark: The Animated Series.

Personal life Jacobs is Kanienʼkehá:ka (Mohawk) and a member of the Bear Clan. At the time of her performance in Rhymes for Young Ghouls, Jacobs was a student at John Abbott College, studying correctional intervention. Jacobs collaborates with Canadian filmmaker D. W. Waterson, who is also her partner, through their production company called Night is Y.

Filmography

Awards + Year Award Category Work Result 2014 Canadian Screen Awards Best Actress in a Leading Role Rhymes for Young Ghouls 2016 Whistler Film Festival Best Performance in a Canadian Film The Sun at Midnight 2017 American Indian Film Festival Best Actress Yorkton Film Festival Best Aboriginal Film Stolen ImagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival Ellen Monague Award for Best Youth Work Rae 2018 Palm Springs Shortfest 2021 Gotham Awards Outstanding Performance in New Series Reservation Dogs 2023 Critics' Choice Television Awards Best Actress in a Comedy Series Canadian Screen Awards Radius Award