Yellowstone actor Q’orianka Kilcher was charged with felony workers’ compensation insurance fraud on July 11 for illegally collecting nearly $96,838 in disability benefits from the Paramount Network show. Kilcher, 32, might be a new face to Yellowstone viewers, but the actress has worked in the entertainment industry since she was a child.
Born on Feb. 11, 1990, in Schweigmatt, Baden-Wurttemberg, then West Germany, she has American and German nationality. In addition to her acting career, she is also a singer and an activist. Kilcher has a Peruvian father, and her mother, Saskia Kilchera is of Swiss and German descent. Her brothers Kainoa Kilcher and Xihuaru Kilcher are also actors.
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Kilcher started learning hula dancing and ballet at age five, later training in Tahitian dance, West African, ballet, hip hop and modern dance. Before moving to California with her family in 1999, she won Ballet Hawaii’s Young Choreographer Award at age seven and competed in and won several high-level dancing competitions in Hawaii.
The young performer’s acting career started at nine years old, when she landed the role of Choire Who in How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 2000. She later received a full scholarship to the Musician’s Institute in Hollywood in 2002, where she studied vocal performance, music theory, and songwriting.
At age 15, Kilcher portrayed Pocahontas in the 2005 Academy Award-nominated motion picture The New World, directed by Terrence Malick. Critics praised her performance, which earned Kilcher the National Board of Review’s best breakthrough performance of 2006 and the 2006 Alma Award for best Latin American actress in a feature film, among other accolades.
Her acting in 2009’s Princess Kaiulani was also praised despite the movie receiving primarily negative reviews. Among her other films is the documentary The People Speak, Shouting Secrets, the Syfy miniseries Neverland, and the short film, Running Dear.
Kilcher played Angela Blue Thunder on four seasons of the Kevin Costner-led western drama Yellowstone in 2020. In a 2018 interview with Remezcla, she expressed pride in representing indigenous women in film.
“I feel as an artist, it’s my responsibility to continuously help pave the way and push the boundaries and break down those barriers within society and within Hollywood of how indigenous people are portrayed on film… “However, I am very thankful when I am cast in other roles, too, and I don’t have to wear dreamcatcher earrings or a little feather in my hair to tell people that I’m Native,” Kilcher said. “When I’m cast in a non-Native role, those decisions move our community forward because we’re not being cast just for our race.”
“At the end of the day as artists and filmmakers, it’s our responsibility to make the right choices and to think about how we want our industry to change and how the choices we make ourselves affect that change,” she continued.
In addition to speaking at colleges and universities under the coverage of organizations such as Amnesty International and Amazon Watch IFIP, Kilcher also works with a number of NGOs and other organizations. She won the Brower Youth Award and Young Hollywood Green Award for her efforts to convince Occidental Petroleum to leave the Peruvian Amazon valley. Kilcher also launched On-q Initiative,”an organization dedicated to human rights and environmental conservation.
Kilcher also has her own production company called “Entertainment On-Q,” and American singer Jewel is her first cousin. She can also speak German, Spanish, and English fluently.
