Sera-Lys McArthur

McArthur was born and brought up in Regina, Saskatchewan,[2] Her father was Nakota/Assiniboine Pheasant Rump Nakota First Nation[1] and her mother was a German-Canadian actress.[4]

McArthur started her training at high school age, singing, acting, dancing attending musical theatre and TV and film workshops.[1] At the age of 18,[5] McArthur moved to the United States[1] to study post-secondary music theatre training at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City.[4] Following this she moved to British Columbia to study method, Studio and Meisner technique acting classes, also general arts at Capilano University in Vancouver.[1] She furthered her acting education in England at from East 15 Acting School[6] at the University of Essex in Loughton, Essex, to become a classically trained actor,[5] graduating with a Master of Arts degree in acting with distinction.[4] McArthur moved back to New York City and Toronto and likened the travelling of her acting career to "following the buffalo," as was the nomadic way of her Nakota/Assiniboine ancestors.[7]

McArthur's debut screen appearance was at age 13 [1] while working for a children's modelling agency [2] in the 1999 CBC TV movie/miniseries Revenge of the Land as the daughter of fellow native American and Outlander actress Carmen Moore.[4] McArthur played the role of Azrael in The Lost Angel in 2004.[8] Between 2012 and 2014, McArthur played Hailey Martin for 8 episodes of CBC's Arctic Air.[9] The same year, while filming Skye & Chang in 2014, McArthur performed many stunts herself, having previously completed three months of taekwondo and martial-arts training.[9] McArthur was purported to be proud that her work on Arctic Air and Skye & Chang both heralded diversity, and highlighted McArthur herself as a television role model for Native American youth,[9] as fellow indigenous actress Tantoo Cardinal is to her.[2] McArthur was a lead actor in the TV-movie Skye & Chang which won the award for best short live feature at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco.[9][1] McArthur was nominated for best lead actress for films with strong aboriginal characters, for both Skye & Chang and The Wolf of Waubamik Woods at the American Indian Film Festival.[1]

Between 2015 and 2018, McArthur played Amanda for 13 episodes of Hard Rock Medical,[4] also in 2018 she plays female lead in Amazon Prime's indie heist film Robbery,[2] followed with a single appearance in 2019 in the Starz television series Outlander as the Mohawk healer Johiehon.[10][11] In 2020, McArthur stars as Kodie Chartrand, who is of Ojibwe heritage,[5] for 7 episodes of season 3 of The CW's legal drama television series Burden of Truth.[4]

McArthur had main acting roles in two short films chosen to be shown at the 2020 Indianer Inuit: North American Film Festival in Stuttgart, Germany.[12] McArthur played Sasha in Magic Madeleines[13] and Amanda in Blood Lineage both were due to be shown in February 2020.[14] McArthur starred in the film in Monkey Beach which was a selection for the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival (WAFF) in December 2020.[15]

She won the award for Best Actress at the 2022 American Indian Film Festival, for her performance in the film Broken Angel.[16]

• Sera-Lys McArthur at IMDb
• Sera-Lys McArthur - cv & demo reel
• Sera-Lys McArthur - Instagram
• Sera-Lys McArthur - twitter
• Sera-Lys McArthur website