Ahead of Critics Choice Awards, Sterlin Harjo talks 'Reservation Dogs' and future projects

Wherever he goes, Sterlin Harjo still feels like a kid from Holdenville, Oklahoma.

“I will always feel like a kid from there that doesn't deserve to be here on this stage. I’ll always feel like that, and I think that that is what makes me keep working. I don’t want to feel like I deserve to be here,” the Tulsa-based screenwriter and director said at a Jan. 11 Oklahoma City event.

“I'm going to be rubbing elbows with all of Hollywood's stars in a couple of days in L.A. at the Critics Choice Awards. And there's a lot of people that buy into that and soak it up and it becomes them. And I couldn't do … and I wouldn't be able to do what I do (if I did). I love being here in Oklahoma.”

Honoring the best in film and television from the past year, the 29th annual Critics Choice Awards aired Sunday night on The CW, with Chelsea Handler hosting.

Harjo’s groundbreaking made-in-Oklahoma Hulu show “Reservation Dogs” was nominated in four TV categories: best comedy series, best actor in a comedy series for D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, best actress in a comedy series for Devery Jacobs and best supporting actress in a comedy series for Paulina Alexis. But the Critics Choice television comedy categories were dominated by another Hulu series, the restaurant romp "The Bear.

Sterlin Harjo receives home-state award at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center

“Reservation Dogs” — co-created and executive produced by Taika Waititi, an Oscar-winning New Zealand moviemaker who is of Maori ancestry, and Harjo, a longtime independent filmmaker who is Seminole and Muscogee — earned widespread critical acclaim and blazed new trails for Indigenous storytelling during its three-season run on Hulu.

Since the FX series’ finale bowed in September, speculation has swirled about what Harjo will do next, a question he answered at the Jan. 11 OKC event at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, where the “Reservation Dogs” showrunner was presented with the “ArtNow 2023” Focus Award. The award is given in conjunction with Oklahoma Contemporary’s biennial exhibit “ArtNow: The Soul Is a Wanderer,” which closed Jan. 15 and features Harjo’s first art film.

As part of his Focus Award presentation, the University of Oklahoma alumnus participated in an artist talk where he chatted about the legacy of “Reservation Dogs,” his future projects and more:

Harjo on a funny thing that happened at an Oklahoma Boot Barn while readying for the Critics Choice Awards

I lost my last really good hat at the Emmys when we presented two years ago. I left it on the table.

So, I went to the Boot Barn today and I got a hat. I was like, ‘Yeah, I'm going to this awards show,’ and (this guy) he was shaping the hat for me. … And he was like, ‘If you don't mind me asking, what kind of award show?’ I said, ‘Well, I made a show called “Reservation Dogs.”’ He’s like, ‘Are you (expletive) kidding me?’

And then he proceeded to tell me, ‘Well, I've never watched it.’ But he said, ‘My wife is going to be really excited, and I will watch it now.’

To me, that’s Oklahoma: The guy shaping my hat is a really nice guy, but, ‘Nah, I haven’t watched it. But it’s really cool that you came in here.’

Oklahoma showrunner on the numerous accolades ‘Reservation Dogs’ has received and the ending of the show

I'm really good at accepting that, giving them like a thumbs up, and then moving on. I don't think about it too much. I think if I thought about it too much, it would affect everything else that I do.

So, I have to remind myself to enjoy it, actually. I have to make myself go, ‘Wow, this is great.’ … And then half the time I do that, I feel fake. …

I definitely know that things have all changed since ‘Reservation Dogs.’ But that's a thing that we can kind of grab ahold of and say, ‘Here's the change.’ But it was happening before that. … I think artists are always ahead; institutions come way later.

‘Reservation Dogs’ co-creator on his future projects, including a planned series starring Ethan Hawke

What is happening next: I'm gonna say this, even though they haven’t told me for sure. I'm on the half yard line right now for a TV show starring Ethan Hawke that will be shot in Tulsa. So, I'm very excited about that. …

Then, I have this Jim Thorpe script that I'm writing based on the book by Dave Maraniss called ‘Path Lit by Lightning.’

I’m in development to do a spin-off of this ‘Spider-Verse’ thing with this Native character that’s pretty cool. … There’s also an animation that I have that is a show that is based on a very, very important old Native film, but we’re turning it into an animation and book.

Then, I’m doing something with Danis Goulet, who directed the (‘Reservation Dogs’) episode that I wrote about the Deer Lady this season, which was about the boarding school stuff. We’re doing an adaptation with FX of this really popular Canadian podcast called ‘Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s’ that won all these podcast awards. So, we’re adapting that to a limited series.

And there’s a New Yorker story that I might be adapting that takes place in Oklahoma. … It’s not mine yet; I don’t have that one yet. But I think I do.

Then, I think, oh, two documentaries — this is all in a year; I don’t know how I’m gonna do it all, but I’m gonna hire a lot of people — a Jesse Ed Davis documentary about the guitar player and a documentary on Richard Oakes, who was the activist that spearheaded the takeover of Alcatraz and died in very suspicious circumstances. …

And we weren't going to talk about this too much, because it's not confirmed: I’m producing, I'm an executive producer, on a documentary about (fellow Oklahoman and former U.S. Poet Laureate) Joy Harjo.

On making his first art film and telling a national publication ‘museums are the place where Indians go to die’

It’s true. (laughs). It’s like you want to just leave them thinking and leave them like almost in a coma, mesmerized. They've got to think on it for like three days, like, ‘What was he trying to say?’ And then they come up with the idea, and then that’s what they stick with. And none of them are right. (laughs)

I'm just like an intimate filmmaker, though. I feel like art museum art films are less intimate. And they're cool, and they have their place. … There’s so many video artists that I really like their work … but when I make a film, I want to explore human emotion and who they are. And there's an intimacy that goes into that. …

With contemporary film art making, that's not necessarily what you're doing. … But I found a loophole, which is just this whole project was based on Joy Harjo’s poem (‘A Map to the Next World’), and I know her. She’s a friend of mine, and it was my way to tell an intimate story with her to help support this bigger project.

So, I just hung out with Joy at her house, and I followed her for a few hours on her property and just filmed her doing what she does. And then I filmed her reading the poem, and it was really great and beautiful.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: 'Reservation Dogs' writer Sterlin Harjo on what's next for Oklahoma