Adam Beach has never been afraid to confront his trauma on set

Q21:54Adam Beach: Exile, Smoke Signals, and his journey to acting

Adam Beach has been in more than 60 films and TV shows, from the Canadian drama North of 60 and the cult classic Smoke Signals to the Clint Eastwood war movie Flags Of Our Fathers.

His latest role is in the independent film Exile, where he plays a father who receives a threat from the man whose family he killed in a drunk driving accident. The project brought up some personal feelings for Beach, whose own mother was killed by a drunk driver when he was just eight years old.

"She was eight-months pregnant with our sister, and she died in front of our house in the ditch," the actor tells Q's Tom Power in a recent conversation. "Two months later, my dad drowned. He was on medication, drinking a lot, trying to handle his depression of losing his wife. And when that was done, we headed to the city to live with our family."

Beach, who's now 51, says he's still trying to work through his past with the help of a therapist, but he's not uncomfortable talking about it. "You could talk about anything, dude," he tells Power. "It's all good."

The way he sees it, the tragedy he's experienced is "a piece in the puzzle" of his life story, and he says he never shies away from drawing on his experiences to help develop his characters.

"I told [Exile] director Jason James — he's amazing — I just told him I'm going to play my dad, from what I remember of his emotion before he died," Beach says.

But playing a drunk driver in Exile wasn't the first time Beach had to confront his trauma on set. His breakthrough role as Victor Joseph in the 1998 coming-of-age film Smoke Signals led him to have a sort of epiphany about the feelings he'd been holding inside of him.

Beach's character, Victor, resents his late father's alcoholism, violence and his abandonment of their family. By the end of the film, he reconciles with the memory of his father, and throws his ashes into a river as a form of acceptance.

"When I read [the script], I didn't really think nothing of it," Beach says. "When we started filming it, I couldn't help but notice myself just stepping away from everybody and having time to myself … People would be like, 'You OK, Adam? And I'd be like, 'Oh no, I'm just getting in character.'

"When I threw the ashes of my dead father in Smoke Signals, I fell to the ground. I was crying so hard. The director came out and said, 'Adam, that was amazing!' I grabbed his jacket and I said, 'I miss my dad, my mom!' I just lost it. And my friend came and said, 'Adam, snap out of it. You got to do it again.' I did it again. Same conclusion. And after that, I just got up and I walked. I said, 'I can't do any more.' And I left the set. That was the first time I ever spoke out to my father and it's very special to me."

Beach says he's now overcoming the tragedy he's experienced by immersing himself in it and using it in his art. "It's an odd way to look at things, but I've been pretty blessed with the ability to do that."

The full interview with Adam Beach is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Adam Beach produced by Kaitlyn Swan.