'North of North', Actress & Writer, Zorga Qaunaq

0:09Jawad MirWelcome back, everyone, to another episode of Kingdom of Dreams Podcast, the making of stories. I'm your host Jawad Mir. She is one of the actresses, in the new show North of North that, is a Canadian show, being shown on CBC, I think, but that's definitely showing on Netflix. A great little miniseries, about 30 minutes each episodes. I think there are about eight or 10 episodes. I've sort of watched a couple of episodes so far. Very fun, upbeat, and quick paced show. Here's my conversation with Zorga for North of North. And how do I pronounce your last name?

0:44Zorga QaunaqKaunak.

0:45Jawad MirKaunak. Is that,.. What's the background on that? I don't wanna assume anything, so...

0:49Zorga QaunaqMy last name, Kaunak. I'm not sure exactly what it means, but I heard it might mean chewing gum, which is interesting. And my first name, my dad just made it up. It's not phonetically connected to my language or anything. I asked him one day, "Why'd you name me Zorga?" And he was like, "So..." English is his second language. He said, "So if I called your name out and I called you something like Sarah, three girls would turn their heads around in a big crowd of people. But if I say Zorga, only one." So I think that was his way of saying I have a unique name.

1:23Jawad MirValid enough reason, or he probably watched a lot of Star Trek or Star Wars because it does sound like a very out of this planetary system world kind of a name, at least to me.

1:31Zorga QaunaqYeah, in WWE and stuff.

1:33Jawad MirYeah.

1:33Zorga QaunaqHe was really into his WWE at the time.

1:37Jawad MirAwesome. Well, it's really good to have you. Thank you for joining. I appreciate it.

1:41Zorga QaunaqYeah, happy to be here.

1:43Jawad MirI was just, watching, North of North. Finished a couple of episodes. But and, you know, I didn't even know about the show until I stumbled upon a trailer just, I think because it's on Netflix. And, it resonated, and I'll tell you why besides being Canadian element. But it… it's, it's a really interesting and cool m… little series, very grounded, and so far I've enjoyed it, and thank you for working on it.

2:15Zorga QaunaqYeah. I was very happy and proud to be part of it and, y… I heard the creator just pitching the show. She was like, "So I'm gonna… I'm pitching this show," and she just showed the first line of it. I was like, "I need to watch it right now, or people need to see it. We're, we're so craving this type of storytelling on this level." So I was so happy when I actually got to be a part of the project.

2:38Jawad MirYeah, no, it's, it's fabulous. And for me, the o… one thing that resonated more than anything else was because the first documentary, feature documentary that I directed was in the eastern part of Nova Scotia, but a small village as well. And that kind of lifestyle, obviously not 500 people or whate… it was, like, 78 or 80 people, and that kind of lifestyle is very interesting and very cool, and I really enjoyed my experience there for three, four years. So, and that's pretty much what I felt like when I started watching it.

3:11Zorga QaunaqYeah. Yeah. It's such... It's got,.. Like, most of the Inuit communities in Canada are small, so they just, we just, being a small town just happens to be, like, our culture, so the culture you get in smaller towns where, everybody knows what's going on, everybody knows everything. But also everybody has your back. So it's really nice…

3:32Jawad MirYeah

3:32Zorga Qaunaq... To have that community feeling. Anytime you leave the house, you know you're gonna bump into somebody you know, and I miss that feeling, living in a city like Ottawa. I've graduated with people from high school in, like, 2008, and they're still living in Ottawa, and I'm still living in Ottawa, and we've never crossed paths, and that's, that blows my mind. So anyways, small towns are very special. If you ever get a chance to spend an extended time there, it's really nice.

3:59Jawad MirNo, it is. I remember I used to... I… it w… the community that I went to wasn't, Inuit, but, it was interesting because I was there in and out every few weeks for, like, four or five years. So by the time I started going third, fourth time, the moment my car would pull into the village, and by the time I get to the house wherever I'm staying in, I get a call that everybody in the village will know that I'm there, my team is there.

4:25Zorga QaunaqOh, yeah.

4:26Jawad MirSo it's just b… it's just because, you know, everybody's just looking around the window, but it's also keeping your back. I mean, it has its perks, benefits and downsides, but…

4:33Zorga QaunaqYeah

4:33Jawad Mir... But never… nevertheless, let's talk about North of North. How did you get on board? What was the catalyst, or was it the producers you knew, or you had to audition? What… whatever that story was, I'd love to hear it.

4:46Zorga QaunaqYeah. The Inuit creative world is very small, so I knew the creators already, and they know everybody. So when I heard they were making the show, I sent them an email saying, "I'll do anything. I want, I really wanna be a part of this project. I don't have any experience, but I want to be a part of it somehow." And that was years before things were really rolling. And, so then open auditions came out, and I was like, "Oh, sweet. You no experience required." So I auditioned, and several rounds of auditions later, I got the part, and I was still, I'm still s… not surprised, but, like, I don't know. When you're, when you come across things like this later in your life when you kinda let go of your dreams, it's still, like, you really appreciate something like this in a way that, you wouldn't have... Like, if I got this role in my 20s, that would've been great. It's awesome, but I appreciate, everything a lot more in my 30s. So when I got the role, I was like, "" and I'm still shook that I got it. But yeah, I just kept auditioning and auditioning, and I was even doing homework for the character before I got the role because I was like, "Even if I don't get the role, it's fun to explore the character."

5:56Jawad MirI'll, I'll go back to your, the dream part, your dreams in the 20s and everything in a second, but just for the audience, your character and your role in the film if you wanna just put that out there.

6:08Zorga QaunaqYes. My character is Millie. She's a sassy, spicy lady who, is not afraid to let people know what she's thinking. She's colorful and bold, and she works at the community center, so you get to see her and her friend Colin. And, yeah, she's there when Saya gets her work, and…

6:31Jawad MirYeah

6:31Zorga Qaunaq... That's all for now.

6:33Jawad MirNo, that's good. That's awesome. Nice and brief. So you mentioned that you had no experience, and then you said in 20s would have been nicer. So has it been always your dream to be in acting and something prevented you, or is it just, like, a spur of the moment? I would love to hear the story behind that.

6:53Zorga QaunaqYeah, since I was a child, I knew I wanted to be... Like, as soon as I knew art and artistry and just being a creative was a, was a career, I was like, "That's, that's what, that's, that's what I knew I wanted to do. That's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be in that. That's what I wanted my life to be." And so every chance I got along the way... You can just put it there. And so every chance I got along the way to take up a class or join a group or club or anything like that, I joined it. I had lots of fun. I went to an arts high school. And, I just had all these dreams of being a creative person and it... But, just growing into being a responsible adult, you start taking in all the fears that are taught to you, which is you can't make money off of a career in the arts. You have to have a backup, because that's the one that you need to go first, and then if you have time, money, space, then you can pursue your artistry and do that.

7:54Zorga QaunaqAlongside all of that, I was, my, I was also looking at representation in the media, and I started to really think, like, none of these people being cast, there's no one being cast that looks like me. There's no, like, half white, half Inuit ladies being cast. There's only just Inuit ladies who look brown and, like, f… fit all the stereotypes of looking like an Indigenous person, or a white lady. And, I'm a weird person. There weren't, like, weird characters and everything, so I just, like, started to feel like... I know acting is you're supposed to fit into a role, but I could never feel, like I could fit into, like, a leading lady role, which seemed to be the only thing that was available. So I was just... That dream just seemed, like, farther and farther off in the distance. But then the internet came out more and we got YouTube and social media, so I was like, "I can do, I can make my own stuff. I can just be creative on my own, and I don't need permission from all these executive people or anything to be creative and show my face and my skills and everything."

9:00Zorga QaunaqSo I just played around on YouTube and short-form media, making videos and stuff like that, producing my own cute little videos and stuff. And that, like, itched the s… the, scratched the itch for my creative outlet for that type of stuff. So that was amazing, and I'm really glad that we have that for everyone that wants to do that too, and I think that helped me get the role as well, because I learned a lot, about, like, video producing by doing it myself, and that helped me, when I went to go work in a, in a big production like that.

9:32Jawad MirInteresting. So your YouTube channel or your social media, what were, what kind of stuff were you making?

9:39Zorga QaunaqRandom stuff. The stuff that most everybody were making. Just, silly challenge videos, like the cinnamon challenge. That was dangerous, but

9:50Jawad MirGot it.

9:50Zorga QaunaqOutfit videos, hair videos, vlogs, just like, "Follow me to on a hike here."

9:59Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

10:00Zorga QaunaqAnd then later on, I started making a little more, edutainment videos on TikTok, just talking about, Inuit culture and small different identity things and, all sorts of little insights, also, like, personal development things, yeah.

10:19Jawad MirRight. So did it leverage anything from a financial standpoint, or it was just more so just arts itch being…

10:26Zorga QaunaqOh, early, yeah, early in the YouTube days when I was being consistent with it and Google AdSense… ... Revenue was really great. I know they switched the way they do that, so you can't make as much money on that. But I had a little bit, a few hundred dollars, which is, it blew my mind that I was like, I was just making, I was just doing stuff for fun and I got paid for it. And that was a little bit of a lesson where, like, when you're good at something and you keep practicing it and you're passionate about it, good will come from it somehow.

10:55Jawad Mir100%. 100%. So now you said you're in your 30s, but 20s and up until this c… this particular role, what was or what has been the source of, you know, income? Has it been just an odd job? And, how have you sort of coped with that for the last 10, 12 years or whatever that number of years is to be able to not be able to do that up until, obviously, this role?

11:23Zorga QaunaqYeah. I was a lifeguard for 13 years, and swim instructor, and the swimming instructor part was the f… that was what I stayed in the job for, because I... I mean, lifeguarding's fun. You just watch people swim. But I really loved, talking with people and helping them achieve their goals and all that. So, I did that. And I was doing school part-time and working part-time. And then I ended up taking another part-time job at this college. It's Nunavut Tunngavik Sot. It's a, Inuit studies intensive program, one-year certificate program for Inuit youth. So it's about 40 or 50 students every year. I think they have a really big class this year. But, I started working there, and I did many different positions there. Administrator Doing like money stuff, some instructing in, language instructing and some other, like, political science sort of things…

12:22Zorga Qaunaq... Arctic studies and, some video making workshops. It's very a vibrant place to work, so I was there for 10 years in different capacities. And, then I'd, I spent my, a good chunk of my life working there, helping all these youth fulfill their dreams and see their potential, and I was, like, looking at myself doing the same thing every year there until... I mean, I, once I did everything I thought I could do at that job, I was like, "So it's just gonna be like this for the rest of my life? I'm just..." I mean, the people are great, new students every year. I love my colleagues. This is great. Benefits, everything, but is this it? Is this all? Is this the best I can do in my whole life? I mean, I was, I was doing tattoos outside of that and making art outside of that and just kinda like side hustles. And then I was like, "Well, what do I actually wanna do if this is, if I can't handle just being bored at this job all the time? I don't wanna be bored at this job, 'cause I love this job so much. I w… I'd like to leave it while I still have that...

13:23Zorga QaunaqI don't wanna resent this job." So I made the choice to trust myself and start just working as a full-time artist on my own, and I didn't know if it was gonna work or not, but that's what you gotta do if you just wanna, if you gotta…

13:36Jawad MirYeah

13:36Zorga Qaunaq... You just rip off the Band-Aid. So that's what I did, and I did way better than I thought I would. And by the end of that year, I'd done a bunch of auditions for the show, and the following years when I got the role, so it's all been up from since I was born. So yeah.

13:53Jawad MirAmazing. That's a great way of saying it. So what year was the audition? Was it before COVID or after COVID?

13:59Zorga Qaunaq2023.

14:01Jawad MirOkay, so just two y…

14:02Zorga QaunaqIn…

14:02Jawad MirTwo years ago

14:03Zorga Qaunaq... Summer or, September, I can't remember. But yeah.

14:06Jawad MirOkay. So, you know, you get this role, and you have all the story that you sort of outlined, everything. How do you get on, when you get on the set, so this was actually sh… shot in Nunavut, right, if I'm not mistaken, Toronto and Nunavut?

14:25Zorga QaunaqYes.

14:26Jawad MirYeah.

14:26Zorga QaunaqYeah.

14:28Jawad MirOkay. So, you know, you get there, the scenes that you have, how, like, what's that mind… mindset like? Like, you know, here I am on an actual set within a community that I belong to, a small community, and a production for CBC, then eventually Netflix. Just those emotions that maybe in the beginning of the production or throughout the production that ran through, if at all.

14:53Zorga QaunaqOh my gosh. It was, it was, the dream situation for me. As an Inuk person, wanting to be, wanting to get into acting, this was, like, the perfect situation. It's like a boot camp for acting, because I ha… I have all the skills and c… capabilities to work on a set for, like, 16 hours and be okay with it. Something, somebody asked me to do something over and over and over again, I'm used to that kind of work grind.

15:19Zorga QaunaqSo that was good. Doing any new job is difficult, so things that made it way easier for me was that it was filmed in Nunavut. I was like, "Okay, I'm familiar with this town. I, it's not too much of a culture shock for me to move here for three months," 'cause I've been living in Ottawa for 25 years. It's like, okay, I, that's one thing I don't need to worry too much about. I did live in a hotel for three months, so that was, that was an adjustment. But I was in my home, like, not my hometown, but my home territory, so that was familiar.

15:49Zorga QaunaqI was working with a lot of people I knew and, b… I know I could trust their work, and I felt taken care of working with all of them. And, I was already just a nerd for, behind the scenes sorts of stuff, so I had a lot of knowledge. And I had, I take, I took some, like, acting classes in university and some basic cinematography stuff here and there.

16:15Zorga QaunaqSo I had some knowledge about everything, and I was very interested in all the aspects of the production. So that I was very interested in being on set and being there and interested in everything, that I was in a familiar place with familiar people, that allowed me to really push myself in my skill, what I was hired for, which is being an actor, which I didn't have that much, I'd never been given that much, like, responsibility and trust in doing that skill, and I'm, I'm pretty good at it apparently. So it was, really liberating to be on the set and see, like, okay, all these people have specialized jobs and they're doing it and they're focused on it and they're working together as a team, and they're staying in their lane, because that's how everything goes a lot more efficiently. So I was like, that means that I need to be just focusing on my thing. So that was really amazing. It was so cool to work with everybody doing their job so well. I don't know. It was great.

17:13Jawad MirYeah, no, that's awesome. And what was there any particular day or days, could be weeks, where you're like, you know, look, at the end of the day, as much as you love what you do, there's still some moments where you're like, "Ugh," right? Like, it's just natural. Obviously not compared to, like, a 9:00 to 5:00 job that you hate, right? It's a totally different thing. So was there any moments, like, where you felt that you weren't delivering the way you sh… wish you could? Or were there any challenges in a take? Anything that sort of you were way too judgmental about your own performance in any way?

17:55Zorga QaunaqNot too much. I'd been, like, we had an acting coach on set, and we also had a week's worth of, sort of rehearsals and acting ahead of time. So I felt very comfortable with the material and where the storyline was going and just getting a deep understanding of each character. That helped me a lot prepare for all of that, so when a script was changed in the morning or something the morning of, or the m… night before, I would be ready for it, 'cause I wasn't studying the script and being stuck with everything and getting in my head about whether or not I need to do it right. But, I was, I focused more on just, like, getting into Millie's character and understanding where all the directors and everybody are trying to bring the show so that when it, something did change, it would make sense for me right away. But there was one day, I forgot, I think it was my first day on the studio shoot, 'cause my first day ever shooting was outside. But the first day shooting inside, I kept saying Ellen instead of Helen as the bo…...

18:55Zorga QaunaqBoss's name, and I was, "Oh my goodness, I ruined like three or four takes," 'cause I kept saying Ellen. But that was fun, 'cause they were, very patient with me, and it was funny. I mean, I guess maybe the fifth or sixth time might not be funny, but the, I was, like, trying to think of something to help me remember. It's like, "Her name is Helen because she's hell to work for." That's what I was thinking.

19:16Jawad MirAh.

19:16Zorga QaunaqSo I was like... But I think that was the only time that I really messed up, but all the other times, you always have, like, hindsight is 20/20.

19:23Jawad MirYeah.

19:23Zorga QaunaqBy the time you do seventh or eighth take on something, you're like, "Oh, I wish, I think I got it now. Okay, I'm ready." And then they're like, "Okay, we're good." I'm like, "No, I just, I just got it. I have one, can I do one more?" But, learning how much I can ask to do more of, or, like, learning how much I'm trusted and what I can do in my job and how much I can pitch in and give ideas for

19:43Jawad MirYeah

19:43Zorga Qaunaq... That, I think everybody was figuring that out, 'cause it's season one and they're figuring out the tone of the show and everything. So, I was just happy to keep going until they tell me to stop.

19:54Jawad MirYeah. No, that's cool. And you mentioned tone of the show. So it's interesting, and I'm just gonna tell you how I felt as I started watching it, right? So I know we live in a generation or time when everything is, has to be snap, like, to keep the attention, ho… hold the attention of the audience. As the show began, I personally, I liked, maybe because I'm old school, I like things to play out, not necessarily very slowly, but just, you know, build up to a level where then it gets exciting and you move on. First three, four minutes, I wasn't really too keen on the sh… the way it was done because it was very snap. But what really kinda connected me was the narrative, the narrative of the story, the arc, the, where she was going, and then I was hooked on and then I got accustomed to it.

20:45Zorga QaunaqYeah

20:46Jawad Mir... But I, but I do like the tone. And it's, it's interesting because it is a Canadian show, but for the first time in a long time, it doesn't fee… for me, it didn't feel like a Canadian show. I don't know if that made sense.

20:58Zorga QaunaqYeah.

20:58Jawad MirMaybe because the production value or, you know, whatnot, but I thought it was, it was differ… it's different, for sure.

21:05Zorga QaunaqYeah. I love it. It's, I mean, I knew as an actor I would be, like, I would learn so much as a first-time actor, but one of the things I learned very quickly was, I'm just, like, sort of a puppet, and I have these skills and these tools, and then the directors and everybody just directs me and tells me what to do. And I could do, I could do, like, five takes on something and they'll be all extremely vastly different, and I don't know which one, which, take they'll pick f… to edit into an episode. So I knew who Millie was, 'cause I am her and I play her, and I think about all these things about her and her life and all these details. But I don't know her completely either, and I'm gonna keep learning about her as they make the show and as they…

21:53Jawad MirYeah

21:53Zorga Qaunaq... Choose how she reacts to different situations, I'll learn more about her. So I thought that was really interesting.

22:00Jawad MirDid you learn something about yourself, or you discovered something about yourself while you were playing Millie? And it, what was that?

22:08Zorga QaunaqI'm, I knew this before I took the role. I had to get over my people-pleasing tendencies, because Millie just, like, she's not gonna have it if, like she's, she wears her heart on her sleeve. She's, she's the opposite of a people pleaser. And I was like, I know I can act like that, but I think it would benefit me if I actually took that on. And it al… would also benefit me as a, someone who's gonna be on Netflix to not be a people pleaser, 'cause if you th… if you're, I don't wanna say celebrity, but, like, if you're more in the public eye, people are willing to kinda jerk you around. Either, like, "I really like hanging out with you. Can we hang out?" And I might have to say no, because I'm not interested. Or, "Can we work with you on this project?" "No, I'm not interested." Or, the biggest thing that I was trying to wrap my mind around is people might not like me. So I was like, I need to, I need to not, I need to be okay with people hating me, not liking me, being indifferent to me, not even remembering my name or anything like that.

23:12Zorga QaunaqI just need to be, I need to get over that. So right after the show finished, I realized all this work I had to work on myself. Even during the show, I was doing a lot of meditating and reading and stuff like that to help me ground myself. 'Cause you, like, if you're not okay, it shows on your face when you're acting.

23:28Jawad MirYeah.

23:28Zorga QaunaqSo I had to really ground myself and be good for every shoot day, and in between. But, yeah, I just worked on myself a lot in the past few months, and I ended up going to the gym because that's supposed to help with your mental health, and I started, was like, maybe I should look at my nutrition too. So I did all that, and I lost like 30 pounds of fat, and I have big muscle now, so I'm like, I hope they can write that into the script, 'cause that'd be cool for Millie to, like, get all, like…

23:55Jawad MirYeah

23:55Zorga Qaunaq... Muscular.

23:58Jawad MirThe arc of Millie, right?

23:59Zorga QaunaqYeah.

24:00Jawad MirNo, that, it's interesting you talked about, being liked. So I was just watching, it's in its fourth episode. There's a show on Apple TV+ called The Studio. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's basic…

24:12Zorga QaunaqOh, Studio, yeah.

24:13Jawad MirYeah, Seth Rogen. Have you seen it at all?

24:16Zorga QaunaqYes. I'm, can't wait for next episode.

24:18Jawad MirYeah, so how he's, it's all about people-pleasing, right? Like he falls into this trap of every single episode, they go how he likes me or she likes me, and I have to…... Make sure I return the...

24:29Zorga QaunaqI get…

24:30Jawad MirAnd that is, I think that's true at every industry, but Hollywood obviously is another level.

24:36Zorga QaunaqYeah

24:36Jawad Mir... But it just reminded me of what you, what you were talking about

24:39Zorga QaunaqYeah, that's so funny. I love that show

24:42Jawad MirYeah, it's, it's really great. It's really... I had, I had a editor of the series on, we posted the episode a couple of days ago, and it was a great conversation.

24:50Zorga QaunaqOh, nice. I'm gonna listen to that. Awesome.

24:51Jawad MirYeah, you might, you might enjoy it because we talk about the fact that it has such long takes…

24:57Zorga QaunaqYeah

24:57Jawad Mir... Like how, what was the editor's job on that, and you will find that very interesting. I mean, I learned something new out of it too.

25:05Zorga QaunaqYeah.

25:05Jawad MirGoing back to North of North, what was, what were some of the fun things that you guys did while you were not working? Was there any ice fishing, any, you know, going around and discovering new places, or just kinda more to stayed in and tucked in?

25:20Zorga QaunaqIt was winter and dark for a l… a lot of it, so, we ended up going karaoke a lot every weekend at the... There's like three bars that we'd, we'd, three or four bars that we'd hop around to. But there was like, our favorite one was, doing karaoke. And there was also a movie theater there, so one time one of the crew members rented the whole theater so that we could watch The Thing, the original one, all together…

25:47Jawad MirAh

25:47Zorga Qaunaq... Crew and cast. It was so fun watching a movie with so many people you know.

25:52Jawad MirYeah.

25:52Zorga QaunaqAnd walks and stuff. It's so beautiful there, and we did a bunch of bonfires as well. And once somebody hears there's a bonfire, then like everybody comes, and we had a DJ one time, and, it was really fun. The… people bring their dog.

26:06Jawad MirThat's good.

26:07Zorga QaunaqIt's really nice, yeah.

26:08Jawad MirSo what months were you there? Were you there in winter months, like October to… ... January, Feb, or?

26:13Zorga QaunaqMarch, April, May, and just a few days into June. So…

26:18Jawad MirAnd so what was the sunrise and set… sunset situation like? I know because it's shorter days and the sunlight is very minimum.

26:26Zorga QaunaqI can't remember when we first got there, but by the time we were leaving it was like light until 1:00 AM.

26:33Jawad MirYeah.

26:34Zorga QaunaqSo that was nice. That was really great for bonfire nights. I remember growing up in Nunavut as a kid, like it'd be summertime and the sun would like barely go below the horizon and come back up so that the sky would be bright all the time, and you'd play outside and you wouldn't care what time it was. Not that you really care when you're a kid anyways, but I was like 9 or 10 when I was like, "Oh, I'd love to stay up past 11:00," but you'd realize like, when it doesn't, like you can't tell what the s… time it is by the sun being outside.

27:03Jawad MirYeah.

27:04Zorga QaunaqYeah.

27:04Jawad MirNo, 100%. And you know, it's wh… Nunavut, excuse me, Nunavut, Yellowknife, and Northwest Territories, those are the only three places, well, the major places for me that I haven't been to. And for anybody that wants to go to Nunavut, I know it's a little bit of a long trek to get there. What would you recommend to people, what to expect, what not to expect, and just in terms of the culture?

27:33Zorga QaunaqI don't know about, much about the Northwest Territories or the Yukon.

27:37Jawad MirNo, I was talking about the Nu… Nunavut specifically.

27:39Zorga QaunaqYeah. Nunavut, I would say it's like, it's very expensive, so save up a lot of money, when you go there. There's so many outfitting places. I… if you're going up th… there for the first time, I would go to Iqaluit, the capital, and around springtime is great because we have Toonik Tyme around this time of year where everybody's playing games, spring games, and like cele… like we're sort of celebrating that spring is here and the, I don't know, it's just a very vibrant time of year.

28:08Zorga QaunaqAnd you also get like a good amount of sun too. I forgot. Oh, yes, and yeah, there's lots of local artists and stuff, and I would say go on Facebook to find, handmade stuff as well. Like, there's shops and stuff around this town, but if you hop on the, their Facebook, they'll, there's always people selling parkas and mitts and lots of cool stuff.

28:31Zorga QaunaqEven locally made food. Pretty fun.

28:34Jawad MirAwesome. I'll have to do that. I know I've heard, I saw a documentary four or five years ago, and please tell me if I'm wrong here. I remember, one thing I remember from it was orange juice or it was milk was like 16 bucks.

28:46Zorga QaunaqOh, yeah.

28:47Jawad MirRight? Sounds about right. Okay.

28:49Zorga QaunaqYeah, the food's, pretty expensive. I think the fresh produce is more subsidized though, so that's good. In the capital, the pr… prices are way cheaper than the smaller communities. If you go to the…

29:02Jawad MirOf course

29:03Zorga Qaunaq... Like Pang or anywhere else, that's where the high prices are.

29:06Jawad MirYeah. Okay. And so now that the season one is out, I don't know i… I don't know if you know. If you know and you don't wanna disclose it, that's fine. Is there an official announcement of season two, or is it in the works, or...?

29:17Zorga QaunaqNo, we're not sure yet. We're just waiting to see how it does on Netflix. It seems to be doing well, so I'm hoping we'll hear back soon, but I'm not sure how this all works, but I'm pr… I'm, I'm, optimistic that we'll have a season two, so…

29:30Jawad MirYeah

29:30Zorga Qaunaq... We just gotta see what happens.

29:32Jawad Mir100%. And where does, where do you go from here, whether there is a season two or not, like in terms of your own arc about getting back into this realm of acting? Are you exploring it even more now? Obviously de… depending on opportunities.

29:51Zorga QaunaqYep. I got an agent in January finally, and I got cast in a movie and filmed that already. And if season two doesn't go forward, I'm just gonna keep auditioning. And like it's pretty dry right now, so, I'm probably gonna focus on tattooing, and I'm producing a podcast for my channel.

30:09Jawad MirOh, good.

30:09Zorga QaunaqInterviewing other Inuit who are successful in their various careers, and that's like empowering and uplifting Inuit.

30:17Jawad MirSure.

30:18Zorga QaunaqAnd then I was also thinking of getting into content creation 'cause that's something I was thinking about doing before, and that's something I can probably have consistent income with aside from, acting.

30:31Jawad MirAmazing. And you said you were cast in another film. Is that something you can talk about?

30:35Zorga QaunaqYep. It's called In Alaska, and it follows, an Inuk youth from Alaska who kinda loses his way and finds his way back to Nunavut, where his mom's town is from, and is reconnecting with the community, and I'm playing an Inuk hunter, outfitter lady who kinda shows him the ropes and, yeah.

30:55Jawad MirAnd it's a Canadian production? Doesn't, doesn't sound like it

31:01Zorga Qaunaq... It's like a European production. I think it's Du… a Dutch filmmaker…

31:07Jawad MirOh, okay

31:07Zorga Qaunaq... To make it, and it's being filmed in northern BC. Like half of it's being filmed there, a little more than half, and then the rest of it was filmed in the capital.

31:17Jawad MirAmazing. And when do you guys start production, or still pending?

31:20Zorga QaunaqThat, the filming I did was like probably…

31:24Jawad MirOh, you already did it?

31:26Zorga QaunaqYeah.

31:26Jawad MirOkay.

31:26Zorga QaunaqThe, yeah, in March, and then the rest of the filming will take place in September.

31:31Jawad MirOkay, so you've got a nice little gap. That's awesome.

31:33Zorga QaunaqYeah. I'm not doing that leg of the trip, so I'm…

31:35Jawad MirOh, I see, I see.

31:36Zorga QaunaqYeah.

31:36Jawad MirYou're done with it.

31:37Zorga QaunaqBut…

31:37Jawad MirPerfect.

31:39Zorga QaunaqYeah.

31:39Jawad MirAwesome. Well, thank you so much for your time, Zora Guy. Really appreciate it. Is there anything else you wanna add?

31:45Zorga QaunaqNope. This was fun. I like your podcast.

31:48Jawad MirThank you, and I liked your role. I like your series, and looking forward to finishing the episodes, and fingers crossed on season two.

31:55Zorga QaunaqYeah. It's a quick watch too. You can binge it all and then binge it again.

31:58Jawad MirYeah, they're…... 25, 28 minute long episodes. Yeah, 100%.

32:02Zorga QaunaqYeah.

32:02Jawad MirPerfect. Thank you so much.

32:04Zorga QaunaqThank you.

32:05Jawad MirAll right. Take care, Zora Guy. Bye.

32:07Zorga QaunaqBye.