Aidan Quinn's 'Wounded Knee' Role

LIANE HANSEN, host:

The 59th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards will be given out in Los Angeles tonight. Some of the creative arts awards winners have already been announced and HBO's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" picked up five of them. It's also up for more Emmy honors tonight including Best Made for TV Movie.

"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" chronicles the events that led up to the assassination of Chief Sitting Bull and the massacre of hundreds of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee Creek in 1890. The story is primarily told from the perspective of three characters, Charles Eastman, an assimilated Sioux doctor; Sitting Bull, the Lakota chief who refused to assimilate and Senator Henry Dawes, an architect of the government's policy on Indian affairs.

(Soundbite of scene from "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee")

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Mr. AIDAN QUINN (Actor): (As Senator Henry Dawes) The Indians today is civilized only in the most elemental sense. We have reached the point where the Indian problem should be no different than the Irish problem or the German problem. Like them the Indian has been absorbed, but unlike them he has not yet been assimilated.

HANSEN: That's Aidan Quinn as Senator Henry Dawes in HBO's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." Quinn has also received an Emmy nomination for his performance and he's in the studios of NPR West.

Welcome to the program and congratulations.

Mr. QUINN: Thank you. Nice to be here.

HANSEN: Senator Dawes is not a name that one easily recalls from this part of history. Can you tell us a little bit more about your character?

Mr. QUINN: Well, yes, he was, you know, an architect of the Dawes Act, which was part of moving Indians, finally, on to a reservations, and this story is strictly about the Sioux and what happened. And then my character was actually a very strict Christian who believed he was saving the Indians from annihilation, and that they just needed to be like white people and as soon as they did that they'd be better of, you know.

HANSEN: Yeah. Was he misguided or was he more of a product of his times?

Mr. QUINN: I think both. You know, he even - later on at Lake Mohonk, there was an Indian conference in early 1900s and he still talked about that the Indians, although they were going to school now and getting Christian education, that they still needed to abandon their savage way of life, and he used the word.

So you can see there was a kind of cultural arrogance that was coursing through, you know, every fiber of his being. And yet, if it wasn't for him, you know, things would have been probably a lot worse.

HANSEN: Yeah. He puts himself out as, you know, the only friend that…

Mr. QUINN: Mm-hmm.

HANSEN: …these tribes have in Washington.

Mr. QUINN: Right.

HANSEN: And if they don't, you know, make deals with him then it's going to be worse.

Mr. QUINN: Yes. And it was true to a certain extent. I mean, because he had a lot of enemies in Congress, you know, the people that just wanted to wipe out the Indians and there was tremendous pressure - the westwards Manifest Destiny pressure - to just take over everything for the land, for the mineral, for grazing rights and all those things. And he thought as a Christian - as a true Christian, you know, that that was wrong and that there had to be - no matter what you thought of the Indians and their way of life, they had to be given equal rights as human beings under the eyes of God.

HANSEN: Was there something that lit the light bulb and said to you, as the actor, aha, this is him - this is how I can capture him?

Mr. QUINN: Well, it was really the sincerity. It was really finding out that, you know, he was a son of a farmer, you know, in Massachusetts. He was going to quit school at 16 and just work on the farm. And his sister's husband was an educated man and noticed that he had a love for books and encouraged him and his sister. So he was a very plain, rough man. He hated all the lobbying interests in Congress.

HANSEN: Yeah. Do you have a favorite scene?

Mr. QUINN: My favorite scene that I'm involved with was the fight with Adam Beach's character Charles Eastman.

(Soundbite of scene from "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee")

Mr. ADAM BEACH (Actor): (As Charles Eastman) I am acting in the interest of my people, following the example you set.

Mr. QUINN: (As Senator Henry Dawes) Do you really think you know better than I what is in interest of these people?

Mr. BEACH: (As Charles Eastman) Yes. I am one of them, senator.

Mr. QUINN: (As Senator Henry Dawes) You're no more a Sioux Indian than I am.

You see that no matter how this man really did believe he was doing the best thing, you know, there was still this racism. There's that I'm really better than you.

HANSEN: So you should listen to what I say?

Mr. QUINN: Exactly.

HANSEN: Yeah. Dee Brown's book really raised America's consciousness about Native American issues in history. And here we are, 36 years later, and here's the stunning cinematic version of it. Why do you think that this story needs to be told now?

Mr. QUINN: I think, you know, there is a karmic death to not, you know, in a literal way or, you know, my family is from Ireland. My parents are from Ireland. Maybe there's identification because of what happened to the Irish. But I think there is a karmic death that we all pay for mistreatment of large groups of people and it needs to be addressed. And I think movies like this can really help that along the way.

HANSEN: Aidan Quinn plays Senator Henry Dawes in the HBO movie "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." The film has just been released on DVD. Aidan Quinn has been nominated for an Emmy award for his performance and we'll find out tonight if he won.

Good luck and thank you so much.

Mr. QUINN: All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.