Little Known Facts with Ilana Levine

Paulina Alexis is an award-winning Indigenous Canadian actress and a proud member of the Stoney tribe of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation in Alberta. She first gained recognition for her performances in Beans, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and Bones of Crows, before earning widespread acclaim for her breakout role as Willie Jack in the FX series Reservation Dogs. Her work on the series earned her a Critics’ Choice Television Award nomination, while the ensemble received multiple honors for its groundbreaking representation and storytelling. Alexis has become known for bringing authenticity, humor, and emotional depth to her performances, while helping expand opportunities for Indigenous talent on screen.

Most recently, Alexis stars as Zoey Bear Child in the new USA Network mystery drama Anna Pigeon, based on Nevada Barr’s bestselling novel series. The series premiered August 7, 2026, and follows national park ranger Anna Pigeon as she investigates crimes across some of America’s most remote and breathtaking landscapes. Alexis’s character, Zoey, is a young ranger who looks to Anna as a mentor as she finds her footing in the park service. In addition to acting, Alexis continues to champion Indigenous representation and storytelling, bringing her distinctive voice and perspective to every project she takes on.
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Ben Wang is best known for the titular role for Sony Pictures’ “Karate Kid: Legends” where he was selected from a worldwide search of over 10,000 actors. He stars opposite David Jonnson and Cooper Hoffman in the Lionsgate’s thriller “The Long Walk,” based on the Stephen King novel and directed by Francis Lawrence (“The Hunger Games.”) Ben was also the lead of the Disney+ series “American Born Chinese,” based on Gene Yang’s graphic novel, where he played opposite Oscar winners Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. And Ben will rejoin Francis Lawrence as Wyatt Callow in the upcoming Lionsgate blockbuster “The Hunger Games: The Sunrise on Reaping.” Wang recently wrapped lead roles in two independent features. First is the coming of age film “Brian,” directed by Will Ropp and produced by Seth Meyers where he plays the titular role opposite William H. Macy, Randall Park, and Edi Patterson. The second film is David Wain’s R-rated “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,” written by Wain and Ken Marino, where he plays opposite Zoey Deutch, Jon Hamm, and John Slattery. Previously, Wang was part of the ensemble in the musical “Mean Girls” for Paramount Pictures, and he co-starred in the coming-of-age feature film “Chang Can Dunk” for Disney+. He is a graduate of the NYU Tisch theater program.
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Betty Buckley is a legendary, multi-award-winning actress/singer whose career spans theater, film, television and concert halls around the world. She is a 2012 Theatre Hall of Fame inductee and the 2017 recipient of the Julie Harris Awards from The Actor’s Fund for Artistic Achievement and received The Lifetime Achievement Award from The American Songbook Association in 2023.

She won a Tony Award for her performance as Grizabella, the Glamour Cat, in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats and received her second Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a musical for her performance as Hesione in Triumph of Love. She received an Olivier Award nomination for her critically acclaimed interpretation of Norma Desmond in the London production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard, which she repeated to more rave reviews on Broadway.

Ms. Buckley is featured in the film By Design, written and directed by Amanda Kramer, and it made its debut at The Sundance Film Festival in January 2025. She is also featured in the film Eternity for A24 Studios, starring Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen, released in November 2025. In March 2024, she co-starred in Imaginary for Blumhouse Productions and released by Lionsgate. She co-starred with James McAvoy in the M. Night Shyamalan hit film Split, one of the top international box office hits of 2017. She received a Saturn Award Nomination for Best Featured Actress for her work in the film.

Her other films include her debut in Brian de Palma’s screen version of Stephen King’s Carrie, Bruce Beresford’s Tender Mercies, Roman Polanski’s Frantic, Woody Allen’s Another Woman, Lawrence Kasdan’s Wyatt Earp and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening.

In 2024, The Mayfly, an animated short film written, produced and narrated by Ms. Buckley played the film festival circuit and won several awards, including Best of Festival, Best Director and Best 2D Character Based Animation at The Los Angeles Animation Festival. The film also won Best Animation at The Lady Filmmakers Festival in Los Angeles. A love letter to New York City and music, The Mayfly is a lyrical tale that was inspired by a true event at the Café Carlyle, with a score composed by seven-time GRAMMY® nominee Christian Jacob.

Her other Broadway credits include 1776, Pippin, Song and Dance, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Carrie. She headlined the first National Tour of the new Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! in 2018/2019. Off-Broadway credits include the world premiere of Horton Foote’s The Old Friends, for which she received a Drama Desk Nomination in 2014, White Lies, Lincoln Center’s Elegies, the original NYSF production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Eros Trilogy, Juno’s Swans. Getting My Act Together and Taking It On The Road. Regional credits include The Perfectionist, Gypsy, The Threepenny Opera, Camino Real, Buffalo Gal, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Old Friends at Houston’s Alley Theatre and Grey Gardens at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, NY and The Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles in 2016 for which she received an Ovation Award Nomination.

In London, she starred in Promises, Promises for which she was nominated for An Evening Standard Award and in the 2013 British premiere of Dear World.

On television, Buckley had a recurring role on Law & Order SVU for NBC. She co-starred in the third season of AMC’s hit series Preacher and has guest starred on the Fox/Warner Bros. TV shows: The Cleaning Lady, The CW hit Supergirl, the NBC Series Chicago Med and ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars. For HBO, she has appeared on Getting On, The Leftovers, The Pacific and for three seasons had a recurring role on OZ. She starred as Abby Bradford in the hit series Eight is Enough.

For more information, visit www.bettybuckley.com
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Claybourne Elder is a Grammy, SAG, Drama Desk, and Lucille Lortel nominee. He played John Adams on HBO’s hit series “The Gilded Age” and was most recently seen on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning revival of Company, starring Patti LuPone. He is known for his performances on Broadway in Bonnie and Clyde, Sunday in the Park with George, Torch Song, and Sondheim on Sondheim at the Hollywood Bowl. Other New York performances include Hollis in Sondheim’s Road Show, Strike Up the Band at Carnegie Hall, Do I Hear a Waltz? at New York City Center, and Allegro at Classic Stage Company.
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Jen Schriever is a Tony Award–nominated lighting designer working across Broadway, the West End, Off-Broadway, regional theatre, and opera.

Most recently, Schriever received the Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for The Lost Boys at the Palace Theatre, a 12-time Tony Award–nominated production that earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Lighting Design, shared with co–lighting designer Michael Arden.

She received two Tony nominations for her lighting design of A Strange Loop at the Lyceum Theatre and Death of a Salesman at the Hudson Theatre. She is also an Obie Award-winner for Sustained Excellence in Lighting Design and received an Obie Award Special Citation as part of the creative team and ensemble of A Strange Loop.

On Broadway and in the West End, her work includes Art (Music Box Theatre), Glengarry Glen Ross (Palace Theatre), Eureka Day and Lackawanna Blues (MTC, Samuel J. Friedman Theatre), Death of a Salesman (Hudson Theatre), 1776 and Birthday Candles (American Airlines Theatre), A Strange Loop (Lyceum Theatre, The Barbican), Mother Play; Grand Horizons and What the Constitution Means to Me (Helen Hayes Theater), The Lifespan of a Fact (Studio 54), Eclipsed (Golden Theatre), and John Leguizamo’s Ghetto Klown (Lyceum Theatre and HBO).

Off-Broadway and New York credits include Antigone (This Play I Read in High School) and The Other Americans (Public Theater), Strategic Love Play (Audible, Minetta Lane Theatre), Spain (Second Stage, Tony Kiser Theatre), Shhh (Atlantic Theater Company), Power Strip (Lincoln Center Theater, Claire Tow Theater), Usual Girls (Roundabout Theatre Company), Strange Interlude (Irondale Theatre, Transport Group), Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (New Victory Theater), and Selling Kabul (Playwrights Horizons).

Regionally, her work includes Uncle Vanya (Berkeley Repertory Theatre), Highway Patrol (Goodman Theatre), Hippest Trip: The Soul Train Musical (American Conservatory Theater), A Transparent Musical (Mark Taper Forum), A Strange Loop (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company). She earned a Helen Hayes award for Private Jones at Signature Theatre DC.

In opera, Schriever has designed A Thousand Splendid Suns (Seattle Opera), Iphigenia (tour), The Pearl Fishers and Die Fledermaus (Metropolitan Opera), and La Traviata, Faust, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Mariinsky Theatre in Russia, as well as The Pearl Fishers for English National Opera in London.
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