Anna Lambe

Anna Lambe went to her first film audition because her high school drama teacher in Iqaluit practically made her go. She had no prior experience on film sets and no industry connections in Canada's audiovisual sector. Her debut in The Grizzlies (2018) earned her a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress at just eighteen years old.

And the gamble paid off.

Born in 2000 in Newfoundland and raised in the Arctic territory of Nunavut, her approach to acting has always been rooted in a raw realism. Rather than moving straight to the industry hubs of Toronto or Vancouver, she combined her first on-camera jobs with International Development studies at the University of Ottawa.

Breaking the Arctic Mold

In 2020, she took on the role of Sarah in the public broadcaster CBC's series Trickster. That production blended contemporary Indigenous mythology with social drama, moving away entirely from the traditional anthropological portrayals that television had long assigned to Inuit actors.

Despite the show's premature cancellation over controversies unrelated to the cast, her work earned her another consecutive national nomination in the dramatic television categories.

Casting directors in the United States started taking note of her name.

In 2024, Mexican director Issa López cast her as Kayla Prior in the fourth season of True Detective, titled True Detective: Night Country. Shot in Iceland under extreme weather conditions, the series put Lambe face to face with Jodie Foster and Finn Bennett in a suffocating crime story. Her character channeled the frustration of Indigenous communities over institutional neglect and structural violence.

Comedy, tension and nonstop filming

But her big breakthrough as the undisputed lead came with the comedy North of North (2025), a co-production of CBC, APTN and Netflix. She played Siaja, a young mother trying to reinvent herself in a small town in the Canadian Arctic.

The series confirmed her ability to carry the weight of a global-scale drama without losing its original cultural roots.

In 2025, she also joined the cast of the independent drama Dusk & Dawn. The following year she shot the thriller Heart of the Beast and the suspense film In the Heart of the South, both directed by filmmakers from the Canadian circuit. By 2026, she already had more than a dozen professional credits across film and international television.

Production on the second season of North of North wrapped in 2026 after eight episodes were filmed on locations across northern Canada.