Adam Beach was born a Saulteaux Indian (part of the Ojibwa Nation) and lived on the Dog Creek Indian Reservation in Manitoba until the death of his parents when he was eight years old. His first love was music and for a short time he played in a heavy metal band. Acting quickly became his professional choice when he got a small part in a Graham Greene TV movie, Lost in the Barrens (1990). His big break came when he earned the lead in Disney's Squanto: A Warrior's Tale (1994). He played the part of Victor Joseph in Chris Eyre's Smoke Signals (1998), a film that won the Audience Award and Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival. Beach costarred with Nicolas Cage in 2002's Windtalkers, about the World War II Navajo code talkers. He played the role of Jim Chee in PBS's productions of Tony Hillerman's novels, Skinwalkers (2002), Coyote Waits (2003), and A Thief of Time (2004). He portrays one of the men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima in Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers (2006) and late 19th century Indian writer and activist Charles Eastman in HBO's production of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007).
