Profile: Actress and Coffee with My Ma Podcast Host, Kaniehtiio Horn
Kaniehtiio Horn (nickname Tiio) is a Kanien’kehaka actress from Kahnawake, Québec, Canada. Some of her recent credits include playing Tanis on Crave TV’s Letterkenny, Tara in the hit web series Ghost BFF and Leah in CBC’s upcoming legal drama Diggstown. Kaniehtiio also has a recurring role in Amazon’s Man in the High Castle and starred in the feature film Mohawk.
Kaniehtiio started performing in plays in elementary school, but she didn’t realize acting was a profession until she watched actor Jim Carrey in the 1994 comedy Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. It was then she realized she could earn a living making other people laugh.
Kaniehtiio graduated from Dawson College in 2005 with a Theatre Arts degree, and within a year of graduating she was cast in CBC’s TV mini-series Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis— ironic due to her presence at the standoff at only four years old with mother Kahentinetha Horn and sister Waneek Horn-Miller.
In her early 20s, feeling uninspired and somewhat tired of the scripts she was reading, Kaniehtiio decided to write and create a short film about a cigarette store—like the one she worked at in her late teens on the reserve.
“I just wanted to do something,” said Kaniehtiio to Indigenous Power Television host, Nakuset. “There are smoke shacks all up and down the highways and on the reserve. It’s a part of the industry and the economy—a different little corner pocket of the world that no one really knows about.” The short film allowed Kaniehtiio to wear many hats beyond just acting, including writing, directing and co-producing the comedy. Her debut film The Smoke Shack won several awards, including Best Comedy Short at the Yorkton Short Film Festival in 2013. This film helped launch her career of telling stories from her own perspective.
Kaniehtiio continues to appear in numerous TV movies and short films. She hosts the podcast Coffee With My Ma and is the co-publisher of Mohawk Nation News. In her spare time she likes to swim and watch TV. Family means everything to her, and she loves the colour pink and Boodz, her cat.