{"id":13822,"date":"2026-01-22T16:17:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T23:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-college-student-performs-on-dark-winds\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T19:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:32:08","slug":"fort-lewis-college-student-performs-on-dark-winds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-college-student-performs-on-dark-winds\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Lewis College student performs on \u2018Dark Winds\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=55bde191-1903-57d9-ae82-d0d020c5e380&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1728\" height=\"955\" alt=\"Fort Lewis College freshman Sophia Tso-Paul, right, performs in the first episode of Season Four of AMC\u2019s \u201cDark Winds.\u201d (Screenshots)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Fort Lewis College freshman Sophia Tso-Paul, right, performs in the first episode of Season Four of AMC\u2019s \u201cDark Winds.\u201d (Screenshots)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>While most college freshmen are settling into their second semester of their first year, Fort Lewis College student Sophia Tso-Paul is also awaiting the release of her premiere on AMC\u2019s \u201cDark Winds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She can be seen in two scenes in the first episode of upcoming Season Four, which will begin airing Feb. 15 on AMC and AMC+, with new episodes weekly. You can also catch her at the 32-second mark of the show\u2019s official trailer on YouTube.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4mKj8vj9YZ4\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Set in the 1970s, \u201cDark Winds\u201d follows the adventures of Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. The show is based on the novels by Tony Hillerman and features Zahn McClaron, Jessica Matten and Kiowa Gordin, among others.<\/p>\n<p>The 18-year-old business administration major, who grew up on the Navajo Reservation in Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle, 25 miles south of Bloomfield, said she first became interested in acting at a young age. She grew up participating in powwows, and when the son of one of her mother Kathy Begay\u2019s friends wanted to audition for a show about powwows, her mother asked her if she wanted to do it, too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not sure what happened to that project, I think it just kind of fell through,\u201d Tso-Paul said. \u201cBut through that, I got an agent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She then got an audition for the 2017 film, \u201cHostiles,\u201d starring Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi and Jesse Plemons. She made it through multiple stages and, ultimately, to the final audition, but wasn\u2019t cast when it was decided the character should be a boy instead of a girl. There were other auditions and opportunities (including being offered a role in \u201cYellowstone\u201d), but then braces \u2013 and COVID-19 \u2013 hit, and Tso-Paul put her career on hold until 2024, when she started modeling again after having done it a child.<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=a71c4e26-bd90-5d09-915c-0563df94a084&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1440\" height=\"827\" alt=\"Sophia Tso-Paul plays a boarding school students in \u201cDark Winds.\u201d (Screenshot)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Sophia Tso-Paul plays a boarding school students in \u201cDark Winds.\u201d (Screenshot)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Her mother put together a portfolio for her and emailed it to an agency, and the two heard back within minutes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey had remembered me from \u2018Hostiles\u2019 and \u2018Yellowstone,\u2019\u201d Tso-Paul said.<\/p>\n<p>She and Kathy were asked if they minded if her portfolio was sent to another agency, where it ended up on the desk of Casting Director Renee Haynes, known for working with Lily Gladstone, all the young actors in \u201cRez Ball\u201d and \u201cReservation Dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Haynes got in touch last February and told Tso-Paul she had been given a closed audition for \u201cDark Winds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The clock was ticking \u2013 they received the email Friday night, had to film her audition Saturday and had the video emailed Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I\u2019m kind of freaking out because \u2026 last year I had to do the SATs, and I was swamped with that and all this anxiety about college. And my mom was like, \u2018You know, you don\u2019t have to do this. I don\u2019t want you to be stressed out like this,\u2019\u201d Tso-Paul said. But then she thought, \u201c\u2018You know what? No. There\u2019s so many kids on the reservation that dream of having even an audition. I cannot let this big opportunity go. I have to do it.\u2019 So I did it. We had to send it in by Sunday night, so we spent a whole Saturday trying to remember my lines and memorize them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then the real nail-biting began, courtesy of the area\u2019s Wi-Fi going down Sunday night as they were getting ready to email her audition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no service, no there\u2019s no cell service anywhere. It\u2019s I would say, like, 8 p.m.,\u201d Tso-Paul said. \u201cWe have to go all the way to Bloomfield, which is about 30 or 40 minutes away from home. They don\u2019t have service there, so we have to go all the way to McDonald\u2019s in Farmington to use their Wi-Fi to upload my audition videos. And we finally got it in, like, by 10, and I remember, you have to drive all the way back, and that was a school night.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=d01297bb-6656-592c-8982-7fc123b3eb8c&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1440\" height=\"802\" alt=\"Season Four of AMC\u2019s \u201cDark Winds\u201d will premiere Feb. 15. (Screenshot)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Season Four of AMC\u2019s \u201cDark Winds\u201d will premiere Feb. 15. (Screenshot)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>The next day, she found out she had advanced in the auditions and was ultimately cast. Filming began in April in Santa Fe, with her scenes being shot over five days.<\/p>\n<p>Tso-Paul said while initially a little intimidating \u2013 she was the youngest actor on set until an infant showed up \u2013 it was a fun experience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just love the atmosphere, like, when you\u2019re shooting and you\u2019re doing scene rehearsals. (There\u2019s) this certain high that you get bouncing off other actors and actresses,\u201d she said. \u201cI was really nervous \u2013 I was able to do my audition, but it was only my mom and a camera. I was kind of nervous because there would be other actors, people who\u2019ve been doing it way longer than I\u2019ve even been alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She said she was even able to cry during one of her scenes, after thinking about what her character would have been feeling.<\/p>\n<p>In the episode, set in the 1970s, Tso-Paul plays a girl whose roommate and friend at an Indian Boarding School goes missing. She and her other roommates are questioned by Navajo police.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe season is about missing and murdered Indigenous women,\u201d she said, adding that she prepared for her role by asking her father and aunt about their experiences in boarding school.<\/p>\n<p>And while the abuses endured at the boarding schools may seem to have happened so long ago, Tso-Paul said that\u2019s not the case, and young adults like her are not only still being affected by the dark history because of family members and others who were at the schools, they\u2019re also trying to acknowledge the history and tell new, more honest narratives of what happened.<\/p>\n<p>Tso-Paul said the only challenge of being on set was having to spend hours in costume fittings and hair and makeup.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m very particular about my hair. I think it\u2019s because I\u2019m on the spectrum; I don\u2019t really like to be touched that much,\u201d she said. \u201cAlso being fitted for clothing or measured \u2013 that was a little bit of a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now that her performance on \u201cDark Winds\u201d is done, and she\u2019s waiting to see the final versions of her scenes when the first episode airs next month, Tso-Paul said she wants to finish her freshman year at FLC before taking on any new roles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just wanted to get through my first semester at college, to sort of do it all and plant my feet here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p><em id=\"emphasis-6a0ad91b395912f97398cbe51eb30e25\"><a href=\"mailto:katie@durangoherald.com\">katie@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Freshman Sophia Tso-Paul can be seen in upcoming fourth season of AMC show<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1060,1167,132,28,138,337,994],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-13822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-exclude-homepage-video","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-headlines","tag-new-mexico","tag-television","tag-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13822"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19454,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13822\/revisions\/19454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13822"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=13822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}