Amber Midthunder

Midthunder's mother Angelique, who is originally from Thailand and of Thai-Chinese ancestry, is a casting director and stunt performer, and her father David is an actor of Hunkpapa Lakota, Sisseton Dakota, and Sahiyaiyeskabi Assiniboine descent; Angelique and David met while working on the 1995 Japanese film East Meets West.

Midthunder is a citizen of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribe. She was born on the Navajo Nation in Shiprock, New Mexico, and eventually returned there after spending much of her childhood in Santa Fe where she attended the Academy for Technology and the Classics and where her mother worked in a casting firm.

Midthunder developed an interest in acting as a child. She would memorize and recite lines from her favorite shows. But she disliked her first experience in the job, leading her to take some time before another performance. She even considered a career in make-up, where she worked as an intern, or mixed martial arts, having trained and taught Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Her first acting credit was a small role in 2008's Sunshine Cleaning. Midthunder worked in various productions filmed in New Mexico, then moved to Los Angeles at the age of 17 to pursue more acting opportunities.

She played a hotshot trucker in the 2021 Liam Neeson thriller The Ice Road.

In 2022, Midthunder starred in Prey, the fifth installment of the Predator franchise. She played Naru, a young Comanche healer who wants to prove herself as a hunter, and was widely praised for her performance. Prey was the first feature film to have a full Comanche language dub, and the first Hollywood franchise film to have an all-Native American cast.

In 2025, Midthunder co-starred in the action-comedy Novocaine and the thriller Opus.

Awards and nominations

In 2022, Midthunder received the Breakthrough Performance Award as part of the Saturn Awards, and a Critics' Choice Awards nomination for Best Actress in a Limited Series or Movie Made for Television, both for her performance in Prey.

Film

Television