Nathan Apodaca is best known for sending a happy, laid-back vibe via TikTok in the fall of 2020. Apodaca uploaded a video of himself serenely skateboarding, drinking Ocean Spray cranberry juice from the bottle, and lip-syncing lips to Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 song “D.” Now, he’s earned a spot on the popular Hulu show “Reservation Dogs.” Within a week of posting the skateboard TikTok in September 2020, Apodaca’s video had racked up millions of views. The following week, Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” had its biggest streaming week ever, Billboard reported. Apodaca’s reputation, in some ways, came from hardship. The 37-year-old started skateboarding to work when his mileage-weary 2005 Dodge Durango wouldn’t start, he told The New York Times in 2020. At the time, the 37-year-old was living in a mobile home without running water. He shot the video during a freeway ride to his job at a potato warehouse. Apodaca’s TikTok has garnered more than 13.4 million likes and spawned copycat videos from Fleetwood Mac’s Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks, Gordon Ramsay and Shakira, among others. After his video went viral, an Ocean Spray representative showed up at his home in Idaho Falls, Idaho, with a gift: a cranberry-red Nissan pickup — his truck bed filled with Ocean Spray juice. Since then, she has appeared alongside Snoop Dogg in commercials and attended President Joe Biden’s mock inauguration. Now Apodaca, whose 7.1 million followers know him as @420doggface208, has parlayed his Internet fame into a guest spot on the Peabody-winning show “Reservation Dogs.” “Reservation Dogs” is a comedy-drama that follows four Native American teenagers in rural Oklahoma as they grieve the loss of a friend. Apodaca, whose mother is Northern Arapaho, plays Uncle Charley in at least two episodes of the second season, his IMDb page showed. Sterlin Harjo, the show’s creator, told Time that he wants to use “Reservation Dogs” not for accolades (though it has been nominated for many), but to tell “real stories” and give other Native filmmakers opportunities to success. “I was the person no one opened doors for,” Harjo said. “So it’s my duty and my job to open those doors.” “It’s just, it leads me to a fantasy that I’ve always dreamed of, you know, which is awesome,” Apodaca said in an Aug. 11 interview with KPVI News. “I’m not done until I pay off my mum and dad’s house and I’m still trying to do that.” The second season of “Reservation Dogs” is streaming on Hulu.
