Lily Gladstone, whose powerful performance in “Killers of the Flower Moon” sparked a rapid ascent to Hollywood stardom, ended a career-defining awards season run at the Oscars, where she became the first Native American to -nominated for a competitive acting Academy. award
Gladstone plays a wealthy Osage woman whose family becomes the target of a murderous plot by white men to steal their oil rights. The actress quickly garnered accolades following the premiere of Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour historical epic at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
“You are the soul of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’” said actress Jennifer Lawrence, as she introduced Gladstone as a nominee on Sunday.
Earlier this year, Gladstone, who has Blackfeet and Nez Percé heritage, became the first Indigenous person to win a Golden Globe for best actress, using her moment on stage to share a snippet of Blackfeet language and remind the industry how far Hollywood has come. in representing Native Americans on screen.
“In this business, native actors use their lines in English and then sound mixers run them back to do the native languages on camera,” said Gladstone, 37, who also earned best-actress wins from the Screen Actors Guild and the New York Film Critics Circle.
Other indigenous performers have won Oscars. Indigenous singer Buffy Sainte-Marie is considered the first, winning best original song for “Up Where We Belong” from “An Officer and a Gentleman” in 1983 (although her Indigenous Canadian heritage has recently been disputed), and Taika Waititi, who is of Maori descent, took home best adapted screenplay for “Jojo Rabbit” (2019). In the best actress category, Indigenous performers such as Keisha Castle-Hughes (“Whale Rider,” 2003) and Yalitza Aparicio (“Roma,” 2018) are in the running for the honor. But among Native Americans, Gladstone was the first to be nominated for the competitive prize. (Wes Studi, who is Cherokee American, received an honorary Oscar in 2019.)
“There’s a small number of people who love movies who have been aware of my career for a while, but it’s like being shot out of a cannon,” Gladstone told The New York Times in a profile earlier. this year.
Portraying Mollie Burkhart, a real-life figure who survived the Reign of Terror against the Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma, Gladstone brings to life the complexities of a woman equally smitten by the romantic interest of a brash white interloper — played by Leonardo DiCaprio — and very suspicious of him. In a performance that can be both emotionally reserved and exhausting, Gladstone is a standout in a cast that includes two longtime Hollywood fixtures, DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.
Gladstone did not follow the usual path of an artist. Instead of moving to Los Angeles or New York to audition in her 20s, she stayed in Montana, touring schools with a one-woman show about the Native American boarding school system and building relationships with local filmmaker. Her career breakthrough came in the 2016 film “Certain Women.”
In “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Gladstone’s talents were given a large amount of money by a big-budget film. She learned to speak Osage with a language teacher and dialect coach, and she consulted with Margie Burkhart, her character’s granddaughter, about her grandparents’ relationship. After Scorsese met in Oklahoma with the descendants of the victims, the director worked to deepen the roles of the Osage characters in the script, giving Gladstone access to experts who could advise him on aspects of his performance.
As he made the rounds in the media, Gladstone spoke about the challenges in an industry with few opportunities for Indigenous actors. A recent one study found that of roles in 1,600 films released from 2007 to 2022, speaking parts for Indigenous actors accounted for less than a quarter of 1 percent.
“If I kicked the door,” Gladstone said in an interview with The New Yorker, “I’m just trying to stand here and let it be open for everybody.”
