As a child living on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northwestern Montana, Lily Gladstone anxiously awaited the arrival of the red truck. The vehicle passed by her village once a year and was loaded with sets, curtains and costumes. It was a traveling theater that chose the town’s kids for its performances and little Lily dreamed of acting.
Gladstone thus became one of Cinderella’s bad stepsisters and her potential did not go unnoticed: “Someday she will be up for the Oscar,” some members of her community said. The nominations for the golden statuettes will be announced on January 23, but the Indian actress is on the right track because on Sunday night she won the Golden Globe for best leading actress in a dramatic film.
It’s all thanks to Martin Scorsese and Killers on the Moon. The film is based on real events and is part of the book of the same name published by David Grann in 2017, in which he reveals the indiscriminate extermination of the Osage community by the excessive greed of the white man. The natives were wealthy from the oil found on their lands in Oklahoma and had the highest per capita income in the world at the time. Until they were victims of discrimination, racism and systematic genocide.
Scorsese focuses on a real character, William Hale, played by De Niro, a rancher who manages to gain the trust of the Osage and uses his dim-witted nephew Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) to marry the native heiress Mollie. (Lily Gladstone) while on the other hand he schemes how to destroy the woman’s family to keep her money and land.
Thanks to that role, Gladstone has become the breakout actress of the year and also the standard bearer of the Native American community whose visibility in cinema is practically non-existent. A recent study showed a more than striking result. Between 2007 and 2022, 1,600 films were released in which the participation of native actors with speaking roles was zero: less than one percent.
Lily, who is the daughter of a Blacfeet and Nez Perce father and a white mother, lived on the reservation until she was 11 years old. She later moved with her family to Seattle and later attended the University of Montana, where she graduated in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in Acting/Directing and a minor in Native American Studies. Her love for acting remained intact, but she was reluctant to move to Hollywood. She feared being pigeonholed.
She worked in independent films and the great opportunity came to her in 2016 with the help of Kelly Reichardt, who gave her a role in Certain Women, a film that was chosen to participate in the Sundance Festival and which earned Gladstone the Association award. from Los Angeles Film Critics for Best Supporting Actress.
Then Scorsese arrived and he rose to fame. Although the actors’ strike has slowed down the promotion of The Moon Killers, Gladstone has had a dream year. Cate Blanchett, her favorite actress, interviewed her after seeing the film in London. Elle magazine honored her along with actresses of the stature of Jennifer López and Jodie Foster. DiCaprio has been full of praise for her co-star. And Lily’s photo on the Cannes red carpet went around the world.
For Gladstone, 37, a great opportunity now opens up. But, while waiting for a very possible Oscar candidacy, the actress has a very clear objective: she will not allow Hollywood to pigeonhole her as has happened with other minority actors, as she explained to The New York Times.
