07/09/2024
Lily Gladstone (born August 2, 1986) is an American actress. Raised on the Blackfeet Reservation, Gladstone is of Piegan Blackfeet, Nez Perce, and European heritage. She earned critical acclaim for portraying Mollie Kyle, an Osage woman who survived the Osage Indian murders, in Martin Scorsese's crime drama film Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), receiving several accolades. She became the first Native American to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama and be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Gladstone made her feature film debut in Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian (2012), and collaborated with filmmaker Kelly Reichardt on the independent films Certain Women (2016) and First Cow (2019). She also appeared in episodes of HBO's Room 104 (2017–2020), Showtime's Billions (2016–2023), and FX's Reservation Dogs (2021–2023).
Early life and education
Gladstone was born on August 2, 1986, in Kalispell, Montana. Raised on the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Montana, she is of Piegan Blackfeet (Siksikaitsitapi), Nez Perce (NimĂipuu), and European heritage. Her mother is white and her father is Blackfeet and Nez Perce. She is descended from the first cousin of British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. One of her paternal great-great-grandfathers was Kainai Nation chief Red Crow.
Gladstone's desire to portray an Ewok after watching Return of the Jedi at the age of five inspired her to become an actress. One of Gladstone's first acting experiences as a child was when Missoula Children's Theatre came to her East Glacier, Montana, hometown and cast her as an evil step-sister in Cinderella. Gladstone's family moved to the Seattle area during her middle school years to be closer to her grandmother. There she enrolled in Stone Soup Theatre, a non profit educational theatre company for the Seattle youth, starring in student films and theses.
In 2004 she graduated from Mountlake Terrace High School in Mountlake Terrace, Washington. In 2008 she graduated from the University of Montana with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Acting/Directing and a Native American Studies minor. At the University of Montana, she became interested in Theatre of the Oppressed. At UM, she performed in Riders to the Sea (2006), Richard III (2006), Miss Julie (2007) and Coyote on a Fence (2008). Upon graduating, she taught acting classes and workshops in her native community. She taught an image theatre acting method she called a "sculpture garden" as violence prevention sponsored by the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center. In 2010, she performed in The Frybread Queen, a co-production by Native Voices at the Autry, the UM School of Theatre and Dance and The Montana Repertory Theatre.
Career
Early work and breakthrough (2012–2022)
Gladstone made her film debut in Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian (2012). She then acted in Winter in the Blood (2012) and Buster's Mal Heart (2016) before making her career breakthrough as Jamie, a rancher, in Kelly Reichardt's film Certain Women (2016). The role earned Gladstone the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also received nominations for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female and Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Actor.
Gladstone performed the role of Kate Keller in the 2014 Montana Repertory Theatre's national touring production of The Miracle Worker. Gladstone was in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival acting company in 2017 and starred in the Yale Repertory Theatre production of Mary Kathryn Nagle's Manahatta in 2020.
In 2017, Gladstone hosted a series on the educational YouTube channel Crash Course about film production.
Gladstone had a small role in Reichardt's 2019 film First Cow[7] before starring in the 2022 film The Unknown Country, directed by Morrisa Maltz, for which she received the Gotham Independent Film Award for Outstanding Lead Performance.
Awards success (2023–present)
Gladstone was cast in the lead role of Mollie Kyle in Martin Scorsese's 2023 feature film Killers of the Flower Moon, which was released theatrically in October 2023. Her performance received critical acclaim and was described as a highlight of the film. Critic Josh Spiegel of /Film said that she "brought [Mollie] to life with incredible passion". In January 2024, she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama; she was the first Indigenous (Native American) woman to be nominated for, and win, an acting Golden Globe. She is the fourth Indigenous and first Native American woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.[39] In February 2024, Gladstone became the first Indigenous actor to win the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Female Actor for her performance in Killers of the Flower Moon. Earlier in 2023, Gladstone starred in Fancy Dance which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim and will be distributed worldwide by Apple TV+.
Gladstone will next star in the crime drama series Under the Bridge, about the murder of Reena Virk. Following Killers of the Flower Moon, she was cast in The Memory Police, written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Reed Morano. Gladstone will also costar in Jazzy, written and directed by Maltz.
Personal life
Gladstone goes by both she and they pronouns. She explained in 2023, "In most Native languages, most Indigenous languages, Blackfeet included, there are no gendered pronouns. There is no he/she, there's only they... my pronoun use is partly a way of decolonizing gender for myself." Gladstone identifies as "middle-gendered" and a member of the LGBTQ community.
