Lily Gladstone was honored with a Golden Globe award for "Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture-Drama" for her portrayal in "Killers of the Flower Moon."
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.-In January, Lily Gladstone made history as she became the first Indigenous actress to win a Golden Globe. Gladstone was awarded in the "Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture-Drama" for her portrayal of Mollie Burkhart in the film, "Killers of the Flower Moon."
"This is a historic win and it doesn't belong to just me," Gladstone said.
Gladstone, whose background is Blackfeet and Nez Perce, and who grew up on the Blackfeet Nation, is the second Native actress to receive any recognition from the Globes; Irene Bedard was nominated in 1995 for "Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee," a television movie.
Gladstone began her acceptance speech by speaking in the Blackfeet language, then switching to English as she explained, "I just spoke a bit of Blackfeet language, a beautiful community nation that raised me, that encouraged me to keep going, keep doing this here with my mom-who, even though she's not Blackfeet, worked tirelessly to get our language into our classroom so I had a Blackfeet language teacher growing up."
Gladstone grew up acting in school and community productions and studied Theater of the Oppressed at the University of Montana, where she graduated with a major in acting and directing and minored in Native American studies. Besides performing in productions at the school, she also taught an image theatre acting method.
Gladstone made her film debut in "Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian" in 2012 and went on to collaborate with filmmaker Kelly Reichardt in the independent films "Certain Women" and "First Cow," as well as two other films. She toured with the Montana Repertory Theater and starred with the Yale Repertory Theater. Gladstone also starred in this year's "The Unknown Country," for which she earned a Gotham Award, and appeared in episodes of Billions and Reservation Dogs.
"Killers of The Flower Moon" is based on a true story about an Osage Nation woman whose husband joined plots to kill Native Americans for financial gain in the 1920s in Oklahoma. Gladstone advised others on X (formerly Twitter), "The most pressing thing I've wanted to say about Killers of the Flower Moon, especially to Native Women and Youth: See it when and only if you feel ready, and see it with people you feel safe with. You'll likely have a lot of generational grief to process. You're not alone."
Gladstone excelled in her role, playing opposite lengendary, seasoned actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro. Other female actors nominated for this award included Carey Mulligan ("Maestro"), Sandra Hüller ("Anatomy of a Fall"), Annette Bening ("Nyad"), Greta Lee ("Past Lives") and Cailee Spaeny ("Priscilla"). The film also gained Globes nominations for Male Actor in a Drama Motion Picture, Supporting Male Actor in a Motion Picture, Original Score, Drama Motion Picture, Screenplay, and Director.
This year marked the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Golden Globe Awards. The celebration began in January 1944 to honor the best annual achievements in filmmaking; in 1956, television categories were added.
In her speech, the actress noted, "This [win] is a historic one. It doesn't belong to just me. I'm holding it right now. I'm holding it with all my beautiful sisters in the film at this table over here and my mother, Tantoo Cardinal, standing on all of your shoulders. Thank you."
Gladstone included Chief Standing Bear, the Osage Nation and her co-stars in her list of thanks. Then she summarized that her win was "for every little rez kid, every little urban kid, every little Native kid out there who has a dream, who is seeing themselves represented in our stories told by ourselves in our own words with tremendous allies and tremendous trust from within from each other."
