Last Updated on 29 March 2024 by Erotica Pleasure
Lily Gladstone 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, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role in a Motion Picture 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).
Years active: 2012–present
Born age: August 2, 1986, 37 years old and 8 months, Kalispell, Montana, USA
Sun Sign: Leo
Hair Color: Dark Brown
Eye Color: Hazel
Height: 5’7″ – 1.70 m
Measurements: 36-26-35 in – 91-66-89 cm
Bra size: 34B US – 75B
Lily Gladstone in BILLIONS (2016- )
Lily Gladstone in BILLIONS (2016- )
Lily Gladstone in BILLIONS (2016- )
Lily Gladstone in BILLIONS (2016- )
Lily Gladstone in BILLIONS (2016- )
Lily Gladstone - Variety Magazine Power of Women Portraits - November 2023
Lily Gladstone, who became the first Indigenous woman to win a Golden Globe (81st Golden Globe Awards) for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama
Early life and education
Raised on the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Montana, she is of Piegan Blackfeet (Siksikaitsitapi), Nez Perce (Nimíipuu), 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 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.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
Relative: Jack Gladstone(Cousin)
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.
Trivia
Her father worked in broadcast journalism and is of Blackfeet and Nimíipuu descent, while her mother, an early childhood education specialist, is white.
After her family moved away from Browning due to a lack of economic opportunities, she graduated high school in a suburb of Seattle, then attended the University of Montana. She studied acting and theater, graduating in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and a minor in Native American Studies.
She grew up on the reservation of the Blackfeet Nation in Browning, Montana and lived there until she was 11.
For the first years of her life, the family had a log cabin with a wood-burning stove.
She is the first Native American actress to be nominated for an Oscar.
Her parents lived on the Blackfeet Reservation, and when her mother went into labor early one August morning, no one was available at Indian Health Service in Browning to give her a caesarian. So an emergency helicopter flew her to Kalispell Regional Medical Center just as the sun crested the Rocky Mountain Front. Lily’s father told her she didn’t cry when she was born. She just looked around the room and smiled.
Cousin of Montana’s native singer and storyteller, Jack Gladstone.
Was voted “Most likely to win an Oscar” in high school. In 2024, she received an Oscar nomination in the category “Best Actress in a Leading Role” for her performance in Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).
Has an interest in apiculture, and when her career slowed down during the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly applied for a job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, tracking invasive Asian Giant Hornets in Seattle. Until her agent called about auditioning for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).
Uses she/they pronouns, citing most Indigenous American languages lack gendered pronouns – “My pronoun use is partly a way of decolonizing gender for myself.”.
She cited watching The Return of the Jedi (1983) as a child and wanting to be an Ewok as the what inspired her to become an actor.
Quote
On being the first Native American actress to be nominated for an Oscar] Why am I the first? Why did it have to take this long for me to be the first Indigenous North American? Most of the films that show up in these categories are shot on Indigenous land in North America, and it’s taken this long.
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