UM alum Lily Gladstone wins historic Golden Globe for best actress

Lily Gladstone — the female lead of Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” — continued making history Sunday, becoming the first Native woman to win the Golden Globe award for best actress in a dramatic film.

In December, Gladstone became the first Native woman nominated for the award for her role in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The awards were announced Sunday night at the Golden Globe award ceremony held at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles.

In a recent People article, Gladstone is quoted saying she prefers she/they pronouns. ICT and Montana Free Press will use she/they interchangeably to refer to Gladstone.

In her speech, Gladstone spoke some of her Blackfeet language and thanked those who helped her reach this moment.

“I’m so grateful that I can speak even a little bit of my language, which I’m not fluent enough up here. Because in this business, Native actors used to speak their lines in English and then the sound mixers would run them backwards to accomplish Native languages on camera,” Gladstone said. “This is an historic win, it doesn’t belong to just me. I’m holding it right now. I’m holding it with all of my beautiful sisters.”

“And this is 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,” Gladstone added.

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From the Blackfeet Reservation in northwestern Montana, Gladstone comes from Kainai (Blood), Amskapi Piikani (Blackfeet) and Niimiipuu (Nez Perce) tribal nations.

At the Globes, Gladstone wore a white strapless Valentino gown with a black opera coat and earrings from Blackfeet designer Lenise Omeaso of Antelope Women Designs, according to InStyle.

Starring next to Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, Gladstone plays Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman in 1920s Oklahoma who suffers a series of murders of her close Osage Nation friends and family members after oil is discovered on their lands.

“Killers of the Flower Moon” received seven nominations: Best Picture (Drama), Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Score. It won only in the Best Actress category, and was overshadowed by Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” which won five awards, for Best Picture (Drama), Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Score.

In 2022, Gladstone appeared in “The Unknown Country,” “Quantum Cowboys,” “The Last Manhunt,” “Fancy Dance,” six episodes on the TV series “Billions,” and two “Reservation Dogs” episodes.

The competitors in Gladstone’s category at the 2023 Golden Globes were Annette Bening (“Nyad”), Sandra Hüller (“Anatomy of a Fall”), Greta Lee (“Past Lives”), Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”) and Cailee Spaeny (“Priscilla”).