Killers of the Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone is 37 – but she can still remember being in her mother’s womb.
In this weekend’s 60 Seconds Lily – who has starred in TV series Billions and Under The Bridge, as well as films including Jazzy and Quantum Cowboys – talks about her new drama Fancy Dance, taking on the responsibilities of a nation, and what happened when she attended The Oscars…
How did you find Jax, your character in Fancy Dance?
I really modelled Jax after two of my boy cousins, Will and Chet. Will for this incredible ability he’s had in his life to turn it around and to become a leader in his community culturally. His past was a little bit more chequered, and he’s one of the strongest people that I know.
And then my cousin, Chet. Chet and I were the two kids in our family that were both raised on the Res together, so we were raised out on the land with our Dads.
So those little things helped me start fleshing her out from the outside in.
Were you big on the ‘powwow’ dances that feature in the film?
Yeah…so my parents, they met on the Res. They went and worked another job while my mom was pregnant with me for a while, but they moved back to the reservation two weeks before I was born.
I was born in early August. And my mom went over to the arbour to listen to the songs and to watch the dance. She said I was kicking along in her belly with the music. I found the rhythm and was kicking her. She says, ‘You’ve been powwow dancing since before you were born.’
When my dad would put on powwow music when I was a toddler…the Black Lodge Singers have a song for kids, like a bunch of kids’ powwow songs. He put that on and he would remark that I would start ‘grass dancing’, which is a man’s style!
You were the first Native American woman to be nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars. Do you feel a responsibility to speak out?
Yeah, in a way…I don’t know if I’m embracing it so much as it embraces me. It’s a charge and a responsibility to be a Native woman. And it’s a very specific charge and responsibility to be such a visible Native woman… accepting the Golden Globe in the Blackfeet language, introducing myself in the Blackfeet language, went really far for people. It’s definitely a moment of standing and saying ‘We’re still here.’
What moment stands out for you when at the Oscars?
One that I will carry forever was what it felt like going back to when my mom was still pregnant with me and when she was carrying me. I could feel the drum and started moving with the drum.
Being at the Oscars, being front row at the Oscars, the first time a big drum was brought up on stage…
I could feel it, I could feel that drum in my chest. It was close enough that I could feel my heartbeat with the beat of that drum.
The Osage people who are up on stage, who were bringing that song and that drum and that representation up there, and it was just so incredible to feel that, literally feel it in my chest. I would’ve felt it at home if I was watching it on television, too.
I think people were moved by that performance.
Did you have dreams of being an actor when you were a kid?
Definitely when I was a kid. For however nebulous or subjective an actor is when you’re a kid, you don’t really know what that entails other than you want to be part of the stories you’re watching. I think that was the big thing.
I’ve said it so many times now, when I really felt the urge to be in a story I was watching and want to be a part of that was when I was watching Star Wars and wanted to be an Ewok so badly! I was five years old.
And maybe it’s that little age-old story of indigenous resistance, the protectors of the forest keeping their land. As I grew older, I found I wasn’t the only Native kid who loved Ewoks. We feel drawn to them.
So who or what encouraged you that you could act?
We started doing school plays for an audience when I was seven or eight. That’s about the time that my dad started putting little worms in my ear about being a movie star, being an Oscar winner, or whatever it is. And my mom, too, for a long time, just spoke about it: ‘No, this is what you do. This is who you are.’
Your first movie was 2013’s Jimmy P with Benicio Del Toro. What was it like to work with him?
I hadn’t been acclimated at that point. I’m still pretty starstruck from [co-starring in that] scene with Benicio that day. Yeah. It was sweet. He recognised me as an actor right away. I had auditioned for a number of roles on that one. And when production moved to Montana, because of some of the other work that I did in the state, I was brought in to be in the casting department.
So I helped cast a lot of local actors. A lot of them were non-actors. But when Benicio and I did our scene together, after we did our first take he lit up a cigarette, and we’re just visiting in between camera setups, and he said, ‘You’re an actor, aren’t you?’ Which was just the best compliment. And I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, I am.’ And he said, ‘You’re good. Keep doing it.’
Who are you desperate to work with next?
I can’t wait to get to sit and visit with Jane Campion. She makes the most incredible films. The Piano was an early one for me in developing my film taste. Everything Denis [Villeneuve] does is just impeccable. Arrival’s of my favorite films. He’s masterful. I want to work with everybody!
Fancy Dance is available on Apple TV+ from June 28.
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