Lily Gladstone facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lily Gladstone
Gladstone in 2022
Born	(1986-08-02) August 2, 1986 (age 38) Kalispell, Montana, U.S.
Education	University of Montana (BFA)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2012–present
Relatives	Red Crow (great-great grandfather)
Awards	Full list

Lily Gladstone (born August 2, 1986) is an American actress. She made her film debut in Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian (2012), and went on to collaborate with filmmaker Kelly Reichardt in the independent films Certain Women (2016) and First Cow (2019). She earned critical acclaim for playing Mollie Kyle in Martin Scorsese's crime drama film Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), winning several awards, including being the first Indigenous person to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.

Gladstone has 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

Gladsone was born in 1986. Raised on the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Montana, she is of Piegan Blackfeet, Nez Perce, and European heritage and grew up on the reservation of the Blackfeet Nation. Her mother is white and her father is Blackfeet and Nez Perce. On her mother's side, she is a 1st cousin, 4 times removed of William Ewart Gladstone, British Prime Minister. One of her paternal great-great grandfathers was Red Crow, a Kainai Nation chief.

She has cited the desire to portray an Ewok after watching Return of the Jedi at the age of 5 as inspiring her to become an actress. One of Gladstone's first acting experiences as a child was when the Missoula Children's Theatre came to East Glacier to put on Cinderella and she was cast as one of the evil stepsisters. Gladstone's family moved to the Seattle area during her middle school years to be closer to her grandmother. There she was enrolled in Stone Soup Theatre, a non profit educational theatre company for the Seattle youth, which then led to starring in student films and theses.

She graduated from Mountlake Terrace High School in Mountlake Terrace, Washington in 2004. Gladstone attended the University of Montana where she studied 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). She graduated in 2008 with a BFA in Acting/Directing and a minor in Native American Studies. 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

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 at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival

Gladstone starred in the 2022 film The Unknown Country, directed by Morrisa Maltz, for which she received the Gotham Independent Film Award for Outstanding Lead Performance.

She had a small role in Reichardt's 2019 film First Cow before being cast in the lead role of Mollie Kyle in Martin Scorsese's feature film Killers of the Flower Moon, alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, 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 2024, she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, becoming the first Indigenous woman to both be nominated for and win an acting Golden Globe.

Personal life

Gladstone goes by both she and they pronouns. Gladstone says, "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."

Filmography

Film

Television

See also

In Spanish: Lily Gladstone para niños