Oscars 2024: Lily Gladstone makes history, becomes first native American actress nominee

Actress Lily Gladstone, on Tuesday, made Oscars’ history when she was nominated in the Lead Actress category for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. With this nomination, she became the first-ever Native woman of American descent to be nominated in this category.

If she goes on to win the coveted trophy, she will become the first indigenous actress to do so in this category.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, Gladstone portrays Mollie Burkhart, an oil-rich Osage woman married to Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio), the nephew of an influential rancher.

When her Osage Nation family and friends are systematically murdered, and her own health fails dramatically, a murder investigation ensues, led by the then-nascent FBI.

Gladstone, who is of Piegan Blackfeet and Nez Perce heritage, not only made Oscars history but also made Golden Globe history when she became the first indigenous woman to win Best Actress. “This is for every little rez kid, every little urban kid, every little native kid out there who has a dream to see themselves represented, and our stories told by ourselves in our own words, with tremendous allies and tremendous trust with and from each other,” she said in her award acceptance speech.

Before the Golden Globe and Oscars, Gladstone was known for indie films like Certain Women and the television series Billions and Reservation Dogs.

In 2023, she was cast in Fancy Dance, which follows Jax (Gladstone) as she kidnaps her niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson) from her white grandparents and attempts to reunite the young girl with her mother.

In an interview with Deadline, Gladstone said, “Fancy Dance is “complementary” to Killers of the Flower Moon, as it is “same place, in a lot of ways same story, just a hundred years later.”

According to Academy records, before this, there were only two instances where indigenous women were nominated: Yalitza Aparicio, who is Mexican of indigenous descent, was nominated for Roma in 2018, while Keisha Castle-Hughes, who is a New Zealander of Maori descent, was nominated for Whale Rider in 2003.

In 1935, Sri Lankan actress Merle Oberon (also the first Asian actor nominated in any category) was nominated in the Lead Actress category for The Dark Angel. She is also partly of Maori descent, Deadline reported.

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