There’s a story Lily Gladstone likes to tell about a Blackfeet man and a flower.
“He pulled it off the ground and shook the dirt off. It exposed the root system,” she says. “And he said, ‘It’s like a story. If this flower is a story, then all these roots are the different versions. They revolve around each other; they go in opposite directions. But that’s what gives it its strength. This is what makes uprooting difficult. That’s what keeps the story going.”
The man spoke with 20th-century historian James Willard Schultz, who had difficulty understanding the different ways the Blackfeet people had told him the same stories. In an oral tradition, Gladstone emphasizes, there is no single view; Each individual’s narrative is the truth.
Gladstone returns to the Blackfeet Man and the Flower, to her roots, as she understands the never-ending feelings of the natives toward “Killers of the Flower Moon.” “That’s how reality works. The universe is the shape of all these different stories, even if they are contradictory.”
She pauses for a sip of espresso into which she’s stirred a dollop of honey—”a Montana thing,” she says, then remembers that she’s met people from other places who sweeten their coffee this way . But it reminds them of home, so it’s still a Montana thing – another flower root.
Celeste Sloman for Variety
Gladstone, 37, is the slow-beating heart of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the Martin Scorsese-directed epic that examines the Reign of Terror, a dastardly series of murders in 1920s Osage County. Robert De Niro plays William Hale, the self-proclaimed “King of the Osage Hills,” who betrays the tribe he claims to love and, with the help of his nephew Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), leads a gang of criminals who appropriate their wealth. . Ernest, on Hale’s recommendation, marries Mollie (Gladstone), an Osage woman, for Mollie’s oil money. He then spends the film’s 200-minute running time telling her, himself, and anyone who will listen how much he loves her. His explanations only grow more desperate as he inflicts unimaginable trauma on everyone she loves.
“Killers of the Flower Moon,” from Apple Studios and Paramount Pictures, with a production budget of $200 million, is nothing like the small indie films Gladstone envisioned when she decided to become an actress. But to be fair, this was before a name as big as Scorsese made an equally big effort to learn from and work with an indigenous community, rather than entering Indian country with no relationship to the locals and leaving it in the same way to leave.
The first hint of Scorsese’s concern came when Gladstone met with casting director Ellen Lewis, who informed her that “Killers” would also be holding a local casting call to include Osage actors in the production. “That was the beginning of my career: Producers choosing to cast local local actors instead of hiring someone from Los Angeles,” she says. “I got my SAG card from Montana.”
For the central role of the natives, however, Scorsese knew he wanted Gladstone.
“I saw her in Kelly Reichardt’s ‘Certain Women’ and couldn’t take my eyes off her,” Scorsese wrote in an email. “Lily’s character was quiet, she spoke very little, but she dominated the screen with her presence, with every movement, every gesture. There are very few actors who know how to command the screen like that and this was perfect for the role of Mollie.”
Since “Certain Women,” Gladstone has been known for his quiet power. It’s also present in indie dramas like “Fancy Dance” and “The Unknown Country,” the FX series “Reservation Dogs,” and now “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Personally, this self-control remains as the silence disappears.
Gladstone speaks in long, slow, carefully constructed circles, his voice slightly drawn out and his eyes wandering. While recalling a conversation between Mollie and her sister Reta in “Killers,” she mentions not only her co-star JaNae Collins, but also Collins’ mother, who handmade the blue pearl earrings she now wears. It’s less a side issue than a choice to honor your loved ones at every opportunity.
“I’m long-winded,” she says with a smile, simultaneously apologizing for her detours and enjoying the practice of thoroughness.
So, of course, it was difficult to sit idly by as the debate began to swirl around “Killers” when the film hit theaters on Oct. 20 — three weeks before the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike that has left the actors in one suspended state. It helped that reviews were mostly positive and Gladstone’s performance was widely praised. Still, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is not without its critics.
Some of these critics were Osage people who had worked on the film, and Gladstone welcomed their dissent. Instead of actors, the red carpet premiere in Los Angeles on October 16 spotlighted Osage voices like those of Christopher Cote, one of the voice consultants who helped Gladstone and her castmates learn Wazhazhe. “As an Osage, I really wanted this to be from the perspective of Mollie and what her family experienced.” he said that night. “But I think it would take an Osage. Martin Scorsese, not Osage, I think did a great job representing our people, but this story is told from the perspective of Ernest Burkhart.”
Celeste Sloman for Variety
Gladstone does not contradict Cote, even if she formulates her ideas differently. “Chris and I had this exact conversation in his living room,” she says. “Marty is a titan, but he is no bigger than history. However, he is the main designer of it. That’s the tricky nature of a story like this. They will be more represented, but by someone who is not from the community. So you always have to look at it from a different perspective. And there’s nothing wrong with that; You just have to be very aware of what film you are watching and what lens it was shot with.”
And in response to criticism that there could not have been real love between Ernest and Mollie, Gladstone says: “Love is complicated. I’ve certainly loved people in my life who weren’t good for me, and I couldn’t really break free from that.”
She also points out that although Ernest married Mollie for the money, a white husband also offered Mollie some pragmatic advantages.
But on the day the strike ended, these were not the thoughts on Gladstone’s mind. Instead, she posted on her social media accounts that Indigenous people should watch “Killers of the Flower Moon” “when and only when” they are ready, followed by a list of resources she would use as they “grief for a generation.” could support. Because she belonged to a different tribe, highlighting the needs of the Osage Nation was most important to Gladstone at that moment, knowing that there would be room for her own feelings later.
“That’s the strength of community,” she adds. “You are one voice among many.”
Gladstone is from the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northern Montana. Their skepticism about the studio system was homemade. “I grew up in a place where big Hollywood film crews came by every now and then,” she says. “I was very familiar with the feeling when people from the outside came in and wanted to tell a story to the community. And they’re not always there with your best interest in mind.”
Gladstone studied acting at the University of Montana, where she became fascinated by the theater of the oppressed. Developed by Brazilian playwright Augusto Boal, the practice aims to blur the lines between actor and audience, level the playing field and give everyone the opportunity to share social and political truths. In her early post-graduate days, Gladstone taught acting camps and workshops to Indigenous children and college students, bringing Boal’s lessons to her community.
“We talked about the issues that affect us in our daily lives and pulled out key words: colonization, assimilation, family, home,” explains Gladstone. She then gave the students a word and asked them to strike a pose. She called it a “sculpture garden.”
Years have passed since that period in Gladstone’s career and the memories still hit her in the stomach. Gladstone remembers walking through a sculpture garden she had created at her alma mater and seeing Indigenous students meditating on the word “assimilation” by crouching in fetal positions, covering their mouths and scissoring their fingers stiffeners that could be used to cut off long hair.
Perhaps most disturbing, however, was the pose of a professor – a well-meaning white man who was giving a big, warm bear hug. “He picked people up,” Gladstone says. “Bringing everyone into that embrace was assimilation for him.”
“He said everything you would expect,” she adds. “‘Everyone come together!’ The local students said, “No.” This is actually a really depressing concept for us. We have to give up something of ourselves in order to belong.’”
Gladstone eventually began working with the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, a grassroots organization that addresses the disproportionately high rates of violence against Native women. With the NIWRC, Gladstone taught sculpture garden workshops as a means of violence prevention. “Their work provides necessary resources for grassroots cultural organizations to address these issues,” she says. For example, the NIWRC has developed a database to help families and advocates easily search for legislation related to missing and murdered Indigenous women by state. “It is designed in a culturally sensitive way for Indigenous communities and centers women, who are the backbone of sovereignty.”
At the same time, “the resources are available to everyone,” she says. “I think people hear ‘for us, through us’ as ‘not for you.’ But it is something that affects everyone and deserves everyone’s attention.”
Most actors, when described as the highlight of a film also starring DiCaprio and De Niro and directed by Scorsese, would take the hint to move to Los Angeles or New York and seek stardom.
“You know, I’ve never lived in one of these places for longer than couch surfing for a few weeks at a time. And that seems to be working,” says Gladstone. She has lived in Seattle since the start of the pandemic, when she moved in with her parents and uncle and became her grandmother’s caretaker. “As the eldest girl in my family, I had the responsibility to look after her. That kept me very grounded in the last years of her life here.”
“I’ll probably have to stay in LA for a long time, and there’s a community down there too – all the locals who are taking over Hollywood that I can finally spend time with,” she says. Her eyes light up. But that prospect is just because of that exciting because it is temporary. “It was a very different path to build a career as an independent filmmaker and then get the big studio break. I know the possibilities are limitless, but I have a family.”
“The clothes have become nicer and the shoes have become less comfortable,” Gladstone adds, but otherwise she wants to stick to her normal life. In this spirit, she is guided by a piece of Blackfeet wisdom passed down to her by her father: “Prey runs to the hunter.”
In various indigenous hunting cultures, Gladstone explains, “young men go out and find their trap line, and then they follow that trap line and hunt it.” Any animal that crosses this boundary enters into an agreement that you will support each other. You only go after those who cross your path. You do not deviate from your path – because that is the path you should go.”
Gladstone’s father told her to stay the course – to hold on to her moral compass and understand that what was meant for her would come to her.
But it turns out his words weren’t a Blackfeet saying after all. “I found out later – it was actually a quote from Carl Sagan,” she says with a laugh. “Which was really cool too. Carl Sagan and Blackfoot’s ways of knowing are actually quite complementary.”
Just like the honey in her coffee, being able to look at this story from multiple perspectives suits her well. It is another root of the flower.
Styling: Jason Rembert; Makeup: Nick Barose/Exclusive Artists/Cheekbone Beauty; Hair: Jameson Eaton; Look 1 (print dress look): Dress and blazer: J. Okuma; Boots: Gucci; Earrings: Weomepe; Look 2 (Black Dress): Dress: Lesley Hampton: Earrings: Weomepe; Look 3 (striped sleeves) Coat: Gucci; Earrings: Asep Design