Lily Gladstone creates history for being the first Native American actor to be nominated for Oscars

Killers of the Flower Moon actor Lily Gladstone recently made Oscar history for being the first Native American woman to be nominated for Best Actress.

Prior to Lily, only three Indigenous actresses had been nominated in the Best Actress category before.

Her predecessors in the category include Whale Rider’s Keisha Castle-Hughes (who is Maori) in 2004 and Roma’s Yalitza Aparicio (who is Native Mexican) in 2019, while other Indigenous nominated actors include Graham Greene (who is First Nations), nominated for best supporting actor in 1991 for Dances With Wolves, but Gladstone is the first acting nominee who hails from people indigenous to the land now occupied by the United States.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, she said, "It’s incredible, and a huge part of me just wants to say that it shouldn’t have been me. This should have happened so much longer ago. I grew up watching performances from Sheila Tousey, who I was lucky enough to share the stage with at one point in my career."

"I always say this, but it’s not fully mine. It belongs to so many people: the Osage Nation, the Blackfeet Nation, the Nez Perce Nation, every Indigenous actor whose shoulders I stand on. It’s circumstantial that I’m the first, and I’m so very grateful. I just know that I’m not going to be the last, not by a long shot," she added.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, Gladstone plays Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman married to a key accomplice in the systematic assassination of the Osage people in the 1920s.

The epic western crime drama from Apple, Paramount, and Imperative Entertainment, boasts a star ensemble including Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone, among others.

From a screenplay penned by Eric Roth and Scorsese, the film is based on David Grann’s bestselling book of the same name. Killers of the Flower Moon is set in 1920s Oklahoma and depicts the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror.

Killers of The Flower Moon has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including one for Best Picture and Best Director.