On a night when "Poor Things" and "Oppenheimer" swept the 2024 Golden Globes in nearly every nominated category, Lily Gladstone made history when she accepted her award for Best Actress in a Drama. Gladstone was an early favorite in the category for her moving performance in Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon," but as she explained during her speech, her win was more than just about her performance. She became the first Indigenous actor to ever win a Golden Globe.
In the ceremony's 81 year history, Gladstone is only the second Indigenous woman to even score a nomination, following Irene Bedard's nod for Best Actress in a miniseries for 1994's "Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee." Taika Waititi was the second Indigenous actor to be recognized, receiving nominations for his 2020 Oscar-winner "Jojo Rabbit" as well as series "Reservation Dogs" in 2022. That's only three actors in over eight decades, with Gladstone proudly representing her entire community with her win as well as her "Killers of the Flower Moon" cast and crew.
She notably opened her acceptance speech in Blackfeet language, honoring the Montana tribe of her childhood. It's a language she's not fluent in, but is grateful to know, thanks to her mother ensuring that there was a Blackfeet language teacher at her school growing up.
"I'm so grateful that I can speak even a little bit of my language because in this business, Native actors used to speak their lines in English and then the sound mixers would run them backwards to accomplish Native languages on camera."
In "Killers of the Flower Moon," Gladstone portrays the real-life Mollie Burkhart, a woman married to a man central to the horrific murders of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma during the 1920s. She even speaks Osage in the film along with English. Scorsese notably increased her role in the film as it was originally very small, and worked closely with the Osage tribe throughout the production process in Oklahoma.
