Lily Gladstone
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Lily Gladstone

Indigenous Actor

b. August 2, 1986

“You are constantly a role model for the generation to step right behind you.”

Lily Gladstone is an award-winning actor best known as the female lead in Martin Scorsese’s 2023 film, “Killers of the Flower Moon.” She is the first Indigenous American to win a Golden Globe Award for acting.

Gladstone was born in Kalispell, Montana, and lived on the state’s Blackfeet Indian Reservation until she was 11. Her father, a broadcast journalist, is of Blackfeet and Nez Perce heritage, and her mother, an early childhood education specialist, is white. Her paternal second great-grandfather was Chief Red Crow of the Kainai Nation.

At age 5, after watching “Return of the Jedi,” Gladstone was inspired to act. She earned one of her earliest roles as an evil stepsister in the Missoula Children’s Theatre production of “Cinderella.”

In middle school, Gladstone and her family moved to the Seattle area, where she joined a nonprofit youth theater. In high school, classmates voted her “Most Likely to Win an Oscar.”

Gladstone graduated from the University of Montana with a bachelor’s degree in acting/directing in 2008. She taught acting in her Native American community and performed on stage. She made her film debut in “Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian” (2012).

Gladstone’s breakthrough came with “Certain Women” (2016), earning her Los Angeles and Boston Film Critics Association Awards and Independent Spirit and Gotham Award nominations. During this time, she also performed in theater productions, including “The Miracle Worker” (2014), and participated in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Gladstone’s starring role in the 2022 film “The Unknown Country” won her a Gotham Award for Outstanding Lead Performance. In 2023, she garnered additional acclaim for her “Fancy Dance” role and secured her place in cinema history, co-starring with Leonardo DiCaprio in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” That performance made her the first Native American to win a Golden Globe for Best Actress, the first to win a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Female Actor, and the first Indigenous American woman to be nominated for an Oscar.

In 2024, Gladstone co-starred in the miniseries “Under the Bridge,” which earned her a Primetime Emmy nomination. That year, she served on the Cannes Film Festival jury and was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Gladstone uses both “she” and “they” pronouns, a choice she attributes to the absence of gender pronouns in many Native American languages. She identifies as “middle-gendered” and part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Gladstone’s film, “The Wedding Banquet,” was released in 2025.