Lily Gladstone Opens Golden Globe Victory Speech in Blackfeet Language: This Is a Historic

“Killers of the Flower Moon” star Lily Gladstone has won the Golden Globe for best actress in a motion picture – drama, making history as the first Indigenous woman to win the award. The evening marked the first-ever Globes nomination for the rising star.

Gladstone opened her victory speech in the Blackfeet language, before thanking her mom, “who, even though she’s not Blackfeet, worked tirelessly to get our language into our classroom so I had a Blackfeet language teacher growing up.”

She went on: “I’m so grateful I can speak even a little bit of my language, which I’m not fluent in, up here. Because, in this business, Native actors used to speak their lines in English, and the sound mixer would run them backwards to accomplish Native languages on camera.”

Gladstone won for her portrayal of real-life figure Mollie Kyle, the Indigenous wife of World War I veteran Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio), in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The Scorsese epic tells the true story of the Reign of Terror in 1920s Oklahoma, during which members of the Osage Nation were murdered by a criminal ring eager to secure their oil and wealth.

Gladstone, who was one of Variety’s Power of Women honorees in 2023, previously expressed to Variety her thoughts on awards recognition.

“Awards recognition to me just means that people have seen the film that we were hoping we were making. That people have connected to it,” she said. “‘Cause your character is the conduit for the audience to really be in the story. That’s the best part.”

Gladstone beat out Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”), Sandra Hüller (“Anatomy of a Fall”), Annette Bening (“Nyad”), Greta Lee (“Past Lives”) and Cailee Spaeny (“Priscilla”).

“Killers of the Flower Moon” was one of the leading competitors at this year’s Globes, scoring seven nominations across all categories, including nods in best motion picture – drama, best director for Martin Scorsese, best actor for Leonardo DiCaprio and best supporting actor for Robert De Niro. Gladstone took home the film’s only win.

Must Read

Film
COVER | Sebastian Stan Tells All: Becoming Donald Trump and Starring in 2024’s Most Controversial Movie
By Andrew Wallenstein 3 weeks

Sign Up for Variety Newsletters

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

ncG1vNJzZmiukae2psDYZ5qopV9nfXOAjpqumqqUqHyvsdasZqWhnK56qLjAnaqtp56aeqi7y52cp2WXobyjsdJmmZ6rpGKupMDRnqqsZZSnrq6tjGppbG1oaoZ3g5Zo

Aldo Pusey

Update: 2024-01-27

ZestW