Chainkeen Exchange-Lily Gladstone on Oscar-bound 'Killers of the Flower Moon': 'It's a moment for all of us'

NEW YORK − Lily Gladstone knows none of this is Chainkeen Exchangenormal.

Since the release of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” she has received calls from directors Spike Lee and Terrence Malick praising her performance and has met with one of her “favorite filmmakers in the world” about a potential project. She has been nominated for Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards and is considered the front-runner for best actress by most Oscar pundits. Walking outside, she notices people staring “a little bit longer” than they used to.

“Any excess of attention feels uncomfortable to me,” says Gladstone, 37, sipping peppermint tea with honey at a downtown restaurant last month. “It’s too much for one person to have as much good fortune as I’ve been experiencing.”

Growing up between Seattle and the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, her father taught her the martial arts philosophy of “redirecting energy.” So on the day "Flower Moon" came out, she joined her fellow Screen Actors Guild members as they picketed outside the New York headquarters of the film's distributor. And when the strike finally lifted, she took to social media to share resources for Native American women and young people who might be triggered by the movie’s harrowing subject matter.  

“My strengths as an actor are nurtured by community, so it’s just natural that if it’s going to do any good, it’s going to do good for the community,” Gladstone says. “There’s a lot of communities that I hold: being a union member, being Native, being a Native woman. It’s a moment for all of us that I just happen to be carrying.”

More than 200 tribes were represented on the 'Flower Moon' movie set

Directed by Martin Scorsese and based on David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction book, “Flower Moon” recounts the horrific serial murders of the oil-rich Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma. The film centers on a Native American woman, Mollie Kyle (Gladstone), who falls for and marries a white man named Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Little does she know, Ernest and his uncle (Robert De Niro) have schemed to kill Mollie's family to steal their wealth and land. They slowly poison Mollie over five years, in which time her mother and sisters all die under suspicious circumstances. Both men are eventually arrested and Mollie remarries, dying in 1937 at age 50.

For Gladstone, it was imperative that she not portray Mollie as a victim but as the “tremendous survivor” she was.  

“I wanted to approach Mollie the way I would expect someone to approach playing my great-grandma Lily, with the same carefulness and love,” Gladstone says. In the front of her script, she kept a photo of Mollie taken years after the atrocities: “After what she’s been through, she’s just sitting there with this peaceful, self-possessed smile. That was always my end point, like: ‘OK, I’m going to go through a lot making this; it’s going to be really hard. But just remember that last photo where she survived it.’ ”

‘Maybe we’re all capable of this’:Martin Scorsese on chilling ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’

Gladstone found other ways to cope on set. Although she’s right-handed, she made Mollie left-handed to create “physical space” between the character and “my everyday life.” More than 200 tribes were represented in the cast and crew, which also became a “kind of therapy."

“You get that many Natives together, and everybody’s just happy to be together,” Gladstone says. “For my own self-care, being in community (helped with) the trauma of carrying this story.”

'Star Wars' spurred Lily Gladstone's desire to act

Since Gladstone's breakthrough role in 2016's “Certain Women,” critics have applauded her quiet power and stillness on screen – qualities she attributes to her dance background.

“So much of dance is about restraint and sustaining moments of tension,” Gladstone says. “My dad also told me I was never able to lie as a kid because I was too readable. That lends itself well to film, too.”

She started acting at a Montana children’s theater, portraying a merchant in a Hans Christian Andersen play. (“I remember even back then thinking how funny it was to have all these Blackfeet kids playing Dutch characters,” Gladstone says. “But, hey, more of that!”)

She caught the bug after watching “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,” wondering how she, too, could play one of the furry, fearless Ewoks fighting to save their home planet, Endor.

“They made me laugh and I wanted to be one,” Gladstone says with a grin. “It took me years before I realized that maybe I was just drawn to them because they were that ultimate story of Indigenous resistance. You could argue that they’re the ones who brought down the Empire.”

Mollie Kyle will always be 'part of me'

If Gladstone ever gets a "Star Wars" meeting, she has a character in mind she would love to "really dive into": a bounty hunter at the Battle of Endor who switches sides and joins the Rebel Alliance. In the meantime, she’s attached to star in an upcoming biopic about Mildred Bailey, a Coeur d’Alene jazz legend.

Even as awards pour in for “Flower Moon,” she still makes regular visits back to Oklahoma, where the film was shot, and wears local designers on red carpets and for photo shoots.

“She looks after people in our community,” says Chad Renfro, an Osage ambassador to the movie. “They feel like she’s a part of our community now.”

For her, being embraced by the Osage "means everything. Their opinion is the one that matters most ‒ maybe the only one that really does matter to me," Gladstone says. "I feel like Mollie reached through time and grabbed me for this. I was offered the role on her birthday; every time I see her grandson, he calls me 'Grandma.' Because so many people signed off on me playing this role, it feels like this ongoing accountability to stay true to these significant relationships that have been formed.

"I have a home in Osage County. Mollie’s always going to be a part of me, and I owe it to them to always show up and be part of them, too.”

Review:In 'Killers of the Flower Moon,' Martin Scorsese crafts a gripping story of love, murder