Killers of the Flower Moon: Meet Lily Gladstone; the native American actress who could make Oscars history

The 37-year-old is the first Native American woman to ever be nominated for best actress at the Oscars. We will find out if she is also the first winner when the ceremony takes place in Los Angeles on 10 March says a BBC report.

She was seen in Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. The movie spotlights the murders of dozens of Osage people in Oklahoma in the 1920s and Leo takes on the role of Ernest Burkhart, the husband of a Native American woman named Mollie Burkhart, who is played by Indigenous actor Lily Gladstone.

Lily Gladstone is not new to acting. She was seen in a couple of TV series such as Billions and films including Certain Women. But not many knew much about her until her appearance in a powerful role in  Killers of the Flower Moon opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. Ever since then her star power is sky rocketing.

According to an interview the actor had with Vulture, her father is Blackfeet and Nez Perce, while her mother is white. Lily grew up on the reservation of the Blackfeet Nation in Browning, Montana, and lived there until she was 11. The actor mentioned to the Guardian, “I lived in the reservations until I was 11, when we moved for lack of economic opportunities.”

She has already won a Golden Globe for her role. “It’s circumstantial that I was the first one to win that in the category, but it doesn’t belong to me,” she says. “I’m standing on so many shoulders and I’m representing such a huge supportive community that’s made it possible for me to do this.”

Lily graduated in 2008 from the University of Montana with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre with an Acting focus and a minor in Native American Studies.

(With added inputs from agencies)