Lily Gladstone Biography
Lily Gladstone is a Native American actress best known for Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian (2012), Certain Women (2016) and First Cow (2019). She rose to fame after playing Mollie Kyle in Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).
Lily Gladstone Career
Gladstone has stated that her inspiration to become an actress came from her wish to play an Ewok after seeing Return of the Jedi when she was five years old. When the Missoula Children’s Theatre traveled to East Glacier to perform Cinderella, Gladstone had her first acting experience. She was given the role of one of the bad stepsisters. In order to be nearer to Gladstone’s grandmother, her family relocated to the Seattle region when she was in middle school. She joined the non-profit educational theater company Stone Soup Theatre there, which helped her land roles in student films and theses.
In 2004, she received her diploma from Mountlake Terrace High School located in Mountlake Terrace, Washington. Gladstone attended the University of Montana where she studied Theatre of the Oppressed. She appeared in Richard III (2006), Miss Julie (2007), Riders to the Sea (2006), and Coyote on a Fence (2008) at UM. 2008 saw her earn a BFA in acting/directing with a Native American Studies minor. After graduating, she returned home to her hometown to teach acting courses and classes. The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center supported her teaching of an image theatre acting technique she called a “sculpture garden” as a means of preventing abuse. Additionally, she participated in The Frybread Queen in 2010, which was a co-production of The Montana Theatre Company, The UM School of Theatre and Dance, and Native Voices at the Autry.
Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian (2012) was Gladstone’s feature film debut. She then acted in the films Buster’s Mal Heart (2016) and Winter in the Blood (2012) before starring as rancher Jamie in Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women (2016), which marked the beginning of her professional breakthrough. Furthermore, Gladstone won the Best Supporting Actress award from the Boston Society of Film Critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for her performance in the part. Additionally, She was nominated for the Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Actor and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female.
In the 2014 national touring production of The Miracle Worker by Montana Repertory Theatre, Gladstone played Kate Keller. Gladstone performed in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival acting company in 2017 and played in Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Manahatta, produced by Yale Repertory Theatre in 2020. Gladstone hosted a film production-related series on the instructional YouTube channel Crash Course in 2017. Morrisa Maltz’s 2022 film The Unknown Country, in which Gladstone featured, won the Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Lead Performance.
Prior to being chosen for the major role of Mollie Kyle in Martin Scorsese’s feature film Killers of the Flower Moon, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro and was released in theaters in October 2023, she had a small part in Reichardt’s 2019 film First Cow. Her performance was praised by critics and called the movie’s high point. Critic Josh Spiegel of /Film noted that she “brought [Mollie] to life with incredible passion”. She was the first Indigenous woman to be nominated for and to win an acting Golden Globe in 2024 when she took home the Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama trophy.
Lily Gladstone Age
Gladstone was born on August 2, 1986, in Kalispell, Montana, United States. She is 37 years old as of 2023 and she celebrates her birthday on the 2nd of August every year.
Lily Gladstone Height and Weight
Gladstone stands at a height of 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 meters) and weighs 60 kg (132 lbs).
Lily Gladstone Family
Gladstone was raised in Browning, Montana, on the Blackfeet Reservation as the only child of her parents. She is descended from Piegan Blackfeet, Nez Perce, and European ancestors. Her father is Blackfeet and Nez Perce, and her mother is White. She is descended from the first cousin of British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone on her mother’s side. Red Crow was a Kainai Nation chief and one of her paternal great-great-grandfathers.
Lily Gladstone Husband and Children
Gladstone uses both the pronouns they and she. According to Gladstone, there are no gendered pronouns in the majority of Native American languages, including Blackfeet. Her usage of pronouns is part of her process of decolonizing gender for herself. There is no he or she, only they. Gladstone has not disclosed her relationship status as she is very private with her personal life. However, this information will be updated when available.
Lily Gladstone Salary
Gladstone earns a monthly income of $15,000 annual salary of about $100,000-$500,000.
Lily Gladstone Net Worth
Gladstone has an estimated net worth of about $1 Million – $5 Million which she has earned through her career as an actress.
Lily Gladstone Killers of the Flower Moon
Gladstone portrays Mollie Kyle in the 2023 epic Western crime drama film, Lily Gladstone Killers of the Flower Moon. Elders of the Osage Nation lament the absorption of their descendants into White American society by burying a ceremonial pipe. Several Osage discover oil seeping from the earth while meandering across their Oklahoma reservation during the yearly “flower moon” occurrence, which is characterized by fields of blossoms. The tribe prospers because it keeps its mineral rights and its members get a portion of the oil-lease earnings; nonetheless, the law mandates that full-blood and half-blood members’ funds be managed by legal guardians chosen by a white court in the event that they are deemed “incompetent”.
After serving in World War I, Ernest Burkhart returns to 1919 and settles on his uncle William King Hale’s expansive reserve ranch with his brother Byron. Hale, often known as “King,” is a reserve deputy sheriff and cattle rancher who pretends to be an amiable Osage benefactor by speaking their language and giving them gifts. He advises Ernest to go after Mollie Kyle, an Osage woman whose family has headrights to oil. Ernest meets Mollie through his day job as a cab driver. Ernest and Byron have been perpetrating armed robberies against the Osage. As their affection grows, the two get married in a ceremony that combines Osage and Roman Catholic customs. They raise three kids throughout time.
Hale orders several affluent Osage people to be killed under contract in secret. He says that if additional members of Mollie’s family pass away, Ernest will be entitled to more headrights. Mollie has diabetes, and Lizzie, her mother, is unwell. Hale gives Byron the order to murder Mollie’s second sister, the disobedient Anna, following the death of Mollie’s sister Minnie from an unidentified disease. Lizzie and the Osage council call for the tribe to retaliate, blaming the white residents of the reservation.
An additional source of worry for the Osage is a film depicting the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, in which white people razed a black hamlet and killed many of its occupants. As Lizzie passes away, she witnesses her ancestors wishing her a happy afterlife. In order to get paid from his life insurance, Hale gives Ernest the order to kill Mollie’s first husband, Henry Roan. But when Ernest fails to carry out the assassination, Hale punishes him by giving him a severe beating within a Masonic temple.
No investigations are conducted because Hale is the local political leader and has the local sheriff and judges in his pocket. After an Osage Nation representative is killed in Washington, D.C. while trying to petition Congress, Mollie secretly engages William J. Burns, a private investigator, but Byron and Ernest beat him and force him to leave the reservation.
Hale gives Ernest the order to have criminal Acie Kirby blow up Mollie’s house in order to murder Reta, the final living sister, and her husband. All of Mollie’s family’s headrights are inherited. Despite being ill, Mollie goes to Washington with a delegation from Osage and requests assistance from President Calvin Coolidge. Hale gives Ernest the order to “slow her down” by poisoning Mollie’s insulin as a result. As Mollie’s condition deteriorates, Ernest occasionally takes the poison himself out of embarrassment.
The Bureau of Investigation (BOI) sends Agent Thomas Bruce White Sr. and assistants to investigate as a result of Mollie’s lobbying, and they swiftly discover the truth. Hale tries to conceal his tracks by murdering his own hitmen, including Acie, but White arrests Hale and Ernest. Two agents are dispatched to question Mollie while Ernest is being questioned; they discover her to be close to death. They take her to the hospital right away, where the medical staff is horrified to learn that she has been poisoned multiple times and promptly alerts White and the other agents. Fortunately, Mollie gets well under the staff’s supervision.
Ernest Burckhart is convinced by White to confess and use the state’s evidence against his uncle. Hale’s lawyer, W. S. Hamilton, makes an effort to persuade Ernest to say he was tortured and change his story. Ernest does, however, testify against his uncle following the whooping cough death of one of his kids. Hale makes a fruitless attempt to have his nephew killed. After he testifies, Mollie meets with Ernest; however, she chooses to part ways with him when he won’t acknowledge poisoning her.
Lily Gladstone Reservation Dogs
Gladstone portrays Hokti in the television series, Reservation Dogs. Bear and Willie Jack will shortly receive their high school diplomas. Daniel’s letter to Willie Jack is one of the class letters that their teacher provided to the students when they were freshmen. Feeling that the Rez Dogs are “in darkness” and not communicating with one other, she goes to Daniel’s mother, her imprisoned aunt Hokti, for guidance. Hokti is a medicine woman who has been putting off practicing while Gram, a chatty and happy ancestor spirit, begs her to pick it back up. Hokti dislikes Willie Jack because he makes her think of Daniel, which makes her resentful. When she finally consents to pray with Willie Jack, a sizable assemblage of ancestor ghosts materializes and encircles them.
Hokti tells Willie Jack that they “come from generations of medicine people, healers,” and that “this is the power we carry.” Willie Jack recognizes their presence and sobs with realization. She informs Willie Jack that she needs “this”, her people and that Willie Jack doesn’t need her. Willie Jack is resolved to assist her friends in the same manner that Hokti has assisted her, despite Hokti’s advice that she cannot assist those who do not choose to receive it. When Willie Jack returns home, he attempts to lead the Rez Dogs in the same prayer, but it is unsuccessful. They continue to stray apart. She hands them Daniel’s letter, and after reading it together, they decide to carry out his wish.
Lily Gladstone Fancy Dance
Gladstone portrays Jax in the 2023 drama film, Fancy Dance. Jax has been taking care of her niece Roki on the Seneca–Cayuga Nation Reservation ever since her sister vanished. Roki is helping her sister prepare for an impending powwow and spends every free moment searching for her missing sister. The two set out to find Roki’s mother in time for the powwow, even though they might lose custody of Jax’s father, Frank.
Lily Gladstone The Last Manhunt
Gladstone portrays Marie in the 2022 Western film, The Last Manhunt. In the movie, Willie, a Paiute guy, travels across the desert following Carlota’s father’s unintentional death. The young couple is held responsible, and a group of indigenous people seeking justice are pursuing them.
Lily Gladstone Movies and TV Shows
- Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian
- Winter in the Blood
- Certain Women
- Buster’s Mal Heart
- Walking Out
- Killers of the Flower Moon
- Scalped
- Crash Course
- Room 104
- Billions
- Tuca & Bertie
- Reservation Dogs
- Under the Bridge
Lily Gladstone Social Media Platform
Gladstone is very active on her Twitter, and Instagram pages. She has 30.2k followers on Twitter and 157k followers on Instagram.