By Moira Macdonald / The Seattle Times
MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — Lily Gladstone, a graduate of Mountlake Terrace High School and a member of the Blackfeet Nation, made history Tuesday with her nomination for an Academy Award for best actress, for her role as Mollie Burkhart in Martin Scorsese’s drama “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
Gladstone is the first Native American nominee in the Oscar’s competitive (non-honorary) acting categories. Previous Indigenous nominees were from outside the United States; they include Merle Oberon and Keisha Castle-Hughes (both with Maori ancestry) and Yalitza Aparicio (Indigenous Mexican) in the best actress category, Jocelyne LaGarde (Indigenous Tahitian) in supporting actress, and Chief Dan George and Graham Greene (both First Nations) in supporting actor. The American actor Wes Studi, a member of the Cherokee Nation, was awarded an honorary Oscar — the first and only Indigenous person to be so honored — in 2019.
In competitive non-acting awards, New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi (Maori ancestry) won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for “Jojo Rabbit” in 2019. Singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie won best song in 1982 for “Up Where We Belong” from “An Officer and a Gentleman”; however, a CBC investigation last year questioned Sainte-Marie’s claims to Cree Nation ancestry.
Gladstone spent her early years on the Blackfeet reservation in northwestern Montana, moving with her family to the Mountlake Terrace area when she was in middle school. After graduating from high school in 2004, she earned her bachelor of fine arts degree at the University of Montana, and worked extensively in theater in both Montana and the Seattle area in the ensuing years. Her film work prior to “Killers of the Flower Moon” includes “Certain Women,” “First Cow,” “The Unknown Country,” and a recurring role on the Showtime series “Billions.”
Also nominated in the best actress category are Annette Bening (for “Nyad”), Sandra Hüller (“Anatomy of a Fall”), Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”) and Emma Stone (“Poor Things”).
“Killers of the Flower Moon,” a drama based on David Grann’s nonfiction book about a series of murders in the Osage Nation of 1920s Oklahoma, received 10 nominations, including best picture and best director. It opened in theaters last October, and is currently streaming on Apple TV+.
Gladstone is not the only nominee with local ties. Paul Giamatti, nominated for best actor for “The Holdovers,” lived in Seattle for several years in the late 1980s and early ’90s, regularly working at Annex Theatre. Christopher Miller, writer-producer of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (nominated for best animated film), was born in Everett and grew up in Lake Stevens.
The Academy Awards will take place Sunday, March 10. The ceremony will be televised starting at 4 p.m. on ABC, and streamed on abc.com and the ABC app for those with a participating TV provider account.
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