Lily Gladstone learned about her historic Academy Award nomination from the look on her parents’ faces.
The star of Killers Of The Flower Moon told The Hollywood Reporter exactly how she found out she was the first Native American to be nominated for an acting Oscar after the announcements were made on Tuesday afternoon.
“My mum had the camera flipped around, and she was filming the TV,” she said of the FaceTime call.
“And I told her, ‘No mum, I don’t want to learn from like watching it through your phone. I wanna learn on your and dad’s faces.’”
Lily continued: “Sure enough, I could barely hear my name through the phone, but their reaction told me that it was a nod.”
The actor, a native of Montana’s Blackfeet reservation, told Good Morning America she was touched by the immediate “outpouring of love” she received from the Native American community.
In honour of the Osage lives that inspired Killers Of The Flower Moon and the people who helped tell their stories, the Golden Globe winner said she “made a point” of being on the Osage reservation for the announcements.
Paying special tribute to the woman at the centre of the story, she told GMA, “definitely remembering Mollie Kyle” and “the most incredible community that made this moment possible, and absolutely wanted to share it here”.
Lily is the first Indigenous actor from land settled by the United States to receive an Oscar nomination but not the first Indigenous person ever nominated for a role onscreen.
In 2003, Māori actor Keisha Castle-Hughes of New Zealand was nominated for Whale Rider. Mexico’s Yalitza Aparicio, who is part of the Mixtec and Triqui peoples, was also recognised for her performance in Roma in 2018.