Who is Lily Gladstone? Get to Know the 'Killers of the Flower Moon' Star

Gladstone was born in Montana and spent much of her upbringing split between Seattle and the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, as her father is of Blackfeet and Nez Perce heritage.

Gladstone talks about her relationship with her parents and family members frequently, citing them as a big support in her life, and even talks about how they helped inspire her love of cinema and her passion for acting. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gladstone says "I was watching some pretty sophisticated things for a kid. My first Marty [Scorsese] movie was [1997’s] Kundun. My dad loved Kundun.” Gladstone also shared that her desire to act was born from an early, and apparently very influential, watch of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. 

Gladstone followed her passion for acting to college, attending the University of Montana, where she got her BFA in Acting and Directing, with a minor in Native American studies. She made her film debut in 2012, in the French drama Jimmy P: Pyschotherapy of a Plains Indian. Gladstone acted in several other films in the early 2010s before landing her breakout role in Kelly Reichert's 2016 film Certain Women. 

Lily Gladstone has previously been in HBO's Room 104 and FX's Reservoir Dogs, both of which she received significant acclaim for, but the actress made her breakout performance in Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women (2016), a film starring Gladstone, alongside Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart, and Michelle Williams. Gladstone played a young ranch hand, and the film tells the story of four women and the ways in which their lives intertwine. The A24 film, First Cow (2019), was also a Kelly Reichardt project that Gladstone worked on. Both of these films received significant attention from critics and others within the industry, and Gladstone's performance in Certain Women attracted critical acclaim and award nominations. 

Other than Killers of the Flower Moon, Gladstone recently starred in The Unknown Country (2022), a drama film that tells the story of a young, grieving woman who travels across the country in search of a place to belong in a world that feels so foreign and unfamiliar. 

Lily Gladstone received the most critical acclaim for Certain Women and was nominated as Best Supporting Actress in critics societies across the country, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, which she won. 

More recently, the actress was nominated for the 2023 Gotham Awards Outstanding Lead Performance award for her work in The Unknown Country. 

In an interview with Vulture earlier this year, Lily Gladstone talked about how she had almost quit acting during the pandemic. As a self-proclaimed bee lover, the actress told her interviewer about how deeply the murder hornet—remember those?—crisis of 2020 impacted her, and during a dry spell in her acting career, she considered taking a data analytics job with the Washington State Department of Agriculture that involved tracking the invasive species. She also talked with The Hollywood Reporter about how midway through the application process, she got a notification from Martin Scorsese, requesting a Zoom meeting regarding Killers of the Flower Moon. Naturally, Gladstone couldn't turn down the opportunity, both because of the size and impact of the project as well as the important story it told. 

Gladstone is currently working on an upcoming Hulu series titled Under the Bridge, which is a true-crime drama that follows the story of the murder of a young girl.  The project is based on a book of the same name by Rebecca Godfrey. 

Following her recent breakout performance in Killers of the Flower Moon, Lily Gladstone is sure to be cast in countless new projects, so keep your eyes out for her in headlines, at this year's Oscars, and on the big screen.