"Killers of the Flower Moon" star Lily Gladstone says no one was upset when she didn't return with the best actress Oscar trophy to her tribe, Blackfeet Nation, in Montana.
For her portrayal of Mollie Burkhart in Martin Scorsese's ambitious period drama, the 37-year-old actor made history when she became the first Native American woman to be nominated in the best actress in a leading role category at the 96th Academy Awards.
Despite several honours at previous events, including a Golden Globe, she lost the golden statuette to Emma Stone, who was nominated for "Poor Things" by Yorgos Lanthimos.
Gladstone said the people from her tribe thought she had won an Oscar when in fact she had earned the Golden Globe.
"Nobody was upset that it didn’t happen," she said about her Oscars loss.
"When the Golden Globe happened, a lot of people who are very far away from the industry just kind of thought it was the Oscars. It’s about the fact that the film has been awarded and it’s historic, and it’s still just a really meaningful moment. So it’s irrelevant whether or not I walked home with that statue in hand,” the actor told the Empire magazine.
When she went home after the Academy Awards ceremony, Gladstone said her tribe, which is part of a confederacy, came together for "a Lily Gladstone Day".
"It was the biggest honour anybody could get. The confederacy decided together that they wanted to do it. It was a beautiful homecoming, and I could see my old house, the house I was brought to as a baby, right across from me.
"Two thousand people showed up, from every corner of the US. It was absolutely one of the most moving things that has ever happened in my life. Getting to witness what the impact (of 'Killers of the Flower Moon') was, going home to Montana and really having this moment shared by my tribe... it was amazing," she said.
An adaptation of the book of the same name by American journalist David Grann, "Killers of the Flower Moon" revolves around the birth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and its investigation into a series of murders of the Osage people, a Midwestern Native American tribe of the Great Plains, after oil is discovered in Oklahoma, US, in the 1920s.
The film also starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Jesse Plemons.
