Lily Gladstone Says “It’s Irrelevant Whether or Not” She Won the Oscar for ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’

Lily Gladstone

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Lily Gladstone is opening up about the reaction to her Oscars loss once she went back home to the Blackfeet Nation following her busy awards season with Killers of the Flower Moon.

The actress was nominated for best actress during the March ceremony, but the Academy Award ultimately went to Emma Stone for Poor Things. However, Gladstone recently told Esquire that “nobody was upset” that she didn’t win.

The Under the Bridge star recalled her “beautiful trip home,” and how her tribe’s “whole confederacy came together for a Lily Gladstone Day. It was the biggest honor anybody could get. The confederacy decided together that they wanted to do it. It was a beautiful homecoming.”

She added, “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.”

Ahead of the event, Gladstone explained that Blackfeet Nation leaders did preemptively assume she would be coming home with a gold statuette, so when she lost, it led to a “funny” call.

“The organizers of the event called me beforehand and they said that they’d got a bunch of little cardboard cut-outs of gold-man statues that looked like an Oscar, to give to the kids. They asked if that was okay, or if it was gonna hurt my feelings. I said: ‘No, absolutely not,’” the actress recalled. “That’s just the whole thing of award campaigns and the competitive nature of pitting art against art. Clearly this film, in this moment, had meaning. It did its job.”

She continued, “Yeah, nobody was upset that it didn’t happen. I feel like when the Golden Globe happened (Gladstone won best actress), 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.”

Gladstone added that “regardless of how things turned out,” she’s just fortunate to “have work coming out and I have work lined up,” including some of her most recent projects, Fancy Dance and The Memory Police.

Despite her Oscars loss, the actress took to her social media after the 2024 Academy Awards to express her gratitude for fans’ support throughout the award season.

“Feeling the love big time today, especially from Indian Country. Kittō”kuniikaakomimmō”po’waw – seriously, I love you all,” she posted on X (formerly Twitter) at the time. “(Better believe when I was leaving the Dolby Theater and walked passed the big Oscar statue I gave that golden booty a little Coup tap – Count: one).” 

Gladstone also shared her reaction to Scott George and the Osage Singers taking the Oscars stage, as “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” was nominated for best original song.

“When watching the Osage Singers at the Oscars, my inner voice said ‘They’re the ones bringing us all up on stage tonight, that’s how it should be,’” she wrote. “The history in the film and of the moment rightfully belong to the Osage Nation. What an honor to be close enough to feel the drum.””