Lily Gladstone

“We're all in this together, whether it's women in film or the LGBTQ communities or the nonprofit that's making sure that low-income kids have a meal at the end of the day.”

“I'm lucky that I have a community to uplift and to take along with me.”

“I'm liking that when I'm now walking into generals and hearing about the scope of characters that are out there for Indigenous actors to play, so many of the pitches I'm hearing are coming from Indigenous creators - not people who are like consultants on the thing but are showrunners on the thing.”

“Before it's all over, it would be really fun to do an action film.”

“I was only into 'Star Wars' because I was into the Ewoks. I didn't know this then, but they're such a beacon of Indigenous resistance. And they rocked it. They brought the Empire down, I'm sorry.”

“Indian country is small, word gets around about how people conduct themselves when they come into your community.”

“I particularly like, with Indigenous characters, having conversations around gender fluidity, gender roles, and different worldviews.”

“I always kept an eye on where in proximity to telling the story about Mollie Burkhart, how far away do I need to keep my own ego? Because there is this element of the pop and glamor of being in a film directed by Scorsese starring DiCaprio and De Niro.”

“I know a lot of actresses who are very proud of the word 'actress' or are very proud of being an actress. don't know, maybe it's just an overly semantic thing where I'm like, if there's not a 'director-ess,' then there shouldn't be actresses. There's no 'producer-ess,' there's no 'cinematographer-ess.'”

“I've been really lucky that my career has largely been shaped by women filmmakers.”

“Blackfeet have our own versions of the traumatic history that we collectively still feel. And it's just an ethos in my people that if you're dealing with trauma, it needs a counterbalance.”

“The first thing that we did when we moved out to Seattle was enroll me in Stone Soup Theatre. That kind of led into doing some student films. There was a graduate student at University of Washington whose senior thesis film I did when I was a senior in high school and some student films at Shoreline Community College where my mom taught.”

“I was one of my grandmother's primary caretakers, especially through COVID, moving back in through COVID, and being her only granddaughter.”

“You conduct yourself a certain way when you know your younger cousins are watching what you're doing!”

“I stand on the shoulders of some unbelievable talent. Graham Greene and chief Dan George have been nominated for their performances by the Academy. Wes Studi has his honorary Oscar.”

“Montanans are infused with landscape. You can sit in a landscape for hours and disappear. You can be part of the quiet. Or you hear the songs of the wind. I remember being hollowed out by the whistle of the wind as a kid. You were at the whim of your landscape and had to live with it.”

“When you're growing up in Indian Country - though it's different depending on each tribal nation - by and large, where I grew up, there were very few economic opportunities.”

“My dad loved 'Kundun.'”

“I've never really been an eye-on-the-prize person.”

“Any role I play, which is native or highlights native history or culture, whether or not it's laid out, I'm always going to make that character native.”