MISSOULA — Lily Gladstone, a member of the Blackfeet Nation, has made history as the first Indigenous woman to win Best Actress at the Golden Globes for her performance in 'Killers of the Flower Moon'.
Before she became an award-winning actor she was a student at the University of Montana School of Theatre and Dance in Missoula.
Gladstone’s former director Bernadette Sweeney recalls the first time she worked with her.
“I was actually here as a visiting professor from Ireland and I was directing a production of Riders to the Sea and I cast Lily in that production it was her first production here at the School of Theatre and Dance.”
Sweeney said she was impressed with Gladstone’s intelligence and curiosity as a young actor but years later, when she was working as a staff member for the school, there was another characteristic about her that stood out.
"I was really, again, struck by how she had matured as an actor and how she was really really careful to mentor good working practices to the undergraduates that were in that production with her."
Gladstone also used those mentoring skills when she worked at the Roxy Theater’s film academy teaching children about the art of filmmaking.
Roxy Theater executive director Mike Steinberg saw how seriously she took her work from day one.
“I mean Lily is a force,” Steinberg said. “She’s incredible and when she worked here she was no less incredible, I mean, she really took on the role of teaching the filmmaking, but also acting and camera techniques she ran the entire program the time she was here.”
Oscar nominations aren’t out yet, but Gladstone will most likely be a contender.
