Mountlake Terrace’s Lily Gladstone continues to gain recognition for her acting while setting a milestone as the first Indigenous actor to be nominated for a Golden Globe.

Gladstone was not only nominated but won the award for Best Actress on Sunday for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, based on the bestselling book by David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.

Starring Gladstone, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro, Killers of the Flower Moon is a non-fiction drama about Mollie Burkhart and the murders of Osage Nation members after oil was discovered on their reservation in Oklahoma during the early 1920s.

Burkhart, wife of DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart, is a potential victim as she stands to inherit the money and mineral rights from her murdered family.

Gladstone is of Blackfeet, Nez Perce and European heritage and grew up on the Blackfeet Nation Reservation in Browning, Montana. Her family moved to Mountlake Terrace, seeking better job opportunities in the Puget Sound area, in 1997.

She graduated from Mountlake Terrace High School in 2004 and earned a bachelor of fine arts in acting and directing with a minor in Native American studies from the University of Montana in 2008.

During her acceptance speech, Gladstone said the award is for “every little Rez kid, every little urban kid, every little Native kid out there who has a dream to see themselves represented, and our stories told by ourselves in our own words.”

The Golden Globes are one of the earliest award ceremonies of the season, which concludes with the Academy Awards on March 10. Although winning a Golden Globe is often a precursor to a nomination for an Oscar, it is not guaranteed.

Kimberly Nelson, a retired Mountlake Terrace High School teacher who also helped with the school’s drama department, organized the special Mountlake Terrace premiere showing of the film in October 2023 and is planning a viewing party for the Academy Awards. But this time, she is planning for a larger venue.

“We sold out and had to turn people away at the premiere,” Nelson said. “We want to make sure everyone can attend.”

Though the plans are not set in stone, Nelson said she hopes to hold the viewing at Mountlake Terrace High School, where the costumes she made for the drama department and worn by Gladstone are still in use.

Nelson said that Gladstone’s success has kept her going through her hard times.

“She’s magnificent,” Nelson said. “Not perfect, but magnificent.”

Killers of the Flower Moon is now available to rent.

— By Rick Sinnett