Lily Gladstone just made history with her win at the 2024 Golden Globes. The Killers of the Flower Moon actress took home the award for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama for her portrayal of Mollie Burkhart, making her the first Indigenous woman to receive the honor.
Gladstone, who stars in the film based on the true story of the Osage murders, gave a touching speech that paid homage to her upbringing in the Blackfeet Tribe. She began by speaking in Blackfeet before telling the crowd, "I love everyone in this room right now. Thank you. I don't have words. I just spoke a bit of Blackfeet language, the beautiful community — nation — that raised me, that encouraged me to keep going to keep doing this."
She continued, "I'm so grateful that I can speak even a little bit of my language — and I'm not fluent — up here because in this business, native actors used to speak their lines in English, and then the sound mixers would run them backward to accomplish Native languages on camera."
Gladstone went on to attribute her historic win to her co-stars. "It doesn't belong to just me," she said. "I am holding it with all of my beautiful sisters in the film, at this table over here, and my mother [in the film], Tantoo Cardinal, standing on all of your shoulders."
"Thank you, Marty. Thank you, Leo. Thank you, Bob," she added. "You are all changing things. Thank you for being such allies."
She concluded the speech by dedicating the award to all the young Indigenous children out there. "This is for every little rez kid, every little urban kid, every little Native kid who has a dream, who is seeing themselves represented and our stories told by ourselves in our own words with tremendous allies and tremendous trust with and from each other. Thank you all so much."