One year after premiering Killers of the Flower Moon at Cannes, Lily Gladstone is on the jury, and she’s been killing it on the Croisette. Yesterday at the premiere of L’Amour Ouf (Beating Hearts), it was an embroidered black dress, spangled shawl, and stellar pink earrings. I can’t wait to see what prizes this jury, headed by Greta Gerwig, hands out.
Lily is also featured in Empire, with an interview covering her post-Killers downtime, what’s next, and her potential future behind the camera. The photos, by Ramona Rosales, are SPECTACULAR. The styling, the earrings—now a signature of Lily’s style—her FACE, she looks incredible.
As for post-Killers life, well, she’s bingeing The Bear and she has Fancy Dance in cinemas and on Apple TV+ in June (it’s great, you should see it). And Under the Bridge wraps up next week. Plus, she has new movies in the offing, including a rom-com with Bowen Yang, and she’s starring in Charlie Kaufman’s adaptation of The Memory Police, and she sounds really excited about it. She also sounds like she has the Oscar loss squared away without emotional baggage. I said this in the immediate aftermath—in the long run, losing a leading Oscar will probably serve her better than winning a supporting one. Still would have been a nice moment!
But now there is the question of how long it takes Lily to get back into the awards conversation. It’s certainly not the only way of measuring success, but as has always been the case, it’s not necessarily as easy for her as it is for actors like Emma Stone, Margot Robbie, and Jennifer Lawrence to consistently be in the Oscar conversation. Although in her interview, Lily emphasizes how many opportunities she has before her, both to tell Native stories, but also just to star in movies because she’s a great actor. This is why I’m stoked about the rom-com—I want to see Lily Gladstone in movies just because she’s Lily Gladstone, not only because there’s An Important Story to tell.
There are important stories to tell, don’t get me wrong, and I want to see those, too. But I most want Lily to have the kind of wide-open opportunities her white peers have. I want her to star in dumb Jurassic World movies like Scarlett Johansson; I’d love to see her work with Kelly Reichardt again, her own fruitful actor-filmmaker collaboration; and if she wants to direct, I’d like to see that, too. Actor-directors are always dicey, but Lily is a deep thinker and a verbose communicator, two signs of a good director. I just want everything on the table, and I hope Hollywood really has changed enough to allow it.
