Lily Gladstone Picks Her Favorite Indigenous Actors and Favorite Way to Get Into Character

Variety

Actor Lily Gladstone shares why Sheila Tousey and John Trudell are her favorite Indigenous actors and how music helps her get into character.

Transcript

00:00 I'm Lily Gladstone and I'm going to talk about my favorites.

00:03 Favorite hobbies.

00:14 My favorite hobbies outside of acting, I probably am considered

00:19 a crazy plant lady at this point.

00:21 I'm loving the background and the space that we're in right now.

00:24 I love helping things grow.

00:26 I love helping things propagate.

00:28 It's very therapeutic.

00:29 I'm also quite a lover of bugs and insects and particularly bees.

00:35 Getting outside and finding the little tiny details in life.

00:39 I spend a lot of time outside.

00:42 Favorite red carpet look.

00:44 Favorite red carpet look.

00:47 Probably the big red carpet that I had this year.

00:52 It's Valentino.

00:53 Big beautiful like flowery decals.

00:57 Wonderful dentilium Jamie Okuma earrings.

01:00 Yeah, it's what I wear at Cannes this year.

01:03 Awards recognition to me just means that people have seen the film

01:06 that we were hoping we were making, that people have connected to it.

01:10 Because your character is the conduit for the audience to really be in the story.

01:14 That's the best part.

01:16 Favorite karaoke song.

01:18 Oh, favorite karaoke song.

01:21 I always request These Boots Are Made For Walkin' by Nancy Sinatra.

01:26 But the one that I think is the most fun and like communal

01:30 and you don't hear that often is Blister in the Sun by the Violent Femmes.

01:34 I wouldn't say I go to karaoke every weekend,

01:44 but I do go to karaoke every opportunity, if that makes sense.

01:49 Favorite way to get into character.

01:52 My favorite ways of getting into character just kind of depends on the character.

01:57 But one thing that tracks pretty much all the way through is music.

02:01 If it's not showing up for me on the day or if I need that lens switch,

02:07 that headspace switch, then music is one of the quickest ways to do it.

02:11 And I found that the consistent artist on almost all of my character

02:15 playlists up till now has been Cat Power.

02:18 So that's definitely a part of it.

02:20 And then breathwork.

02:22 No number of people who have worked with me have probably been a little bit like,

02:25 what is she doing?

02:27 But breathwork is a lot of it.

02:29 Favorite piece of advice you've ever received.

02:31 Hmm.

02:35 Maybe it's advice.

02:36 Maybe it's more like a pearl of wisdom.

02:39 That's been a big one in my life.

02:41 It's kind of funny.

02:42 I got it from my dad, who's black feet and has purse.

02:45 And I guess when I was younger, when he dropped this,

02:50 I always thought maybe this was like a black feet saying, you know, like some

02:53 some old time wisdom being dropped.

02:56 He said, "Prey runs to the hunter."

02:58 And I found out later it was actually a Carl Sagan quote,

03:01 which was also really cool.

03:04 But he he always kind of raised me with that mentality, which is

03:09 kind of led a lot of my decisions.

03:12 Favorite indigenous actors or artists.

03:15 You know, earliest memories,

03:19 you know, just to kind of boil it down to those seminal childhood inspirations.

03:23 John Trudell and Sheila Towsey,

03:26 both of them were in a film called Thunderheart.

03:29 I just remember being a little girl and like, you know,

03:32 Thunderheart's not the most age appropriate movie, but I know a lot of

03:36 a lot of kids that were raised watching that movie growing up.

03:39 But her performance in that kind of

03:41 it was maybe one of those early sparks where I was like, oh, I want to do that.

03:46 She elicited this incredible feeling

03:49 and like deep love of her grandma, her community, this just

03:54 wry sense of humor, this like absolute command of every scene

03:59 she was in with this just very like gentle and observational,

04:03 but also very invested presence.

04:06 I just I just I wanted to do that.

04:08 And I was very lucky I was able to join her on stage

04:13 at some point in my career.

04:14 Sheila is kind of probably to blame for a lot of

04:18 what's transpired in my life since then.

04:21 Favorite thing about your hometown?

04:24 Oh, my favorite thing about my hometown, Browning, Montana.

04:29 Every time I go back, I love that even though things change over the years,

04:34 there are some things there that just haven't changed since the 70s,

04:38 the 80s, the 90s, since my childhood.

04:41 One thing that's very frustrating, I think, about a lot of narratives

04:44 with modern Native people is this struggle to like get off the rez.

04:48 My family had to leave eventually just because of lack of job opportunities.

04:54 My dad had grown up in Seattle and moved back, chosen to move back in his 20s.

04:59 And my parents both chose to raise me there because

05:03 they felt it was really important that I have a connection

05:07 to where I come from and who I am and that I would be comfortable living there.

05:11 Favorite behind the scenes moment?

05:14 With the Unknown Country? Favorite behind the scenes.

05:17 I mean, that film, truly, every time we got together to make it

05:22 and it's kind of the way that I wish I could make every film, it was friends.

05:27 At some point, sometimes it was just me, Marissa, our director,

05:31 and Andrew, our cinematographer, camera sound that we went back in post

05:35 to like fix up, but, you know, always skeleton crew.

05:39 And everything was just fun.

05:42 It always felt like, hey, let's take five days as a group of friends

05:45 and get an Airbnb somewhere and hang out and then like go shoot for three hours

05:50 a day, just like driving around and seeing what we can find.

05:53 I fit in really quickly, like we became family and we became so close so quickly.

05:58 I road tripped out and hung out with them less than a month ago,

06:02 and it felt like a family reunion.

06:04 Favorite thing about independent cinema?

06:09 Independent film will go places that, you know, you're told nobody cares about.

06:14 It explores narratives in such a unique way.

06:19 It doesn't just challenge where you're looking.

06:22 It expands how you're looking.

06:23 I mean, there's a reason a lot of the like huge films

06:27 will shop independent film festivals for new voices,

06:31 because that is where story and the art and just the sheer

06:37 goddamn love of it really surfaces.

06:40 Because if you're if you're making an indie, it's hard.

06:43 It's it's really hard work, but it can be the best experience

06:48 of your life when everybody's on board with it.

06:50 [music]

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