Lily Gladstone Makes History With Win at the 2024 Golden Globes

81st golden globe awards show
Lily Gladstone Makes History at the Golden GlobesRich Polk/Golden Globes 2024 - Getty Images

Lily Gladstone got visibly emotional as she got on the Golden Globes stage to accept the trophy for Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama) for her role as Mollie Burkhart in Killers of the Flower Moon.

Gladstone began her speech in the Blackfeet language, before switching to English, saying, "I love everyone in this room right now! Thank you." Gladstone continued, "I don't have words. I just spoke a bit of Blackfeet language, a beautiful community, nation that raised me. They encouraged me to keep going, keep doing this. I'm here with my mom, who even though she's not Blackefeet worked tirelessly to get our language into our classroom, so I had a Blackfeet language teacher growing up."

They are the first Native actor to win in this category, and Gladstone spoke about the history-making nature of the victory in her speech: "This award belongs to—and I hope I don't get counted down too fast because this is an historic one—I'm so grateful that I can speak a little bit of my language, which I'm not fluent in, up here because in this business, Native actors used to speak their lines in English and then the sounds mixers run them backwards to accomplish Native languages on camera."

Gladstone continued, "This is an historic one. It doesn't belong to just me. I'm holding it right now. I'm holding it with all of my beautiful sisters, and the film at this table over here, my mother, standing on all of your shoulders. Thank you."

81st golden globe awards show
Gladstone blows a kiss during their acceptance speech.Rich Polk/Golden Globes 2024 - Getty Images

She then starts listening specific thank yous: "Thank you, Marty. Thank you, Leo. Thank you Bob. You are all changing things. Thank you for being such allies. Thank you Chief Standing Bear." Gladstone then begins speaking Osage, to thank Osage Nation (her character, Mollie, is Osage). "I'm at a loss for what else to say. Thank you to Apple. Thank you my manager and my agent, Jill and Sasha. Thank you to all of you."

They ended, "And this is for every rez kid, every little urban kid, every little Native kid out there 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 from with and from each other. So thank you all so much!"


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