Lily Gladstone has had quite the year – and it’s only June. In addition to winning the Golden Globe for Best Actress (as well as a host of other awards) and receiving an Oscar nomination for her role in Assassins of Flower MoonThe Native American actress also starred in a Hulu limited series and served on the jury at Cannes.
But it’s Gladstone’s latest project, Extravagant dancewhich opens in select theaters on Friday and streams on Apple TV+ starting June 28, which kicked off this run of high-profile hits.
“My year actually started in January [2023]when Extravagant dance premiered at Sundance before Flower Moon Assassins,” Gladstone, who is Blackfeet/Nimíipuu, told Yahoo Entertainment. “I knew I was kissing my indie credibility goodbye that year, so it felt good to start a film that was so close to my heart.”
Extravagant dance, directed by Erica Tremblay of the Seneca-Cayuga Nation, stars Gladstone (who uses she/they pronouns) as Jax, a woman on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation in Oklahoma who is caring for her niece, Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson), after the disappearance of the girl’s mother. When child protective services takes Jax’s Roki to live with his white grandparents, Jax and Roki go on a road trip, hoping to find answers along the way.
The film addresses not only the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women, but also other indigenous issues such as poverty and adoption policies. What’s different here, though, is that it’s told from the Native perspective of its Native director, writers, and stars.
“A lot of times, whenever you see a true crime case around an Indigenous issue or case, it’s always the white cop, the white savior, who comes in and solves the case. And you just see a small glimpse into the real lives of the indigenous people that the case involves,” Tremblay told Yahoo Entertainment. “So, Miciana [Alise], my co-writer, and I actually decided to do the exact opposite of that. We really centered this story around the two indigenous women who are at the center of this film.”
Gladstone said Martin Scorsese’s standout film Flower Moon Assassins helped create an appetite among global audiences for more Indigenous stories.
“Murderers It kind of opened up a space, I think, in what the audience wanted to see. They wanted more of that,” Gladstone said. “They wanted more [Osage protagonist] Mollie’s experience. They wanted more of her community experience from an inside-out perspective.”
Being on the awards circuit, Gladstone said, “was a great opportunity to highlight and talk about Flower Moon Assassinsthe performances of the Indigenous actors in it, and actually witnessing and experiencing firsthand an audience falling in love with an Indigenous woman.”
This exposure, Gladstone added, paved the way for Extravagant dancethat, as Murderersis being distributed by Apple TV+ – that is, after a vocal campaign and op-ed by Tremblay highlighting the challenges Indigenous filmmakers face in getting their work distributed.
“People who had the opportunity to see Extravagant dance In that crazy year and a half, we talked constantly about how these two films really contextualize each other and how they need to be seen together,” Gladstone said. “As what you long for in one, you receive in the other.”
The same happens with the wide dissemination of Extravagant dance a step forward in breaking down the door that is blocking Indigenous representation on screen? After all, the numbers in Hollywood have historically been dismal. According to a study by USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative which specifically highlighted the importance of Gladstone’s role in Flower Moon Assassins99% of the highest-grossing films from 2007 to 2022 “featured zero female-identified Native American speaking characters.”
“We’re just getting started,” Gladstone said, not just taking credit. “I think a lot of people are participating. I think I had a big platform because of the immensity of Martin Scorsese and that film.”
Tremblay also said he doesn’t want to take credit for the debatable change.
“I guess I don’t necessarily think of it that way, because I feel like all of my mentors and so many people that I look up to are like the ones kicking down the door and I’m kind of in their direction, hanging in there,” said Tremblay, who also directed episodes of the series. critically acclaimed Reserve dogs. “I feel very grateful to be part of this moment when we see indigenous representation in Hollywood grow.”
Deroy-Olson, who belongs to Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and Ebb and Flow First Nations, said she was “grateful” to embody the type of character she rarely saw in the media growing up.
“It was great to get into this because I grew up without much representation in the media. I couldn’t look at the TV and say, that’s me,” she told Yahoo Entertainment.
“So the fact that I’m part of advancing that representation, especially for Indigenous audiences who are so young, they can look to Extravagant dance and say, that’s me,” Deroy-Olson added, “and the fact that they can see such a powerful and proud character, I’m so grateful to be a part of that.”
When it comes to a big shift in the industry, in a year that saw historic Gladstone wins and nominations, along with arguably more Indigenous-led projects like Extravagant danceTremblay said he “remained optimistic.”
“I’m hopeful that when these big studios and these companies talk about their commitment to inclusion and diversity, I’m hopeful that they’ll deliver on those promises,” she said. “But I think one thing’s for sure: We’re not going to back down, you know. We won’t go back.
