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