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Lily Gladstone and Kali Reis have made history as the first Indigenous women to ever be nominated for acting Emmys.
Both actors have been nominated in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series category.
Gladstone, 37, was recognized for her performance in Hulu’s Under the Bridge, which saw her play a police officer, Cam Bentland, who is investigating the murder of 14-year-old Reena Virk.
Earlier this year Gladstone also became the the first Native American woman ever to be nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards for her performance in Killers of the Flower Moon. Yalitza Aparicio, an Indigenous Mexican actor, was nominated for the same award in 2019 for her part in Roma.
Reis, 37, was nominated for her role in HBO Max’s True Detective: Night Country, in which she also played a police officer, State Trooper Evangeline Navarro, investigating the disappearance of eight men from an Alaskan research station and a possible connection to the murder of an Iñupiaq activist.
Gladstone and Reis become only the second and third Indigenous actors to ever be nominated for acting Emmys. The first was August Schellenberg, who received an Emmy nomination in 2007 for playing Sitting Bull in an HBO adaptation of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
This year’s Emmy nominations also saw a first nod for Indigenous Canadian actor D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, who was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his role in Reservation Dogs.
Reservation Dogs, which is made by a largely Indigenous cast and crew, was also nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series.
Speaking to The Independent earlier this year, Gladstone reflected on winning the Golden Globe for Killers of the Flower Moon but “missing out” on the Oscar.
“As an actor, you learn to distance your own ego from that machine a bit,” she said. “Otherwise it’s gonna eat you alive.
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“By and large, yeah, there was this collective disappointment in Indian country that the big one didn’t come through. But then there was also just a collective celebration that it had gotten that far. Which is what it was supposed to be about anyway.”
Gladstone, who played the role of Mollie, an Indigenous Osage woman who is married to Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Ernest, added: “The way Indian country is, I think everybody just thinks the Golden Globes are the Oscars. So for a while, people thought that I actually had won it. And tangibly, they’re all just heavy little statues, and I’ve got plenty of ’em on my mantle.”
Back in February The Independent also spoke to Reis about Gladstone’s history-making awards run.
“When she won the Golden Globe, I was sitting folding laundry,” she remembered. “I literally burst out screaming and crying. This is an amazing time for Native American Indigenous talent.”
