Lily Gladstone Spoke With Emma Stone About Awards Being ‘Ridiculous’ and Defends Campaigning for Oscars as a Lead Actress: ‘Your Heart Is Not a Supporting Organ’
Lily Gladstone has no hurt feelings about having lost to Emma Stone at the 96th Academy Awards. In fact, Gladstone says the two agree they shouldn’t have been pitted against each other.
“Emma and I talked about it, and had wonderful conversations about how ridiculous it is to place art in competition,” she tells Variety while discussing her current Emmys campaign for “Under the Bridge.” “Awards are supposed to be giving accolades to the art no matter what. It’s like you’re awarding just by acknowledging and nominating, really, but then this competitive nature takes over. How does that work in something so subjective and personal as art?”
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There’s a consensus among pundits that Gladstone would have been more likely to win an Oscar if she’d campaigned as a supporting actress instead of in the lead category. Playing Mollie Burkhart, she appeared in just 56 minutes of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which is three-and-a-half hours long.
At the same time, the film revolves around Mollie’s suffering and bravery in the face of brutal violence against the Osage people, even when she’s not on screen.
Gladstone stands by her campaign.
“I never decided I needed to improve my odds or boost my career. That was my last thought,” she says frankly. “Campaigning Mollie as a lead wasn’t about me. If I was ultra-consumed with that, maybe it would have shaken out differently. But it doesn’t make sense to me. The heart of the whole story, the access point for the humanity, is Osage. I never saw Mollie as a supporting role. Your heart is not a supporting organ. Your soul and your conscience are not supporting voices. It’s the compass of everything.”
She continues: “People will make what they want, but I’m glad that what other women of color have taken away from it is that we don’t always need to accept supporting positions. We’re very strong when we are supporting, but it’s also really powerful to just accept that we lead. Because that’s what we do.”
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