Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Oscar season is always full of twists and turns, and the biggest one yet just dropped with “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Variety has learned exclusively that Lily Gladstone’s work as Mollie Burkhart, an Indigenous woman at the center of a sinister plot in Martin Scorsese’s crime epic, will be campaigned for the Oscars in best actress, instead of supporting where many pundits had speculated.
She will campaign alongside her Oscar-winning co-star and executive producer, Leonardo DiCaprio. Based on David Grann’s 2017 non-fiction book “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the film tells the tragic true story of members of the Osage tribe who were murdered under suspicious circumstances during the 1920s. Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories. “Killers” is a movie that focuses on the Indigenous experience, especially in the context of the events surrounding it.
Scorsese’s intention and mission of the film is to highlight the voices of the Osage people who lived through these horrific events.
Gladstone’s role could have gone either way on the awards circuit, but the campaign will represent a significant milestone with her role front and center.
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