Lily Gladstone has been winning praise for her portrayal of a cop in the Hulu series Under the Bridge. While the audience adores Gladstone‘s performance, she had three requirements from the producers before agreeing to play a cop on the show.
The Golden Globe-winning actress shared that there are not a lot of native women doing TV roles in the industry, and those who are up for it are given the cop characters.
What requirements did Lily Gladstone have from the makers before playing cop?
According to Variety, one of the three requirements the actress put forward before signing up for the role was that she wanted her character, Cam, to hail from Vancouver. As the storyline goes, Gladstone’s character decides to move to the Canadian city. However, the actress had different reasons. The Killers of the Flower Moon actress revealed, “I wanted her internal compass to be pointing to Vancouver for a different reason.”
Another requirement for the actress was to pay a small tribute to Chief Dan George. Mr. George was the first indigenous North American actor to have been nominated for the Academy Awards in 1971. The Tsleil-Waututh star acted in the film Little Big Man. The most recent Indigenous actress to be nominated for the Oscars was Gladstone herself.
As for the third requirement, the actress wanted to play a cop who could stand up for herself and not get mobilized against her own people. Gladstone exclaimed, “Maybe the Indigenous woman cop is a compelling character because it’s a contradiction. It’s having this desire to protect your community, but then seeing that you’re being mobilized against your own people.”
Lily Gladstone comments on viewers’ thoughts about campaigning her character in Killers of the Flower Moon
Lily Gladstone stood against Emma Stone in the race to win the Best Actress Oscar. Though the actress’ performance in the movie was heavily lauded, she lost the Academy Award to Stone for Poor Things. According to the audience, Gladstone could have won if she had campaigned for her character.
The actress doesn’t think so. The Certain Women actress shared, “I never decided I needed to improve my odds or boost my career. That was my last thought.” She added, “Campaigning Molly as a lead wasn’t about me. If I had been ultra-consumed with that, maybe it would have shaken out differently. But it doesn’t make sense to me.”
Under the Bridge is available to stream on Hulu.
