The 96th Academy Awards ceremony was so locked in and nearly pre-determined that we, and many other outlets like ours, didn’t bother with an annual Snubs and Surprises feature—90% of the winners were that expected. But the Oscars always manage to throw in at least one curveball, and that was the Best Actress race. Many viewers, especially on social media, were stunned when Lily Gladstone, the main favorite to win the Best Actress prize for her breakout role in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of The Flower Moon,” lost to Emma Stone for her performance in “Poor Things.” Even Stone seemed visibly shocked and taken aback by the win, using her speech to praise other nominees, specifically Gladstone (her genuinely surprised reaction has now become something of a meme on Twitter, too).
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While we still await a post-Oscars interview from Gladstone, the actress has taken to social media to briefly react after losing to Stone. On Twitter/X, she finally made her first public statement, writing that she was “feeling the love big time” and gave the giant Oscar statue a pat on the “booty” when leaving the ceremony.
“When watching the Osage Singers at the Oscars, my inner voice said: ‘They’re the ones bringing us all up on stage tonight; that’s how it should be,” Gladstone posted on Twitter about the legacy that “Killers of The Flower Moon” will have in cinema. “The history in the film and of the moment rightfully belong to the Osage Nation. What an honor to be close enough to feel the drum.”
Perceived as a snub, while Oscar pundits favored Gladstone in nearly all predictions, clearly, voters leaned toward Stone’s quirky and sexually ravenous Bella Baxter in the end. Meanwhile, the win for Gladstone would have made a great Hollywood success story, given she had considered retiring from acting before landing the part in the Scorsese true crime thriller. During the film’s hiatus, the script was revised to make Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio’s relationship and love story the film’s focus. Gladstone’s Mollie Burkhart role originally only had three scenes, and Leonardo DiCaprio pivoted from the role of federal lawman Thomas Bruce White Sr. (played by Jesse Plemons) to Ernest Burkhart as the Osage Nation became a more significant part of the narrative.
Regardless of the loss, we’re hopefully seeing much more of the actress in the future. Gladstone’s phone has likely been ringing off the hook since the Cannes Film Festival screening of ‘Killers,’ which was only bolstered by her Best Actress wins at the Golden Globes and SAG Awards. Hopefully, things fare better for Scorsese, too. Since his film “Hugo” (2011), Scorsese has earned 26 Oscar nominations with zero wins. Worse, this is the third time Scorsese has earned 10+ nominations and won nothing (“Gangs of New York” and “The Irishman” and ‘Killers’), which has to be some kind of Academy record.