Killers of the Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone has made no secret of her love for Star Wars, especially the Ewoks from Return of the Jedi. The Golden Globe winner (and Oscar contender) told the New York Times she had a “strong desire to be an Ewok at age five”—that’s how deep the love is.
Gladstone’s adorable nerdiness has emerged in other awards-season interviews, too. In a roundtable with fellow Best Actress contenders hosted by the Hollywood Reporter, she cited Ewoks as one of her first acting role models; they were her “childhood inspirations, I wanted to be an Ewok, and that’s what started all this madness.” That is the cutest thing ever, to be honest, and we love this origin story for an incredible talent we’d like to see working in genre in the future.
Ewoks got yet another nod in Gladstone’s interview with Rolling Stone. “I was only into Star Wars because I was into the Ewoks,” she told the magazine. “I didn’t know this then, but they’re such a beacon of Indigenous resistance. And they rocked it. They brought the Empire down, I’m sorry.”
Kathleen Kennedy, that’s your cue to get on the line and cast Gladstone in one of the new Star Wars movies—her love for the franchise is genuine, and she obviously has superior acting chops. What kind of role would you want to see Gladstone take on in the galaxy far, far away?
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