18-04-2025
‘We belong everywhere': Lily Gladstone in ‘The Wedding Banquet'
Jourdan Bennett-BegayeICTWASHINGTON — After a handful of years promoting films that focused on heavy but important issues such as 'Killers of the Flower Moon' and 'Fancy Dance,' actor Lily Gladstone can finally check off romantic comedy on her acting role in her new film, 'The Wedding Banquet,' is a rare sighting for any Native person in a mainstream rom-com. She's intentionally changing that. 'We belong in every genre of film,' Gladstone told ICT recently, referring to a conversation she had with Amber Midthunder about her own recent action-thriller film, 'Novacaine,' that dropped last month. 'We just need more of that. We add a tremendous amount to any circle that we're in and we belong wherever we are.'Gladstone is getting back to her roots with her performance in 'The Wedding Banquet,' alongside Bowen Yang, Kelly Marie Tran, and Han Gi-chan. The Academy Award-nominee co-leads in the reimagining of Ang Lee's 1993 film, directed by Andrew Ahn, which is released in theaters on Friday, April 18. 'I wanted to do something that would feel really grounded and really meaningful, but rooted in love and humor,' said Gladstone, who uses pronouns she/they, and is Siksikaitsitapi and NiMíiPuu.'And kind of wanted to return to a little bit of my origin, my love of performance. I started in children's theater, which is light and funny. I am just kind of naturally a cartoony, expressive person.'
Ahn, director of the film, focused the project on being a reimagining and not a remake, especially since so much of society has changed since 1993 with the legalization of same-sex marriage and now with the new Trump administration.'But now that we can get married, the question becomes... should we? Our film explores this question and the even thornier follow up: Should we... have kids?' Ahn said. Ahn, a gay Asian filmmaker, first watched the original at 8 years old, and he felt that it started his filmmaking career. ''The Wedding Banquet' helped me envision a future for myself, so it feels so special to update this film for today,' Ahn said. 'Queer stories are constantly evolving. Our cultural and societal expectations are shifting, so we have to check in with these stories, with these characters, and see what's happening to us now. It's also a way of documenting the present moment for future generations to see where we came from, how far we've come.'He also co-wrote the new version with James Schamus, who co-wrote the original film with Ang Lee. So there is a through line with the same writer who had been involved in both, easing the pressure for her to try to match the first film.'You don't try to calculate something to emulate the specific kind of success that the original film had,' Schamus said. 'Rather, what you want to do is build up an organic community of collaborators, of creators, of just human beings to take that material and run with it and create something that's special and organic to their lives now, their experiences under very different circumstances.'This film completely stands on its own while making references to the original, Gladstone said.'They're their own story,' she said. Speaking of her own stories and reimagining, Gladstone gave her character, Lee, depth, including her Indigeneity. After reading the script, Gladstone thought about seizing the opportunity. Her character's original name was Liz and in the script, there was nothing about her ethnicity, culture, or anything about her. 'Danny DeVito says any role he plays, they're all gonna be short,' Gladstone said followed with a laugh. 'So I like borrowing that. There's not, I wouldn't call it pressure to Indigenize characters that are not Indigenous when they're offered, but it feels like an opportunity.'In the film, Lee is a queer individual who wants to be a mother. The character's Indigeneity enriched Lee as a character.'Because so much of the story has these deep undercurrents and conversations about gentrification, about culture, about identity, and just my experience spending so much of my life in Seattle and so much of my life living in Duwamish lands and Suquamish, Muckleshoot, Tulalip, being a Plains Indian coming to a coastal setting, you kind of get a sense of the neighborhoods where all the Natives are,' Gladstone decided the family would live in Ballard, up the hill from 'one of the more prominent Duwamish longhouses that had been burned down during colonization,' she said. It seems like an insignificant detail but it gave more weight to Lee and Ang's situation. Lee wants her own child, with her egg and a donor. Gladstone asked herself, 'What would be a driving force behind that over choosing to adopt a child, for example? And for me, it was about that continuity of lineage. And then also, why is it?'She told Ahn that she wanted Lee to have a grounded presence. 'What drives the stakes up higher to hold on to this house? It's meaningful for anybody to have a family home passed down,' she said. 'It's like, how can we deepen that? How can we get really into the roots of the land? And then also bring some representation where we don't see it. I think it's really rare. I can't think of when I've seen Duwamish mention a representation in a film.'Another personal touch of Gladstone was renaming Liz to Lee. Short for Angeline and after Chief Seattle's oldest daughter, Princess Angeline, whose real name was Kikisoblu. One of the daughter's friends thought she should let settlers know she was the daughter of a chief, so she called her Princess Angeline, according to the Duwamish Nation. 'There's all of these beautiful archival photos of her and just the local community talks about it a lot, how Princess Angeline didn't leave Seattle. There's photos of Seattle being built around her log cabin, her home, right on the waterfront, right in Pike's Place Market,' Gladstone said. 'So that idea of continuity of place and of belonging to the land that I wanted to lend to my character Lee.'
Before the movie's release, Gladstone had a conversation with several people from the Duwamish Tribal Council about this happening in the movie and received their blessings, said Ken Workman, who is a Duwamish Tribe council member. 'When she did that and mentioned Duwamish, it's because she grew up here,' Workman said. 'Everything that she did, doing all of these permissions and asking and even the representation of an under-represented people, it's exactly right.' Duwamish Tribal Chair Cecile Hansen, who is celebrating her 50th year as tribal chair this month at the same time of this film's release, told ICT, 'It's a great honor to her, and wonderful to be rightfully acknowledged. We are still here!' Workman and the tribe's executive director Kristina Pearson both noted that Gladstone's work to shape her character around Duwamish lands means a lot, despite the tribe not having federal recognition. They are still fighting for it. 'As a leader in Seattle's matriarchal tribe, it is truly touching to be given this nod from the first Native American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress,' Pearson said. 'For Lily to use her platform in this way cements my steadfast belief that people are mostly good and that the Duwamish Tribe is making our mark, recognized or not.'It's a mark that Gladstone definitely wanted to make. 'We belong in our ancestral lands, even if the government's trying to push you out of it and telling you you have no claim to it,' Gladstone said. 'It was definitely a choice that I made to make a point that Angeline is Indigenous and had a place in the story … The story is stronger for it and more well-rounded, more inclusive, and has a much deeper meaning for me anyways.'In another meant-to-be moment, when Gladstone changed her character's name to Angeline, she did see that her partner in the film is Angela. Gladstone thought it was funny 'because it happens a lot in same-sex couples, borrowing or having the same name.'Gladstone imagined she would be called Lee after 10 years went by in a relationship. The renaming also gave them a gift from the film gods because when both names are shortened and it's their 'ship name,' then it's Ang Lee, the director of the original film.
While Indigeneity has a quiet but rooted presence in Lee and the film, there are many other themes that make the film very nuanced, such as queerness, belonging, family, challenging cultural traditions, same-sex marriage, and building a family. Of course, each of these themes is an entirely separate story, but the one that made Gladstone hesitant on accepting the role was her character experiencing in-vitro fertilization and the challenges of it. 'I wanted to be really respectful and careful about the journey of IVF because it's such a personal choice that a woman makes about her family and her body,' Gladstone said. 'And it's so stigmatized that I didn't want to wade into waters where I had no business. So you never want to walk into a character feeling like you're going to fall short of something so sensitive that means so much to so many people.'In-vitro fertilization is 'a procedure that involves fertilizing an egg with sperm in a laboratory dish,' according to Yale Medicine. It forms an embryo which is then transferred to the patient's uterus. The procedure has been done for more than 40 years and more than 10 million babies have been born from it around the world. The procedure helps people with different forms of course, there could be complications and issues with it. To increase chances of pregnancy, IVF may need to be done several times. In 2009, research showed that one cycle of IVF was approximately $12,500. That cost is higher today with increased healthcare costs. If the patient is older than 35, the chances decrease. So Lee having 'her own biological child, her flesh and blood baby on Duwamish land, that helped anchor it,' Gladstone said. She does acknowledge that the role gave her 'a deeper empathy and understanding of what that journey could be like.' That included the feelings that came up while in character. 'One thing that surprised me and is not a feeling you necessarily seek out when you're in a scene because it's uncomfortable is the shame,' she said. 'Like the level of shame that's cast on women choosing to have families at a certain age. And just how poorly funded any sort of meaningful research about women's reproductive health and bodies is. So how much stigma a Western medicine system like you operate within and then particularly with in-vitro, there's just a whole other mountain of stigmas to confront there.'
Gladstone also made space for women in her life who struggled having children, such as her mom. Her mom lost a child late in her pregnancy before Gladstone was born. Her mom would talk about the baby boy, August, she was pregnant with and Gladstone said she was raised knowing the older brother she would've had if he had been born.'There was kind of this sense of who he could have been, who he would have been that I carried with me my whole life,' she said. 'And then one day we're watching 'Saturday Night Live' together like in 2018 and mom sees Bowen [Yang] and she's just like, 'That's him. That's August. That's my baby. That's my son,'' Gladstone recalled. 'That's totally what's like that spirit that we always sort of dreamed of felt like to me too. So then for years, Bowen was just kind of like my brother, just as a joke. He was my star brother in our house.'Gladstone told Ahn and then he told Yang. She was embarrassed, Gladstone said.'But Bowen loved it, so now we just call each other star brother, star sister,' she said. 'He's just the most beautiful soul.'Watch 'The Wedding Banquet' in a theater near you starting April 18.
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