Killers Of The Flower Moon actor Lily Gladstone has described Yellowstone as a “delusional” portrayal of the American West.
The American neo-Western drama created by Taylor Sheridan and starring Kevin Costner premiered in June 2018, with the second part of the fifth and final season due to air this November.
The show follows the Dutton family who own the Yellowstone Dutton ranch, and the conflicts they face from groups along their shared borders – including an Indian reservation, a cattle ranch and land developers.
Gladstone – who featured in Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon – said that she found Yellowstone‘s depiction of the American West “delusional” and “deplorable” in an interview with Vulture.
She added that she’d previously auditioned for the show, having worked on projects with both Native and non-Native creators, sharing: “No offence to the Native talent in that. I auditioned several times. That’s what we had.”
Later in the interview, she said it was a “double-edged sword” when it came to telling Indigenous stories.
“You want to have more Natives writing Native stories; you also want the masters to pay attention to what’s going on. American history is not history without Native history,” she said.
The actor previously disputed the idea that Scorsese’s film – which tells the true story of members of the Osage Native American tribe who were murdered after oil was found on their land – could be categorised as a “Western”.
“A lot of people are really wanting to call this ‘Martin Scorsese’s Western’,” she told Empire earlier this year.
She instead described it as a “a great American tragedy”, adding: “With natives and Westerns, we are so dehumanised that it just kind of feels like we’re part of the landscape – instead of humans that are telling a story.”
It was announced back in May that Yellowstone would end with season five, while a new sequel series was also announced that will premiere on Paramount Network and Paramount+ this December.
Plot details for the new spin-off are currently being kept under wraps, but it was previously reported that Matthew McConaughey would lead a new series featuring several characters from Yellowstone.
In a five-star review of Killers Of The Flower Moon, NME described the film as a “heartbreaking true crime chiller” and “the director’s most macabre movie yet”.
It added: “There’s a remarkable sensitivity in the disintegration of Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mollie’s (Gladstone’s) relationship. Ernest may be ruthless – he’s perhaps the most despicable character DiCaprio has ever played – but we feel his pain as he loses everything, just as we feel the pain of the Osage Nation as they have their way of life destroyed.