On June 6, the IndieWire Honors Ceremony 2024 celebrates thirteen creators and stars responsible for some of the greatest works of the TV season. This event, curated and selected by IndieWire’s editorial staff, is a new edition of that IndieWire Awards event completely focused on television. In the days leading up to the event, IndieWire will be showcasing their work with new Job interviews and tributes from their colleagues.
Ahead, “Under the Bridge” star Lily Gladstone – who previously won an IndieWire Honors Award for “Killers of the Flower Moon” – tells IndieWire about the many qualities that set our Maverick Award winner, multi-hyphenate Riley Keough, apart from the crowd.
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As told to Erin Strecker. The following has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I first became aware of Riley when she did the Joan Jett piece with Kristen Stewart, because I was doing my due diligence and getting ready to work with Kristen on “Certain Women.” And that same year, Chris Carroll, assistant director of “Certain Women,” who became a good friend of mine, immediately left “Certain Women” to film “American Honey.” And he talked to me about that and said Riley Keough is in it, and I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s cool.”
The next year, when both of our films came out, I thought that was true brilliant in that movie. And we were both nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Indie Spirits. We were more or less in each other’s orbit all year.
Once that was all resolved, I saw that she started following me on Instagram and I panicked a little. It was back when I had maybe two thousand followers. The name “Riley Keough” in a blue check appears and you think, “Oh, my God!” So we developed a kind of Instagram friendship of likes and emojis and every now and then she would contact us. When she was getting ready to make “War Pony,” she asked if I knew of any Indigenous crew she should contact.
I’ve seen Riley as one for years, an incredible actress, and I loved the way she handled the character she played in “American Honey.” And then the way she approached working in Pine Ridge [for “War Pony”], she made an impression there. Indian country is small, there is a lot of talk about how people behave when they come into your community. So we know which celebrities come to the res and behave appropriately and which don’t. And everyone loved Riley. So I’ve always seen her as not only an incredible actress who plays great roles, but she’s also just an incredible ally. You know, a lot of Indian countries like to claim Elvis because they have ancestors there. She doesn’t make that her identity or personality. She is an ally who helps elevate stories in Indian Country.
Riley made me lean in and want to attend the meeting [about “Under the Bridge”], knowing she starred in it and produced it. I knew that ‘Under the Bridge’ was going to be something really special, not just because she wanted to act, but because she felt like she wanted to produce it too. Maybe it’s because she’s so close with her teenage siblings; the twins are such a big part of her life. She has so much compassion for teenagers and the teenage experience. The way she worked with all those girls and with Javon Walton, who plays the character Warren, was really beautiful. Riley’s advocacy for these young actors and her celebration of them was truly moving. And she always keeps everyone very clearly and compassionately focused on where the focus should be. She is very protective of the children themselves and the characters they portray [her character] Rebekah was.
She’s so huge. She can make the smallest, most controlled movements. And even if you’re in a scene with her, if you’re in character and your character isn’t aware of what’s going on in her head the way you are when you’re looking at it, you can’t see the choices she’s making. getting through the blinders you put on for the character. Then I’ll watch the scenes later, watching her performance as the character where she’s hiding things from me that I’m not supposed to see, in the scene I didn’t. But then you go back and watch it on the show and you’re like, “Ah! There it is! That was just for the camera.” It’s a pretty incredible power that she wields like that.
Plus, she’s crazy as hell. She is very giggly. She is very sweet. She may strike you as making an assumption that you might not make, but she has a bit of a trickster spirit in her.
Read Riley Keough’s IndieWire Honors profile.
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