- She is the first Native American actress to be nominated for an Oscar.
- Her father worked in broadcast journalism and is of Blackfeet and Nimíipuu descent, while her mother, an early childhood education specialist, is white.
- She grew up on the reservation of the Blackfeet Nation in Browning, Montana and lived there until she was 11.
- After her family moved away from Browning due to a lack of economic opportunities, she graduated high school in a suburb of Seattle, then attended the University of Montana. She studied acting and theater, graduating in 2008 with a bachelor's degree in fine arts and a minor in Native American Studies.
- Her parents lived on the Blackfeet Reservation, and when her mother went into labor early one August morning, no one was available at Indian Health Service in Browning to give her a caesarian. So an emergency helicopter flew her to Kalispell Regional Medical Center just as the sun crested the Rocky Mountain Front. Lily's father told her she didn't cry when she was born. She just looked around the room and smiled.
- For the first years of her life, the family had a log cabin with a wood-burning stove.
- Was voted "Most likely to win an Oscar" in high school. In 2024, she received an Oscar nomination in the category "Best Actress in a Leading Role" for her performance in Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).
- Cousin of Montana's native singer and storyteller, Jack Gladstone.
- Has an interest in apiculture, and when her career slowed down during the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly applied for a job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, tracking invasive Asian Giant Hornets in Seattle. Until her agent called about auditioning for Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).
- Uses she/they pronouns, citing most Indigenous American languages lack gendered pronouns - "My pronoun use is partly a way of decolonizing gender for myself.".
- She cited watching Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) as a child and wanting to be an Ewok as the what inspired her to become an actor.
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