Pop Culture Weekly
Fancy Dance: Lily Gladstone & Cast on Native American Stories in Cinema
In this episode of Pop Culture Weekly, Erica Tremblay, a powerhouse Native American storyteller, joins Kyle McMahon to discuss her groundbreaking film "Fancy Dance" on Apple TV Plus. Tremblay opens up about her creative journey and the deep-rooted inspiration behind her latest work, which centers on a Native American hustler navigating harsh realities to protect her family. She also shares rich insights into her collaboration with the extraordinary talents of Lily Gladstone and newcomer Isabel DeRoy-Olson, emphasizing the significance of portraying the human struggles and resilience of Native characters. Their conversation uncovers the meaningful themes highlighted in the film, such as the Indian Child Welfare Act and the broader challenges faced by Indigenous families.
We also have the privilege of hearing from the film's stars, Lily Gladstone and Isabel DeRoy-Olson. Gladstone provides a heartfelt reflection on her personal connection to the film’s narrative and the transformative impact of authentic representation on screen. Meanwhile, DeRoy-Olson's impressive debut is celebrated, shining a light on the lived experiences of Native and Indigenous people in America. This episode is a compelling exploration of the power of cinema to bridge cultural divides and foster greater understanding, offering hope for a future where stories of marginalized communities are told with genuine empathy and respect.
Kyle McMahon's Death, Grief & Other Sh*t We Don't Discuss is now streaming: https://www.deathandgrief.show/Chapter-One-The-Diagnosis-AKA-WTF/
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- Duration:
- 17m
- Broadcast on:
- 28 Jun 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
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(upbeat music) Net, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Hello and welcome to Pop Culture Weekly with Kyle McMahon. I, of course, am Kyle McMahon and I can't thank you enough for once again hanging out with me to discuss pop culture, movies, music, TV, news, streaming, technology, whatever it is, you know, we cover it here. Today, it is all about the brand new film, Fancy Dance, which is in select theaters across the country and debuting exclusively on Apple TV Plus. Fancy Dance is, it's a really incredible film that you have to see. It really is just that good. So it's directed and written by Erica Tremblay and the byline is following her sister's disappearance. A Native American hustler kidnaps her niece from the child's white grandparents and sets out for the state pow wow in hopes of keeping what is left of their family intact. It is, it stars Lily Gladstone and Isabelle DeRoy Olsen, who I talked to both of those as well. It is really, really incredibly powerful. It's a great film that, you know, opened my eyes to natives, Native Americans, indigenous people to the land of America and North America. And wow, it is really good. It is touching, it is powerful. It is sweet in moments. It is shocking in moments. It is incredible. I highly suggest that you watch Fancy Dance exclusively on Apple TV Plus or if you're lucky enough to be in one of the major markets to go see it in the theater, do that because it's, you know, always the best if you can to see it in the theater. So I speak with director writer Erica Tremblay as well as the amazing Lily Gladstone and Isabelle DeRoy Olsen all about Fancy Dance. So Erica Tremblay will start with her. She is a Native herself. She was a producer on "Reservation Dog" on FX, which I absolutely loved. She also was a director there. She did a short film in 2020 called "Little Chief", which also started Lily Gladstone and that is really amazing as well. Let's just get into my conversation, my interview with Erica Tremblay. - Thank you so much, Erica. For speaking with me, I really appreciate it. So first of all, congratulations on an incredibly beautiful and powerful film. It is stunning. In so many ways. This is your first feature length film. Why was it important for you to tell this story as your first feature? - Yeah, you know, as a Native woman who grew up in my community, I really was just inspired to tell a story about like the women and queer folks who have made me who I am. And I wanted to, you know, tell a love story back to these incredible women who work so hard to educate our kids, keep our kids safe. And Jax is just amalgamation of so many people in my life and my co-writer, Michiana's life. And, you know, Jax is trying so hard and doing so much to keep her knee safe. And I'm just really inspired by people who may not have a lot but can do a lot. And that is certainly a character that I wanna write for and was so grateful that Lily so beautifully brought to life. - Did you, you had worked with Lily previously, correct? Did you know as you were, you know, putting the film together like Lily, this is gonna be Lily? - Yeah, right after the success of our short film, Little Chief, I said, "Hey, do you wanna do a feature together?" And so as Michiana and I were writing, we were sharing drafts with Lily. And Lily was really instrumental in helping build Jax as a character. And just to be able to like imagine Lily as we were writing was so helpful. And, you know, Lily's incredible. Lily is Lily Gladstone. And what a wonderful experience to have gotten to work with them twice now. And then of course to find Isabel and the two of them have so much chemistry in real life and on screen, it's like, as a director, it's like, I just would sit there and be like, "Okay, I do your thing and cut, okay, we've got it." We've got, because they're both just so incredibly wonderfully talented and so refreshing, you know, to see on screen. - What do you hope that people, particular like me, people that are not native or indigenous, which by the way, that's what one of the reasons I love film, is that, you know, it is able to show me slices of life that otherwise I would be ignorant to and really opens my eyes to these worlds that are right next door to me. What do you hope the viewer takes from watching "Fancy Dance"? - Yeah, you know, we really tried to construct a narrative that doesn't beat you over the head with like a procedural of like, we're gonna teach you this lesson. And I think by way of Frank and Nancy, who are these non-native characters in our film, who really in their hearts are trying to do the best thing. I'm hoping that people will see the humanity and Jackson Rokey and what they're, what they're traversing and what they're going through. And my hope is that non-native folks will watch this and be like, whoa, what's happening next door to me? And they'll recognize their role potentially in some of these oppressive systems and wanna be a better citizen to their native neighbors. And I feel exactly the same, like art can build bridges between us and hopefully this film will have the ability to do just that, like that's the hope and the dream. - Yeah, I think you've absolutely ace that. It is such an incredible film. I can't wait for everybody to see Fancy Dance exclusively on Apple TV Plus and actually a theatrical release first, but then exclusively on Apple TV Plus. Thank you so much, Erica. - Thank you. - Erica Tremblay. Love her, she's incredible. I can't wait to see, I can't wait for everybody to see Fancy Dance, but I can't wait to see what Erica does next. All right, next up Isabel DeRoy Olsen. So she plays Rokey in the film in Fancy Dance and she is awesome as well. She was in Three Pines, the series and now stars as Rokey in Fancy Dance. Lily Gladstone plays Jax in Fancy Dance. Lily is just a powerhouse. She's from Montana, was raised on the Blackfeet Indian reservation, went to University of Montana where she got a bachelor's in acting and directing and a minor in Native American studies. So she has come up, I mean, she's put in all of the work, but she has really come up in the last couple of years. She played Molly Burkhardt in Killers of the Flower Moon, which of course landed her a Oscar nom for Best Actress for the 2024 Academy Awards, the Oscars. With that, Lily became the first ever Native American actress to be nominated for an Oscar, which is insane, literally insane, but it is well deserved and she's amazing. And she's amazing in Fancy Dance. I mean, Lily is just a powerhouse and she's such a nice person. I can't wait for you to hear this interview. So let's jump right in to my interview with the one and only, Lily Gladstone and Isabelle DeRoy Olsen. - Thank you both so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. - Thank you, Bill. - And thank you. - Of course. So first of all, congratulations on the film. It is powerful, cinema. It is beautiful and heartbreaking and incredible all at once. I wonder as a viewer, what is it that drew you to tell the story? - What really drew me towards it was how real it felt. You know, upon first reading the script, you know, my mom and I sat down at breakfast and just started crying because we were so moved by it and we really saw ourselves in it. You know, I grew up without a lot of representation and without being able to look at a film and say, "Oh, that's me." But the fact that I get to be a part of something that can do that for my younger cousins and my younger sibling, who's 13, you know, they can really relate to it. And I'm really grateful that they can look at me and see themselves. - I was on board no matter what the project was gonna be because I'd done a short film with Erica Tremblay in 2018. It premiered at Sundance in 2020, right before the pandemic. That one, she had developed in the Sundance Labs. Sterling Harjo was her mentor and Sterling and I have been friends for a long time. So I got a text from Sterling out of nowhere one day saying, "Hey, my mentee at Sundance, Erica Tremblay, has a short film she wants you to look at." So I'm like, "Great, send it over." And meanwhile on the other end, Erica's like, "Oh my God, I'm not gonna get Lilly Gladstone 'cause she loves Kelly Riker and was obsessed with certain women." And Sterling said, "Yeah, just dream cast your short film." And she wanted me. So it was, it's so funny now that she was blown away that that actually happened and that Sterling just texted me 'cause on the other end, I'm sitting there looking for my next project that's gonna really excite me. And then her beautiful script comes in and seven pages feels like a full feature. Like every single beat that she wrote in Little Chief spoke to this immense larger picture with these very small, insular, intimate moments between these two characters. It's a quiet film, but it spoke multitudes. And there are so few filmmakers who were able to just do that. That's one of the powerful things about cinema is just the language of film and being confident that you have something to say. So I loved that Erica as a filmmaker lets things sit. She doesn't shove anything down anyone's throat. It's their space to create character and to have beats and to have those lived in moments. So I was hoping that she was, she had a feature in her 'cause she's the kind of artist that I wanted to keep working with. And lo and behold, by the time we wrapped, she said, "I would really love to write a feature for you. "I have a character in mind. "I don't know what it's gonna be yet." So I'm like, "Great, whatever you want, I'm there for it." So I was just waiting for basically Erica to call one day and be like, "I have the feature." And then I found out in COVID lockdown summer, she had connected with me, Shiana Elise also through Sundance and co-wrote what became fancy dance. So when I read it, I always knew that the character of Jax, even though I didn't know that would be her name, I knew that Jax was going to be an auntie. I knew that she was gonna live in that same sort of resourceful, bending the rules or breaking the law to feed the community, to take care of people. Like I knew she would exist in that same pocket that Sharon did in "Little Chief." But when I read the script, suddenly it was like, oh, this is genre. This is like, this is an elevated story outside of, it's still very grounded in reality and feels so lived in, but it's like, I would put it on the shelf between Thelma and Louise and Paper Moon. It's just like, it was the kind of narrative I, as an actor, could really immerse in a very natural way, but could also have some fun with in a narrative way. And I was just so gut punched by how effective the conversations of the Indian Child Welfare Acts, removal of Indian kids from Native families, and missing murdered indigenous relatives was had, because both Michiana and Erica come from families and from communities that do have people who directly address those things. They grew up knowing how to create a world where those conversations could just exist, where it wasn't being shoved down anyone's throat, where the audience fell in love with these two characters and their family and got invested, and learns through the obstacles the characters face, what the obstacles are that indigenous people face and finding and protecting our own and holding on to our kids and our families and like having access to wealth, just the inequities in society that we remain in spite of. So yeah, it was all there. I was already on board and I was just so thrilled when I read the first draft and it was just, I was 100% in. - I love it and I love how it opens a world to Native and indigenous people of America, to somebody like me who wouldn't know otherwise. And this exists, these people are living and in our society and the fabric of our society. And to me, that's what great cinema does, you know? So thank you both for sharing your gifts through Fancy Dance. I can't wait for everybody to see it. - Thank you so much. - Thank you. Isabel DeRoy, I'll send what a promising talent. I can't wait to see what she does next and she is amazing in Fancy Dance. And Lily Gladstone, such an amazing actor, such an amazing person, such an amazing film. Fancy Dance is so good. Please go, if you're in a major market that's playing it in the theaters, go see it. If not, watch it at home, comfort of your own home exclusively on Apple TV Plus. As you know, I'm a huge Apple TV Plus fan. They are prestige movies, prestige television. They just do work that is just above the rest. So, Fancy Dance is no exception and to me, it's an perfect example of why, you know, they are cut above the rest. All right, that's the episode for now. Well, no, that's this episode forever. But that's the end of the episode, I guess. Hit me up on socials, let's talk Fancy Dance or whatever, you know, whatever you wanna talk about in pop culture. Some of your hate mail, some of your love mail. I'm on all the socials. Head on over to podcast.popcultureweekly.com. You can get all the behind the scenes stuff or get the blog post at popcultureweekly.com. All right, I'll see you next week. I love you. We up. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Weekly. Hear all the latest at popcultureweekly.com. (upbeat music) ♪ Fancy dancing ♪ ♪ Fancy dancing ♪ ♪ Fancy dancing ♪ ♪ Oh, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah ♪ ♪ Fancy dance ♪ ♪ Fancy fancy dance ♪ ♪ Fancy dancing ♪ ♪ Oh, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah ♪ It is Ryan Seacrest here. Everybody needs some variety in life. That's what I love about Chumba Casino. They know how to keep things fresh and exciting. All their games are free to play. Like spin slots, bingo and solitaire. You can claim free daily login bonuses, too. And they release new games every week. So spice things up with ChumbaCocino.com now for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Sponsored by Chumba Casino, no purchase necessary. 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