Her performance in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon has made her an Oscar favourite. She talks about nerves, Native American representation and bonding over cigarettes with DiCaprio
Were you at all fazed by working with legends such as Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro?
I don’t know that I was fazed, but I was definitely intimidated at first. With a role as big as Molly, you’ve just got to get through that quickly. But my hands were shaking the first day with Leo, and the same with Robert.
Is there anything you did to break the ice with DiCaprio, your on-screen husband?
He invited me over to dinner. We were sitting outside at his place with a fire going, and just talking. He pulled out a packet of cigarettes, and I hadn’t brought mine with me. So I was like: “Oh, I’m sorry. Can I bum one?” So it was the two of us sharing a few cigarettes over the fire and just getting to know each other that really broke the ice. And then he said: “This feels good. We need to put this in the film somehow. I think Ernest and Molly should smoke together.” I was like: “Yeah, that sounds great.” A lot of ladies would have their little pipes – tobacco was very much a thing. So we enjoyed that. It’s funny, as since then both of us have quit.
