Lily Gladstone's High School Boyfriend Gifted Her Something to Wear If She Ever Attends Oscars (Exclusive)

In high school, the 'Killers of the Flower Moon' star received glasses adorned with stars from her then-boyfriend, who told her to wear them to the Oscars

Lily Gladstone’s loved ones always believed she’d one day make it to the Academy Awards.

The 37-year-old’s classmates at Mountlake Terrace High School in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, voted the class of 2004 graduate “Most Likely to Win an Oscar,” the self-described “energetic” former theater kid tells PEOPLE.

Gladstone’s father, Howard, also gave her a pep talk after a particularly bad round of bullying when she was a kid. “Everybody will want to be your friend when you win your Oscar,” she remembers him telling her.

Related: Lily Gladstone Once Used Her Allowance to Buy VHS of Titanic, Starring Future Costar Leonardo DiCaprio (Exclusive)

During Gladstone’s sophomore year of high school, her very first boyfriend gave her a meaningful gift.

“He got me out of a little, just one of those little machines where you drop a couple quarters in and then you get a little prize back. He had gotten these little star glasses, like these little tiny kids' glasses with stars on them,” recalls Gladstone.

“He said, ‘You have to keep these and you have to wear them to the Academy Awards when you go one year,’ ” the Killers of the Flower Moon star says.

It’s all but assured Gladstone will get an invitation. Since its May premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Martin Scorsese’s epic true-crime drama has received rave reviews and tons of Oscar buzz.

Related: Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro Star in First Trailer for Martin Scorsese's 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

For her performance as Mollie Burkhart, an Indigenous Osage woman whose family members were killed for their oil-rich land in 1920s Oklahoma, Gladstone has already received Critics Choice and Golden Globe nominations.

Of those glasses, Gladstone says, “I still have them,” she says. “If I end up going this year, I'll dig them out and I'll keep them in my purse at least.”

Gladstone says her dad and mom Betty encouraged her when she showed an interest in acting at a young age.

“My dad has always put it in my head that this would be my path. And when you're younger, you just kind of believe that,” says Gladstone, who spent the first decade of her life living on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana. (Her father has Blackfeet and Nez Perce ancestry.)

After Howard and Betty relocated with their daughter to the Seattle area for jobs (he worked as a boilermaker in a shipyard; she was a teacher), Gladstone thrived in theater, which provided a respite from the bullying she endured.

Related: Killers of the Flower Moon Star Lily Gladstone Considered Quitting Acting Before Martin Scorsese Cast Her

“I think the only times when I was a kid that I wasn’t made fun of was when I was doing a play because all of a sudden I made sense to people: in character, in costume, on stage,” says Gladstone. “By the time I hit high school, I was doing a lot of theater.”

At the time, she used to daydream about having success as a working actor. “I think a lot of people do, especially as a teenager,” continues the star, who gained recognition working with Kristen Stewart in the 2016 film Certain Women.

Now that she’s walking red carpets and attending premieres, Gladstone is adjusting to the newfound fame. “You just roll with it,” she says.

Killers of the Flower Moon is now on demand.

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