Michelle Williams Shares Oscars Moment That Showed Her It's 'a Place That Can Have a Purpose'

Michelle Williams is sharing her earliest memory of the Oscars — and how it taught her the awards show is about more than just glitz and glamor.

The star garnered her fifth Academy Award nomination this year for The Fabelmans, in which she plays a version of director Steven Spielberg's real-life late mother.

Speaking with PEOPLE ahead of the Oscars, Williams, 42, recalls seeing a clip of Native American activist Sacheen Littlefeather appearing on behalf of The Godfather winner Marlon Brando during the 1973 Oscars ceremony. The moment showed her the event can be meaningful in more ways than one.

"My first memory of the Oscars is, and I don't know what year it was so I don't know if I saw it in person or I saw a clip, but I remember that Marlon Brando had Sacheen Littlefeather accept his award. I thought, 'Wow, this is a place that can be political. It seems very glamorous but it also seems like a place that can have a purpose."

Littlefeather died at 75 in October, just two weeks after she publicly accepted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' apology for the hostile reception she received during the 1973 Oscars. Speaking for Brando at the time, she refused to accept his Best Actor award due to the film industry's treatment of Native Americans. The act of protest famously received mixed reactions from the star-studded audience.

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Eric Ray Davidson

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Williams also tells PEOPLE how she found out about her nomination for The Fabelmans in January. Her previous nominations were for Brokeback Mountain, Blue Valentine, My Week with Marilyn and Manchester by the Sea.

"I was at home. It was a school morning, so I was getting the kids ready to go and then got the news and took a little break lying down on the floor," the mother of three recalls. "And then I got back up, and got everybody out."

She adds of the nomination, "My gosh, it means so much to me. It means so much to me to have been asked to make this movie with Steven Spielberg, and to play his mother, who he loved very, very much. It's beyond a dream come true. It's really like the honor of a lifetime. So to take this movie here, and to take this character here, this woman, this real woman, who he loved so much that he wanted to make a movie about her so that she could live forever, to take her on this journey here is really meaningful."

The 95th Oscars ceremony — emceed by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel (who also hosted in 2017 and 2018) — will be held on Sunday, March 12, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood and televised live on ABC.