‘The Wedding Banquet’ gives Seattle Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone a reason to make people laugh

SEATTLE — For Lily Gladstone, known around these parts as both an Oscar nominee (best actress for “Killers of the Flower Moon”) and a 2004 graduate of Mountlake Terrace High School, the past year has brought a definite shift in the kind of roles being offered to her.

“The characters I am seeing now are not explicitly Native characters,” said Gladstone, who made Academy Awards history last year as the first Native American best actress nominee. “For a long time, that was exclusively what I was seeing, for better or worse.”

Now, many of the scripts being sent her way don’t specify the character’s identity — such as her role in “The Wedding Banquet,” Andrew Ahn’s new reimagining of Ang Lee’s 1993 art house classic, in theaters now. “I think it’s a lovely moment for film representation now, that audiences see themselves in whoever is portraying the character,” Gladstone said in a Zoom interview from New York earlier this month. She appreciates the opportunity to portray the character, who on paper may not share her identity, as Indigenous (Gladstone’s tribal affiliations include Blackfeet and Nez Perce) — and “to show that we’re still here, we exist in every space.”

In “The Wedding Banquet,” Gladstone plays a Seattle woman named Lee, in a longtime relationship with her partner Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and trying to get pregnant via in vitro fertilization — an expensive prospect that could possibly be funded by Angela agreeing to marry their friend Min (Han Gi-chan), a wealthy young gay man in need of a hasty green card marriage. Complications ensue, not least for Min’s partner Chris (Bowen Yang), Angela’s gay-activist mother May (Joan Chen) and Min’s very traditional Korean grandmother Ja-Young (Youn Yuh-jung).

Lee originally had a different name and not much specificity to her background; Gladstone, working with Ahn, saw the opportunity to give the character a very Pacific Northwest story. (Though set in Seattle, “The Wedding Banquet” was filmed — as many Seattle-set movies are — in Vancouver, B.C.) The character became a member of the Duwamish Tribe, giving a brief speech in the film about her connection to the land and to her family home, in which she now lives with Angela. “I haven’t seen Duwamish representation on screen,” said Gladstone. “When I talked to Andrew about making it locally specific, I talked about how indigenizing my character was important to me — when you have an opportunity to carve space where there’s not space, you take it.”

She also spent time in Seattle with Ahn and some crew members, doing a bit of unofficial location scouting. “I drove them around the neighborhoods that I felt this family would be living in,” Gladstone said. “I showed them Ballard — there’s a large Native population in Ballard. … We went by Discovery Park, where Chris may have birded.” (Yang’s character is an avid bird-watcher.)

And the character’s name became Angeline as a nod to Chief Seattle’s daughter, though she goes by Lee. Laughing, Gladstone pointed out that they were midway through filming before somebody realized that the “ship name,” or relationship name, of the two characters — Angela and Lee — was Ang Lee. (Gladstone has not met Ang Lee, but is a devoted fan of his work, and said that the film was made “with his blessing.”)

Making “The Wedding Banquet” was a chance for Gladstone to reacquaint herself with an early love: comedy. As a child doing theater, “I was always trying to make people laugh,” she said. “A lot of people were surprised that I turned into such a dramatic actress.” She’d long wanted to make a romantic comedy, as part of an ensemble cast, and embraced the opportunity. “Even though Lee is sort of the straight man to everyone else’s chaos, getting the chance to be as cartoony and goofy as I am naturally was really nice. … This ensemble was so tremendously wonderful to work with, everybody so supportive of each other.”

Though Gladstone remains firmly connected to the Seattle area (she recently bought a house in Edmonds — “the I-5 corridor Edmonds, not the waterfront Edmonds” — and loves working in the garden), she’s often away on film shoots. Earlier this year, she was in New Mexico shooting the thriller “Lone Wolf,” in which she plays a troubled military veteran caught up in an assassination conspiracy; Bryan Cranston co-stars as a mercenary. Last fall found her in Los Angeles for the comedy “In Memoriam,” playing the therapist of an actor (Marc Maron) obsessed with securing a spot in the Academy Awards’ traditional tribute to those who have died. And she’s long been attached to “The Memory Police,” a science fiction drama scripted by Charlie Kaufman and based on Yoko Ogawa’s novel.

But she’s clearly excited by the release of “The Wedding Banquet,” which arrives on screen during a time of political and social upheaval. The film, Gladstone believes, will create “a safe and necessary space” for the queer community and for immigrant families.

“There are so many themes in the story that represent so many communities that are just under attack right now,” she said. “We didn’t anticipate that the story was going to be so timely.” She believes that audiences will especially appreciate the film’s inclusive story of chosen family — and its well-earned happy ending. “The gift that I’m really grateful this film gives people,” Gladstone said, “is hope.”