Michelle Williamsis sharing her earliest memory of theOscars— 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 forThe Fabelmans, in which she plays a version of directorSteven Spielberg’s real-life late mother.
Speaking with PEOPLE ahead ofthe Oscars, Williams, 42, recalls seeing a clip of Native American activistSacheen Littlefeatherappearing on behalf ofThe GodfatherwinnerMarlon Brandoduring the 1973 Oscars ceremony. The moment showed her the event can be meaningful in more ways than one.
“My first memory ofthe Oscarsis, 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.”
Littlefeatherdied at 75 in October, just two weeks after she publicly accepted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ apology for thehostile 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 thestar-studded audience.
Eric Ray Davidson
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“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.”
source: people.com
