Lily Gladstone Passionately Explains How Indigenous Identity Adds Layers To Under The Bridge

Summary Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough bring depth to characters based on real-life figures in Hulu's Under the Bridge true crime series.

The series delves into issues of justice system failures and racism, providing a compelling narrative.

Under the Bridge sheds light on the societal injustices faced by marginalized communities through the lens of a gripping murder case.

Hulu released the first 2 episodes of true crime miniseries Under the Bridge on April 17, following the life and death of Reena Virk, a 14-year-old teenager who went missing after going to a party with friends and was found murdered. Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon) and Riley Keogh (Daisy Jones and the Six) star as Cam and Rebecca, respectively a police officer investigating the case and the real-life author of the book the show is based on.

Godfrey's book Under The Bridge famously gives context to the murderers' actions and helps to flesh out their lives before the senseless murder, but creator Quinn Shephard and EP Samir Mehta also incorporated details from Reena: A Father's Story by Manjit Virk to ensure that Reena's memory was honored. Gladstone's character Cam adds a third layer to the proceedings, providing insight into the failures of the justice system to properly protect underprivileged kids — specifically girls of color — in both life and death.

Related Under The Bridge Cast & Real Life Character Guide Based on the true story of the murder of Reena Virk, Hulu's Under the Bridge includes a phenomenal cast of established and up-and-coming actors.

Screen Rant interviewed Gladstone and Keough about their preparation to tell the true story behind Under The Bridge. Keough shared the connection she felt to her character, recently deceased author Rebecca Godfrey, and how she learned more about her life. Gladstone, meanwhile, revealed how she found her way into the character of Cam through the exploration of indigenous adoptees and the racial dynamics within Canada's police force.

Riley Keough Takes The Role Of Under The Bridge's Real-Life Author Seriously

Though Godfrey tragically passed away shortly after Keough and Gladstone were cast, her fingerprints are still all over the series. Not only is her book the basis for Shephard and Mehta's scripts (in addition to the book by Reena's father Manjit), but her personal effects and stories shared in conversation with the showrunners were incorporated as well.

Thanks to that plethora of riches, Keough had many places to look when it came to building the character of Rebecca. Her dedication to researching the author's life is evident in the fully fleshed-out depiction she offers from Under The Bridge's first episode.

Riley Keough: We had her book, of course. But I also had Quinn [Shephard], who had spent so much time with her and had shared loads of material; loads of diary entries and her thoughts and poems and photographs and all kinds of things. She had a Dropbox that she sent me, so I had so much to work with. Sadly, I didn't get to meet her because she passed away right after I was cast. But she knew I was cast, and she knew Lily was cast, and I think that we were her choices, which is really special to know.

How Under The Bridge Personally Hit Home For Lily Gladstone

Cam does not have a real-life equivalent in Rebecca Godfrey's Under The Bridge, but the character immediately spoke to Gladstone as being emblematic of larger issues in Canada. Aside from being the only woman on the force — and the only Indigenous woman in the show — Cam is also an adoptee. In the 1960s, the Canadian government forcibly removed about 20,000 Indigenous children from their family homes in order to foster or adopt them out to white middle-class families.

Such an abhorrent practice has repercussions to this day, and Gladstone was passionate about having the opportunity to explore that within the context of the Hulu drama.

Lily Gladstone: Yeah. I really immediately [understood] when I saw that it was an indigenous cop. There were a lot of indigenous cops on TV, especially women. In some ways, I feel like that's the bulk of our representation. So, I was really happy that in this, I also saw the element of her being an adoptee. I knew immediately the history in Canada of what that means. There was an epidemic, a government-fueled one, there that's known as the Sixties Scoop. In the States we had a version of the same thing, even though we don't have a name for it like that, and we have a policy in place to prevent that from happening. But in any case, I knew that with Cam being not just the only woman on the force, but an indigenous woman raised in a white cop family, there was absolutely a conversation in there. In talking to Quinn and Samira, I feel [like it] almost becomes just a funny out-of-hand thing of dad dismissing her career aspirations like, "Good thing for affirmative action." And it's like, "[sarcasm] Yeah, that's funny." The position you are in governs the way you're treated. It governs everything about your life, so I feel like Cam had an instinct to label it for what it was in a way that law enforcement was unwilling to do. The way that largely society was unwilling to do.

How Lily Gladstone's Role As An Indigenous Top Ties Into Under The Bridge

Gladstone is absolutely right that the injustices visited upon the Indigenous people of Canada (and the United States) are reflected in Reena Virk's tragedy. Though the young girl was of South Asian descent, her race still played a major role in both her callous treatment at the hands of her classmates and in the at-times callous dismissal of her suffering by authorities.

Gladstone expanded on this point by drawing a comparison between Reena's death and the murders of Indigenous women in North America, which is an element that exists outside of Godfrey's view in Under The Bridge but is nevertheless a key sociopolitical aspect of the case.

Lily Gladstone: I feel like saying that we live in such a diverse, embracing society is a way of avoiding the conversation about, "Okay, so why did this happen to Reena then? Why did it happen in the way that it did to Reena?" And I was really grateful that within this woman cop who is indigenous, there was room to also include an indigenous conversation that didn't really exist. In Under The Bridge, there's an element of indigenous identity in another character that you learn [about] later in the series, so we mirrored that through the invention of Cam. If you're in Canada, and you're telling a story about a missing girl, it's pretty important that you bring an indigenous voice and character as a way of having that representation. Disproportionately, in Canada and the US - and globally, it's indigenous women who go missing and are murdered. I feel like there was a compulsion in a way of discovering her own story, which has kind of denied her.

About Under The Bridge

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Under the Bridge is based on acclaimed author Rebecca Godfrey’s book about the 1997 true story of fourteen-year-old Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta) who went to join friends at a party and never returned home. Through the eyes of Godfrey (Riley Keough) and a local police officer (Lily Gladstone), the series takes us into the hidden world of the young girls accused of the murder — revealing startling truths about the unlikely killer.

Check back soon for our other Under The Bridge interviews with:

Quinn Shephard & Samir Mehta

Vritika Gupta & Aiyana Goodfellow

Chloe Guidry & Javon “Wanna” Walton

The first 2 episodes of Under The Bridge are now available to stream on Hulu, with new episodes airing every Wednesday.

Source: Screen Rant Plus