For Christopher Côté, working in Hollywood was certainly never part of his plan, nor was finding himself at the center of a movie controversy. In early 2020, he was recruited to work onMartin Scorsese’sOscar-winning film “Killers of the Flower Moon” as a consultant to help the cast master the Osage language for the screen.

When the movie premiered near the end of theScreen Actors Guild’s strikein October 2023, Côté ended up being one of the few members of the cast and crew who were able to attend the debut without breaking strike protocol. In a red carpetinterview with The Hollywood Reporter, he offered an unflinchingly honest take about the film.

“As an Osage, I really wanted this to be from the perspective of Mollie and what her family experienced, but I think it would take an Osage to do that,” Côté said. “Martin Scorsese, not being Osage, I think he did a great job representing our people, but this history is being told almost from the perspective of Ernest Burkhart and they kind of give him this conscience and kind of depict that there’s love. But when somebody conspires to murder your entire family, that’s not love. That’s not love, that’s just beyond abuse.”

“I think in the end, the question that you can be left with is: How long will you be complacent with racism? How long will you go along with something and not say something, not speak up, how long will you be complacent?” he continued. “I think that’s because this film isn’t made for an Osage audience, it was made for everybody, not Osage. For those that have been disenfranchised, they can relate, but for other countries that have their acts and their history of oppression, this is an opportunity for them to ask themselves this question of morality, and that’s how I feel about this film.”

To his surprise, Côté’s criticism became fodder for sharp headlines. As Côté’s remarks made the rounds, he wasn’t the only Indigenous person to speak out. Janis Carpenter, another language consultant on the film, told THR she had “mixed feelings” about the movie while Mohawk actor and “Reservation Dogs” star Devery Jacobs saidshe found the picture“painful, grueling, unrelenting and unnecessarily graphic.”

Looking back, Côté thinks “Killers of the Flower Moon” wasted a chance to portray something more than the trauma that too often envelops Native American stories.

“I still stand by what I said,” Côté, 30, told HuffPost.

Even still, Côté said he hopes the film will be able to pave a path for more Native stories to be told on screen.

“We still live in a society where it takes somebody like Martin Scorsese to take interest in our history and in our stories, to show that they have actual importance,” he said. “I believe by him telling this story and then Lily Gladstone going as far as she did [during the 2024 awards season], they’re holding the door open for Indigenous creators.”

He’s ready to see more projects helmed by Indigenous filmmakers, especially with more room for Native Americans to find happiness and love on TV and film. Côté lamented that even beloved projects like TV’s “Reservation Dogs” or the classic Sherman Alexie comedy “Smoke Signals” are rooted in grief.

It’s a struggle to find any Natives on screen, let alone in roles that stray from stereotypes. Indigenous characters made up less than one-quarter of 1% of the more than 62,000 roles included ina 2023 studyfrom University of Southern California associate professor Stacy L. Smith and the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. The researchers examined 1,600 top-grossing films released between 2007 and 2022. Only one film featured a Native American actor as lead, though Native Americans make up 1.3% of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That’s provided Indigenous actors few chances to be recognized by Hollywood. When Gladstone and Kali Reis of “True Detective: Night Country” were nominated for Primetime Emmys this summer, it wasthe first time any Native American womenwere in the running in the acting categories.

Perhaps there wasn’t anyone better to call out the lack of nuanced portrayals of Indigenous people on screen than Côté.Growing up in Pawhuska, Oklahoma,Côté was surrounded by the Osage world, attending his tribe’sI’n-Lon-Schkacelebrations, a ceremonial gathering in their culture. He spent time with his grandma, whom he knew as hisIkó,and has a strong memory of the first time he started to understand his heritage.

“When I was a little boy, probably about 4 years old, I had those little cowboys and Indian figurines, and I had the cowboys kill all of the Indians,” Côté told me. “My dad saw me and said, ‘You know you’re Indian, right?’”

To young Côté, he and his loved ones were nothing like the figurines — small, static and clad in caricature-like war bonnets.

“We didn’t look like that so I didn’t associate being Osage with being ‘Indian,’ you know?” Côté said. “But from that point on, I just wanted to know more. I was like, all right, so we’re Osage. What does that mean?”

Côté spent time learning the Osage language with his uncle, Army veteran and Osage Nation council member, Talee Redcorn. At 10 years old, he was the subject of the book “Meet Christopher: An Osage Indian Boy From Oklahoma,” where his journals were used to help paint a picture of what modern Osage life was like.

As he got older, he found himself among a handful of people in the community who were fluent in Osage. Osage Nation estimates there are currently only15 to 20 Natives and elderswho are able to readily speak or pray in their language.

Joining the tribe’s language department was a natural fit for Côté; at 22, he was able to work on preserving and revitalizing Osage culture by teaching, translating and connecting with people inside and outside the Osage community.In his role, he helped open local events with prayers and taught young Osage how to recite those same sacred words. Côté was a regular when dancers were needed at celebrations and ceremonies, and he helped push the Osage Nation Museum to include more of the Native language in its exhibits.

Though he had never worked on a feature film, the “Killers of the Flower Moon” offer came after a vigorous recommendation from the Osage Nation principal chief, Geoffrey Standing Bear. While flattered by the prospect, Côté took some time to carefully consider whether to take on the role. He leaned on his wife, Kiowa artist and curator Jordan Poorman Cocker-Côté, to decide.

More than 100 years later, it’s still taboo to talk about the reign of terror in Osage communities, when there was a spree of murders of young Native Americans in Osage County, Oklahoma. “Killers of the Flower Moon” details the harrowing era, and he was wary that the film might exploit that history.

“I came to the realization, there aren’t many people who can do this,” Côté said about accepting the offer. “You know, there’s upwards of 30,000 Osage, and I can only think of five people I can talk with. So, I took that into consideration and I was like, ‘Well, I’m gonna do it and I’m gonna do my best. And hopefully we have something beautiful in the end.’”

Côté first worked on the film in secrecy, plucking away at pieces of the script in tandem with Osage language consultants Carpenter and Braxton Redeagle. Later, he worked with starsGladstoneandRobert De Niroto learn their lines over Zoom.

“My primary language teacher on ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’” Gladstonetold The New Yorker, referring to Côté, “this is his life. He’s a language revitalizationist. He and I would have conversations about how I was excited to test out some of my early theories that performance is a really valuable tool for language revitalization.”

As “Killers of the Flower Moon” came to life, Côté was recruited to act in one of the film’s fleeting moments of joy: a naming ceremony for the child of Osage woman Mollie Kyle (Gladstone) and her husband, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio). Côté felt blessed to be part of such a happy scene.

However, Côté was struck by how the movie humanized DiCaprio’s character, who, along with his uncle, De Niro’s William King Hale, schemes to kill Kyle and her family to steal their oil inheritance. In real life, Hale, Burkhart and a couple others were convicted of the murders.

Côté said there are so many other stories to be told out of Osage Nation. He pointed out that Black Gold, an Osage-owned horse, won the Kentucky Derby in 1924, the same year Mollie Kyle’s sister Anna Kyle Brown was murdered. That could be a story worth telling.

“So often in real life, good things exist at the same time,” he said.

“We’re the perpetually sad people in all forms of media,” Côté added. “I guess when you start thinking about it, the difference between a tragedy and a comedy is perspective. ... Maybe it’s time for somebody to write us a rom-com.”