Stories from the set

Initially, filming was planned to begin in March 2020, but the start of filming had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to director Martin Scorsese, when he read David Grann's 2017 novel of the same name, he immediately knew he simply had to make a film based on it. Scorsese spent several months persuading a chief named Standing Bear to convince the Osage tribe to help with the filming.

In order to shoot with Scorsese, Jesse Plemons had to turn down a role in Jordan Peele's science fiction film «Nope», and the role went to Steven Yeun.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, few films were being made, and Lily Gladstone had already decided to leave the acting profession when Martin Scorsese (who directed this film and was also one of its screenwriters) offered her the role.

The investigation on the Osage Indian reservation was the first in the history of the newly formed FBI under J. Edgar Hoover.

The language spoken by the Osage people has no written form, so director and screenwriter Martin Scorsese invented one together with linguist Noam Chomsky, borrowing much from the Navajo language and the so-called Minion language.