Beyond the many big names of Killers of the Flower Moon, beyond the Oscar-front-running revelation that is Lily Gladstone, one performance sticks out in Martin Scorsese’s 1920s epic from an actor most of us had never seen before: Cara Jade Myers. That’s not for lack of trying. Myers is one of many Native talents in Hollywood who have been waiting a very long time to be able to show what they can do. In her decade-plus of trying to make it as a screen actor, she’d booked a handful of background roles, a pair of small TV guest spots on This Is Us and Rutherford Falls. But by and large, the roles were not there. The auditions were not there. She felt ready to call it quits and transition to writing when, out of the blue, she received the chance to try out for a breakout on a scale that anyone would dream for.

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Watching Killers, it’s no surprise Myers booked the part—her time in the film is relatively brief but searingly memorable. She plays Anna Brown, whose murder prods the Osage tribe to gather and try to fight back, as their community faces an insidious genocide perpetrated by their white neighbors. Myers’s heartbreaking portrayal of Anna, sister to Gladstone’s Mollie, resonates in its humanity: She imbues her with a big personality, a profound depth of feeling, and a tragic sense of loss, her alcoholism worsening as her family dies off, one by one. This does not feel like the performance of an actor in her first true movie role. She holds her own against the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro and makes the most of every minute onscreen.

Now, Myers is on the awards trail with the top awards contender, itself a very new experience. I caught her during a rare break over Zoom in New York, the morning after the film received a rousing tribute at the Gotham Awards.

Vanity Fair: I understand that the process of booking this role was very emotional for you. Can you talk a little bit about that to start?

Cara Jade Myers: I auditioned for this first in 2019, and I hadn’t really booked anything. I had done This Is Us and Rutherford Falls, which were both costar [credits]. I hadn’t really done much on anything, and I was like, Well, I’ve been doing this since I was 22. That’s 15 years. I was like, Obviously acting just isn’t for me. I thought I’d just focus on writing because I’d been in a few writing workshops by then. Then, this audition came in November 2019, and I remember not thinking I would get it at all. When I did finally book it, it was December of 2020. It was just emotional because it’s something that I’ve been working toward for so long. I love it, and I was ready to give up on it. It just felt like all the hard work that I’d done, all the meetings and all the stress and struggle that I put my family through trying to pay for acting—at that moment, it felt like it was all worth it.

How did you experience the industry before that point, particularly as a Native actor? Given that level of difficulty you’re describing, what kinds of things specifically were you running into in terms of not being able to book things?

The only auditions I was getting was Native American roles. Which is fine, but also, Native American roles come by so rarely. It seemed like they would always book the same three people. You felt just typecast. You couldn’t do anything else but be a Native American, which I’m like—that’s not a role! That’s just a part of an identity. And also, it was just roles for women. I remember reading a casting notice that said, “The woman doesn’t need any acting experience. She’s a prop to the man.” That’s literally what the casting said, and that was one of the reasons I wanted to start writing. I was like, We can do better.

How did you find just the process of auditioning for a big movie like this, then? What kind of work did you do in terms of preparing and putting yourself out there?

Luckily, I’d been auditioning for the Native casting director, Rene Haynes, for a while, so she knew of me. When the auditions came out, I was lucky enough to get one. One of my friends, Carolina, had told me that before. She’s like, “Oh, Scorsese is doing a movie on this book. Have you heard of it? You should read it. It pissed me off.” So I read it and I was so angry. But also, how come no one knows about this? I’m Kiowa and Wichita, which are Oklahoma tribes and sister tribes to the Osage, and I had never heard of it. I’m like, How are they the richest people per capita? Our history stops at the Trail of Tears. Everyone thinks that Natives all went to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears, and then history just doesn’t say anything else about us, so we’re condemned to relics.

Anna holds a really fascinating place in the movie. I’d imagine for you, as an actor, it was both really exciting, because it’s a part with a lot going on, but it’s also relatively short screen time and you have to make a big impact. How did you approach it?

There were a few things. You’re working with Scorsese and De Niro and DiCaprio. You know that they’re at such an insane level that whatever level you’re at, you have to step up, you know? I was just so excited to also just watch how they work and be on set with them and see them. The bummer about when we were filming is it was during COVID, so you couldn’t be on set and you couldn’t really watch unless you were in the scene.

Once I booked it, I was like, Okay, Anna’s a real person. This really happened to her. For me, it was, Why was she an alcoholic? That’s something in my family that I’ve dealt with: I’ve had multiple family members die of alcoholism and there’s a stereotype of being a “drunk Indian.” I wasn’t going to let her be that. I know that was a concern for Marty and it was a concern for the Osage. I just wanted to show how deeply she loved her family. I wanted that alcoholism to stem from her pain and her trying to cover it through just numbing herself and not thinking.

When you first encountered the role, the scope of it, and particularly what happens to Anna, did you feel concerned about the way it would be handled or what it would mean for you to step into that kind of story?

Absolutely. It’s dealing with such triggering themes: alcoholism, addiction, missing and murdered Indigenous women, having your culture erased. There’s so many levels of trauma and difficulty in that. The first time I met with Marty, the first thing I said is, with Anna’s alcoholism, I said, “I don’t want her to just be an alcoholic, so at [her sister] Minnie’s funeral, can Hale hand me a flask to show that that’s where the coping started?” Marty was like, “Love that.” And that was the first scene I shot.

It’s a testament to the collaboration though, that you even felt like you could suggest that right off the bat.

Yeah, 100%. And I think too, it’s just, Anna was that important to me. I’m not going to sit down and not say something in terms of how I think she should be played. Especially with these terrible things…. We had consultants and I had a few friends there that would show me where Anna got murdered, where Henry Roan got murdered, where Rita’s house blew up. They would take us around to these places and you could feel the weight of it. When you talk to the Osage people, you can see how even though it happened 100 years ago, they still feel it very, very much. It’s so evident when you go there and you start with that in mind, thinking of the reign of terror and then seeing how people operate. It just makes everything more real. Being on the Osage territory really, really, really helped with the nuances and stepping up, too. In my mind, it was as simple as, I want to get this right for the Osage. Which isn’t simple at all, but that’s what I focused on.

You all were at the Gothams last night. How have you experienced, particularly since the end of the strike, taking this movie around, hearing people’s reactions, and really finding that level of embrace that’s clearly ongoing?

The Gothams were awesome last night. I was so excited. That’s the kickoff of awards season. I never expected to experience all this on my first film ever. I’m just taking it in like, who knows if this will happen again? It’s such a learning experience to be here and see how these things operate. We were front row last night and I’m sitting there like, “Oh, my God, that is Adam Driver.” I’m freaking out. And then over here’s Margot Robbie and I was like, “Oh, my God, she’s stunning.” So it’s just like, you’re coming with all these people everywhere and you’re just like, as weird as it sounds, “I belong in this room.” And I think that’s something that Natives have been missing. We just don’t see ourselves in these spaces, so we don’t necessarily feel like we should be in them. We’re sneaking in through a back door when we shouldn’t have been the only Natives there.

I’m curious how you’ve heard and engaged with debates around and discussion of the focus and point of view of the movie centering on Ernest. Obviously, some folks have responded less than positively to it, and I know some of your costars have talked about it.

We’ve been waiting so long to have our stories told and stories told accurately. Because they haven’t been told by us. The good thing with Marty is he actually went to the tribe and asked, “Can I tell your story?” And when they had their concerns, he had multiple meetings with multiple people to listen to their concerns and incorporate them in the script. When it came time to shoot, they were confident.

I am excited for the day when we have our own Martin Scorsese that’s Native American, you know? That can tell these stories that are lifted on this type of platform that Marty has. But until then, I know that we need our allies because, unfortunately, as much as I wish that they would give a Native American director $200 million to do a project like this, at this point, it’s not happening. I’m hopeful that Hollywood is going to start seeing the Native talent that is out there because we have so many talented directors, writers, actors, crew on every level. I don’t know if it’s just people being lazy or what, but the excuse I always hear is, “We can’t find anyone Native that can fill this role.” And I’m like, “you’re just not looking.”

This interview has been edited and condensed.