In December of last year, the actor Cara Jade Myers—who had recently starred as Anna Kyle Brown in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon—had just turned 40, and she felt like it was an opportune time to get a routine health checkup. “I was like, ‘When you’re 40, you get a mammogram,” says Myers. That mammogram ended up uncovering dense tissue in both of her breasts, which led to a follow-up X-ray, ultrasound, and biopsy appointments, until finally in February Myers was formally diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer. “I remember getting into the car with my husband and just bawling my eyes out,” says Myers. “It’s just scary: Cancer is a very scary word.”
It’s safe to say Myers’s whole world was overturned. In the midst of a blossoming acting career—she had starred in films such as Day of Reckoning and Icefall since her commanding Killers performance—the Indigenous actor had to put work on pause to focus on her health. “I had to turn down a miniseries and feature film because of the [ensuing] surgeries,” she says. But in the bigger picture, Myers got lucky: Only three weeks after her diagnosis, the star got scheduled in for a double mastectomy and then a reconstructive surgery in July. “Everything happened so quickly that I’m still processing the fact that I even had cancer,” says Myers. “In a way, it was a good thing: I didn’t have time to sit with it or process it.”
Though Myers’s journey with cancer was a rapid whirlwind—“the doctors have since told me I’m good to go,” she says—that’s not to say the experience didn’t have a drastic and lasting impact. Most of all and perhaps most unexpectedly was the way it affected Myers’s day-to-day personal style. “Fashion has made me feel like myself again,” she says.
That took some time. As Myers healed from the first surgery and awaited her second reconstructive one, Myers says she was initially left with a body that felt not like her own—which made it tricky getting dressed every morning. “After the double mastectomy, they put in something called expanders, which are these really hard-ass placeholders that your skin heals around,” says Myers. “You’re left in this in-between phase where you aren’t the size you were and not the size you’ll ultimately end up with.” None of her usual clothes suddenly fit, and that feeling of closet foreignness continued well after her reconstructive surgery. “They are so much denser than natural breasts—my balance is off,” says Myers.
But eventually as Myers began navigating her new normal this summer, she began dressing for fun again and finding her style stride. “It’s funny because while it’s happening, [fashion] is the furthest thing from your mind,” says Myers. “But the more you gain your strength back, the more fearless you get [with dressing]. I’m like, ‘I’ve had my chest cut open twice on an operating table—if I can survive that, I can survive people judging me and not liking my outfit.’”
In September, Myers had the perfect opportunities to begin experimenting and expressing herself through fashion again. The actor attended both the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival and 2026 Vancouver International Film Festival to promote her new film, Marie Clements’s drama, How We Stand. The project, costarring fellow Indigenous star Amber Midthunder, is a personal one to her. “It’s a beautiful story of how [Indigenous] women were affected by the 1950s relocation program in LA,” says Myers. “My character grapples with leaving everything behind because she wants to provide a better life for her children.”
Stepping onto such a star-studded film festival scene may seem daunting for anyone, let alone someone just a few months post-surgery for cancer—but for Myers, it was the perfect chance to rediscover her love of dressing up again. She found that her approach to red-carpet dressing had changed entirely. “I’ve become more fearless in my wardrobe,” she says. “In the past, I’ve always been so worried about standing out. But getting cancer made me realize: ‘Why am I making myself smaller?’ The last 40 years have gone so fast, so for the next 40, I’m going for it.”
She began her press tour in Toronto last month, where she wore several striking looks by Indigenous designers. There was the cream suit from Creators Kidz Co., complete with laser-cut details. “I saw it on the runway at Santa Fe Indian Market, and I was obsessed,” says Myers. “I went backstage after the show and was like, ‘Can I borrow it?’” The star has not been working with a stylist in this new era—rather finding pieces that speak directly to her such as the black K. Lookinghorse gown she also wore to the premiere. “The train was so dramatic—I loved it.”
In Vancouver this month, the statement fashions have continued on—now her approach has been the bolder, the better. She wore Jamie Okuma’s graphic black-and-white turtleneck gown and her colorful striped off-the-shoulder dress. For jewelry, she donned long dangly earrings by Jennifer Younger and her own dad Terrence R. Campbell’s turquoise necklace designs. “It’s so important to me to wear Indigenous artists,” says Myers.
Even when she’s not in work mode, Myers’s renewed love of fashion has blossomed via the art of thrifting lately too. “I love thrifting: You can find unique things that aren’t just off the rack,” she says. (She recently scored a pair of spiked Christian Louboutin heels.) Where does she wear all of her new acquisitions when there isn’t a red carpet to be had? “Lately, I’ve been getting all dressed up for cute date nights because I live in LA, and I can look as fucking fancy as I want,” she says. (We agree.)
For Myers, the main takeaway from her cancer journey obviously extends well beyond fashion. The past year has served as an important wake-up call to encourage others to get routinely screened. “I was surprised by the age at which people get breast cancer,” says Myers. “I talked to survivors [who] got diagnosed in their early 30s—yet you’re only recommended to get a mammogram at 40.” She also wants to encourage cancer survivors to not allow the process to define them or their style. “I’m coming out of this stronger than ever,” she says, “and I want to see people being empowered after cancer.”
