Debuting earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival, Sean Baker’s Anora won the Palme d’Or and earned critical acclaim, and praise for Mikey Madison’s star-making turn in the title character.
Madison plays Ani, a New York City sex worker who ends up in a whirlwind romance with Ivan (Mark Eidelstein), the son of Russian oligarch, leading to hasty wedding. When Ivan’s family finds out about his marriage, things quickly devolve chaos.
Until now, Madison’s big role was in 2022’s Scream, but she has also appeared in Better Things and Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood.
This year, Madison stays focused on the film. “I don’t know,” she says when asked how she feels about the possibility of her being nominated for Best Actress, “I’m just so happy that people have been loving the film and that it’s going to be shown in a much broader way than I ever could have anticipated.” Before its wide release, Anora has already screened all over the world, something that Madison has been soaking up.
My Oscar Book:
“I get to go to all these amazing countries and show our film in different languages. It’s been a dream come true. I think I’m still processing a little bit of it.” It seems that Anora may open even more doors for the young star, who knows exactly what she wants her next steps to be.
“I have a running Google Doc of directors I love, producers, writers, [and] actors,” she says, “I’m constantly discovering new ones. There’s so much talent.” Luca Guadagnino, the director of 2024 films Challengers and Queer, is one name Madison cites. Alice Rohrwacher, whose film La Chimera released this year, is another.
The film’s cast includes a mixture of Russian and American actors.
Madison is cherishing her time spent as Ani, even if she doesn’t see similarities with the character. “I think that Ani is someone who always felt so different than who I am,” she says, “And I think that there are things about her that I wish I had.”
Voice Matters
Where Madison is soft-spoken and thoughtful, Ani is brash and speaks her mind, with a thick New York accent to boot. Madison explained how she nailed the accent, something that she put a lot of work and care into, just as she did with making sure to portray sex work as accurately as possible.
I worked with a dialect coach to create a base for the accent. I wanted it to be very specific to Brighton Beach, to Brooklyn, and I also wanted to infuse a modern way of speaking. There’s a certain inflection that a lot of young women I met at these clubs had, and I wanted Ani to have [it] as well, because I found it to be very charming and present. So I got to New York, to Brighton Beach, a little less than a month early, so that I could live in that community and experience the culture and listen and fine tune the accent as much as I could. Then I, embarrassingly, would test it out, ordering a coffee, just seeing if it would pass by without anyone noticing anything. And I think I drilled that accent so deep into my brain that I was able to just slip into it in an easy way.
Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.
Anore released in theaters on October 18.
