Yahoo Lifestyle Actress Mikey Madison Reflects on Breakout Role in ‘Anora’ and Navigating Hollywood on Her Own Terms
It’s no wonder that Mikey Madison is in the thick of deep cleaning her home. After spending much of 2024 on the road with her breakout smash of a movie “Anora,” and staring down the gauntlet of early 2025 awards season, Madison is finally spending some more time in her hometown of Los Angeles. Every little bit of zen is going to count in the weeks ahead.
“I think that there is something to be said about returning to your space and somewhere that feels comfortable and safe for you,” Madison says. “And my home is definitely that for me, which is why I’ve been frantically reorganizing and cleaning and tidying and all that stuff because it’s important.”
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“Anora” first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival back in May 2024, where it would go on to win the Palme d’Or and catapult Madison into an awards conversation that has only gained momentum since then. Madison is up for a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy, and will receive the Breakthrough Performance Award at the Palm Springs International Film Awards on Friday and the Breakthrough Performance Award at the National Board of Review at the Tuesday gala.
“I can’t believe that this has been the same year,” says Madison, who is 25. “I feel like I’ve grown a lot in some ways, which is interesting. I’ve been able to experience going to lots of different countries and showing our film to various audience members. I feel lucky to have this experience — it definitely wasn’t one that I was expecting, and so it’s been a very pleasant surprise, all of it.”
“Anora” is the story of a sex worker in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, named Anora (Ani for short) who enters into a whirlwind marriage to the son of a Russian oligarch. Director Sean Baker, known for “The Florida Project,” “Tangerine” and “Red Rocket,” wrote the script with Madison in mind after seeing her as a member of the Manson family in the Quentin Tarantino movie “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
At the time it was pitched to her, the plot was a loose idea, more of a “Russian gangster story” about a woman marrying the wrong man. Despite not knowing much about the character, Madison was immediately interested in the opportunity to work with Baker.
“I felt like whatever character he would write would be one that I would love because I loved him as a filmmaker,” she says.
As Ani was flushed out, Madison moved to Brighton Beach, studied both the Brooklyn accent and Russian, and learned how to dance.
“I had never had the opportunity to completely transform in this way before. I had never had a director see me in this way, to give me this opportunity to play a character unlike any character I’ve ever played,” she says. “And so I certainly put quite a bit of pressure on myself to really buckle down and do the work. I dedicated all my time to it. But I was excited about everything that Ani is. I was excited to research her work. I was excited to create her personal life and her backstory, her morals, who she is as a person and learn Russian and have this different dialect, all of it new to me. I saw it as a challenge and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Prior to acting, Madison was a competitive horseback rider. Her mother and grandmother were riders before her, and the sport was “everything that I knew,” Madison says. She reached a turning point around a decade ago where she felt herself “searching for something else,” which coincided with a growing interest in film, thanks to her film buff father.
“I was craving connection on a deeper level, and I think that it manifested itself in me being an actor,” she says.
Competitive riding requires a dedication and commitment that can easily be spotted in Madison’s work.
“There’s a lot of dedication involved in horseback riding, at least competitive horseback riding. It’s not something that you can do once a month. You have to develop your skills. You have to develop your muscles, you have to create a connection with the animal that you’re working with,” she says of the sport. “The dedication and the work ethic that gave me, I translated and brought that into my work as an actor. I’m constantly trying to grow and evolve every day.”
In the 10-plus years she’s been acting, Madison has earned recognition for characters like the brash teenager Max on “Better Things,” Susan Atkins in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and Amber Freeman in 2022’s “Scream.”
“I’ve been able to play some really bold, feisty characters in my career so far,” she says of the roles. “There’s probably a reason why I’ve been cast in those particular roles, and I think it’s some part of myself that feels free to experience all of these emotions and these different versions of myself through the eyes of a character with a sort of safety net underneath me.”
She was a self-described shy teenager who says she thinks she’ll always be shy in a way, despite building a résumé of such immersive performances.
“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve evolved more into myself. I know who I am. I’m confident in who that person is,” Madison says. “And so I think that from there, the shyness in some way has dissipated because I think that my shyness growing up came from a lack of understanding of who I was, a discomfort in my own body. And I feel differently now than I did when I was younger, but I think there will always be a part of me that is just more, what’s the word I’m looking for? I don’t know, inside of myself, I guess.”
Her road to fame with “Anora” has not come without bumps. In December, she and Pamela Anderson were partnered in Variety’s “Actors on Actors,” where Madison told Anderson they had opted to not use an intimacy coordinator on “Anora.” An immediate backlash came online, with many finding the comments to minimize the importance intimacy coordinators provide on film sets.
“It’s not a conversation that I take lightly,” Madison says of the reaction. “With each project that has intimacy involved, there’s many discussions in advance. I had many discussions in advance, not just me and my director alone in a room making a decision, but with me, my team, other actors, their team — everyone involved was on the same page and we made this decision together.
“The way I see it is ultimately, as a woman, I think it’s my right to decide what makes me most comfortable on a set, because it’s my body and on this set, the actors involved were most comfortable working without, and it may be different on the next set, but it’s my choice as a woman and as an actress. And I had a very positive, safe experience on this film, and I know that that’s not always the case. So it is important to have people who are there to protect and support. I look forward to working with an intimacy coordinator in the future, if that feels like the right decision for everyone involved.”
Since “Anora” broke out at Cannes, Madison has yet to announce a next project — most certainly not because the interest isn’t there. There are a few projects that “feel really special” to her that she’s hoping to be part of, but she is approaching her next act selectively.
“I feel very hopeful, which is fun. I was thinking earlier today about how I’ve had years where I haven’t worked — I’ve tried to, but for whatever reason, it’s been difficult to get a job, and so it’s really exciting to be in this position now,” she says. “I’m able to read scripts that I would never have dreamed of being able to read however many years ago.
“Being intentional and specific and taking my time is just how I’m trying to be in general in my life,” she adds. “I’ve been grateful for every [acting] job I’ve had, but I’ve also learned that it’s an emotional job, and I really would like to have that emotional, deep connection and love for the story and the script that I’m playing. I have to feel that draw to be like, ‘I have to do this. I have to be the one to play this character.’ Or else I think it’s a sign that maybe it’s not the right next job for me. But I also had such an amazing f–king life-changing experience making Sean’s movie that it’s made me more thoughtful as an actor. I’m also just thinking about things long term, like what really makes me happy, what I feel like I can best lend my artistic services to.”
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