Mikey Madison Reveals Lessons Learned From Sean Baker While Filming Palme d’Or Winner ‘Anora’

Tuesday delivered a big night for Mikey Madison.

“Are you kidding me? This is where I’m from. I was born and raised in Los Angeles and my entire family is here to see this movie for the first time. It’s a little nerve-wracking, too,” revealed the actress while standing outside the iconic Vista Theater in the city’s Los Feliz neighborhood. Madison, 25, has been acting for more than a decade and done many red carpet premieres in her career but the occasion of sitting through Anora for the first time amped up the anxiety with her siblings and best friend also in the building.

The Sean Baker film, released by Neon Oct. 18, marks many firsts for Madison. After racking up credits on Pamela Adlon’s Better Things, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood and the 2022 reboot of Scream, Anora is the first time she’s led a feature film as the title character, the first time she’s been nude on screen and the first time she’s been in a film that won a Palme d’Or, the highest honor awarded during the Cannes Film Festival. Oh, and there’s Oscar buzz now, too.

Anora casts Madison as a stripper and sex worker, better known as Annie, whose life gets turned upside down when she meets and marries the son of a Russian oligarch. Co-stars include Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, Yura Borisov, Darya Ekamasova and Lindsey Normington. Baker directed from a script he also wrote — with Madison in mind for his lead from the beginning.

“He’s really one of the most incredible people I’ve ever collaborated with,” Madison said of Baker. “He gave me the freedom and the agency to build this character from the ground up and present it to him. We were so in tune with each other’s sensibilities in terms of how we envisioned the film, and he welcomed me in as this huge collaborator with him. I’ve never been asked to do that before or had that opportunity.”

Another first. Working in tandem with Baker, who has turned out a series of critically acclaimed films from The Florida Project to Tangerine, delivered a new lesson every day, Madison said. But there’s one that sticks out most: “He really made it clear that he cared about my ideas and what I was bringing to the film. The most important thing I learned from him is that my opinion and my voice matter.”

Baker has a history of discovering new talent or rediscovering established talent in a new light, whether that be Madison with Anora or Simon Rex on his last film, Red Rocket. “It comes down to that ‘it factor,’” Baker told The Hollywood Reporter when asked to explain the special sauce. “There’s something that catches you. It can be a combination of physicality or persona. You just see somebody and instantly know that you want to see more of them or that they deserve to be on the big screen.”

With Madison, he and his producing team of Samantha Quan and Alex Coco recalled seeing her in impressive back-to-back turns in Once Upon a Time and Scream. “I was so blown away,” Baker recalled. “The last 15 minutes of Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood she stole scenes from Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio and I just thought, ‘We have to keep our eyes on her.’ Then we saw Scream opening weekend and while we were sitting in the theater, we decided that that’s our Anora. We called her agent the second we left the theater.”

Friday, Oct. 4, 10:15 a.m.: Updated to correct release date of Oct. 18.