Anora star Mikey Madison and director Sean Baker, Best Picture predictions, and more in EW's Awardist digital magazine

Mikey Madison is 'absolutely in love' with her character in Anora — and so are audiences

Interview by Gerrad Hall
Illustration by Sophia Lauren Franco

Mikey Madison had a revelation as she was hanging out behind the screen of Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre during the premiere of her new movie Anora in September.

"It's very strange to only just hear your voice," the actress recalls, thinking about her thick Brooklyn accent for the title character in Sean Baker's latest movie. "In that moment, I realized what a complete change and accent I did for that character. It was kinda shocking, actually."

And so are some parts of the movie — riotous, wildly funny, and absurdly entertaining as the young, wild, and wealthy Vanya/Ivan (played by Mark Eydelshteyn) woos Madison's stripper/escort Anora (a.k.a. Ani) and quickly proposes and marries her on a spontaneous trip to Vegas. Once word gets back to his Russian oligarch parents, they are livid and send their men to take care of the situation, which quickly spirals. Ivan runs, his family's goons eventually tie up Ani after a long struggle with her, and then they hit the town trying to find Ivan so the young lovebirds can get an annulment.

Baker's eighth feature film is, perhaps, his finest — and one that has landed him firmly in the Oscar race in multiple categories, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress, after taking home the top prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

Below, Baker and Madison sit down with The Awardist podcast for an in-depth conversation about the making of the film.

THE AWARDIST: The journey for this film kicked off at Cannes, where you won the top prize, the Palme d'Or. Can you take me back to that moment?

SEAN BAKER: It's a moment that I'm still processing. We didn't expect it, quite honestly. We did not expect it. So it was not only a moment of my dream coming true, it was also to have [George] Lucas presenting it to me... [Laughs] I can't. Star Wars was one of the reasons that I became a filmmaker. And so for that to happen was gravy on top of everything. But it was so wonderful that most of the cast was still in town, my DP was there — Drew Daniels — and we just had a really celebratory night. It was just incredible.

Well, there's a lot to celebrate about this film.... That sequence in the middle when Vanya escapes the house and Ani is left there to her own devices — at the post-Toronto premiere Q&A you mentioned that it's 28 minutes?

BAKER: 28-minute real-time home invasion.

Did you film that as a 28-minute sequence?

BAKER: Well, actually, we were shooting on film, so you can never shoot more than 10 minutes at a time, but we did do long takes. We tried to capture as much as possible without — I don't like just pulling off a shot here or there. I like the actors being in the moment and capturing real moments. But it was very choreographed. It took eight days to shoot, and there was adjustments done throughout just to make sure everything was making sense and flowing. And then of course, on top of that, even though it's a very scary moment — a very tense, serious set piece — I wanted the audience to be also chuckling throughout it. So there was the injecting of humor throughout, and that was a real difficult balance. But my job was made so much easier by my incredible actors because they understood that the balance had to be there. So every once in a while, the way that Mikey would deliver a line or...

A reaction shot.

Yeah, a reaction shot just to give us that little bit of black humor.

Mikey, I don't know if freedom is the right word, but there's what was on the page, but then you [got to add some of your own stuff] in the moment that made sense for you to say, or to kick a lamp? Or that's all choreographed and planned?

BAKER: Especially that part because that was a wide shot in which my actors were doing their own stunts, and it really had to be choreographed. We went through it at quarter-speed.

MIKEY MADISON: Right. Although Sean did say, "Hey, it would be great if you could somehow manage to kick over this lamp," or vase or whatever it was. And I was like, yes, I'll do. I'll definitely find my foot flinging over that direction.

BAKER: [Laughs] Which is just incredible because it's at the end of the shot. And then Mikey just punts that vase for that last shatter. It was very impressive.

At the premiere, you said that you'd had this idea, you'd been working on it, you were kind of getting into the script, then you got to meet with Mikey and realized, yes, she's definitely my Ani, and then you tailored it specifically to her. So I'm curious, what was it in that meeting that you saw in her that was already bringing Ani to life in your head?

BAKER: Our first meeting, we really bonded in terms of just...I think we realized [we have the] same sensibility, same sense of humor, same love of certain movies. I think we brought up the fact that one of your favorite films is Possession. That's like an automatic, "You're cast!" [Laughs] And I knew she was going to bring the attitude. And during that meeting, Mikey expressed to us that she wanted to take on that New York accent and do it seriously. I'm from the New York area — I'm from the Tri-state area — so I can detect a bad one. It was so important, for me, for my actor to want to do that and get it right. And she did.

To that point about getting it right, Mikey, from that first meeting, when he tells you the broad strokes of the plot and offered you the job on the spot, how confident were you that you could get it right?

MADISON: I wasn't really thinking about confidence. I was just mentally preparing myself or planning what I think I may need to do to get ready for the film. So it had nothing to do about how I felt. It was just like, this is what I'm going to have to do and I'll get there eventually. So I just have to put the work in, and I definitely did because it was so incredibly important to me to just give justice to this character and all of her different attributes. So I wanted to be very, very prepared in all aspects, physically and mentally.

Before you even had the chance to start your research on dancers, escorts, was there anything in particular that you felt like you innately understood about her?

MADISON: I think that Sean and I had some kind of understanding with each other. I understood his films, and I think in some way I kind of unconsciously understood his possible vision for the film. And so I think something was just sort of connected there. But I took lots of time to discover the character, and by the time we were filming, we had talked a lot about her. I'm absolutely in love with Ani as a character, and I'm so lucky that I was able to play a character as layered as that and complex — there's so many things that I love about her. I remember reading the script for the first time and just being blown away and thinking about all the nuance that I could possibly bring to this character because she definitely deserved it.

You said there are so many layers to her — I'm not talking about the dances, but she's even putting on a performance from a mental perspective with all of these men who kind of come through and you see her [figuring out], who am I going to go to and what's going to work for them? What's going to get their attention? I feel like that must have said a lot, that you had a lot to work with in those regards — a performance within your performance,

MADISON: Well, she's at work, so she's kind of putting on this sexual persona of sorts. She does what she has to do to secure a client and get good tips, and so it's very psychological and physical as well, which not many jobs involve both of those two things — for it to be physically demanding with dancing all night in heels, and then also having to really connect with someone and understand what their fantasy might be, or immediately look across the room and be like, oh, that guy would want me to give him a dance, that guy won't be interested. So from an actor's perspective, it's really exciting because all of those scenes are improvised. So I'm kind of just meeting this guy for the first time and being like, okay, I'm trying to read him. What kind of person is he? And sort of discovering it over the course of giving a full lap dance. That's a pretty unique experience to be able to film a scene that way. And we were able to pull a lot of really interesting moments, I think, from all of those experiences I had.

BAKER: This is a sequence that takes place in the beginning of the film. We're trying to show the mechanics of this club that she works in, and also a night in the life of Ani before the plot kicks in, before she meets Ivan.

Her Prince Charming. Well, maybe "charming" isn't the right word.

MADISON: Prince Charming at first.

BAKER: Definitely at first. But we had this club sort of up and running the way it runs every night. We even had our producer as a DJ playing music so that everybody in the room felt that they were in this club. And then we had a wireless mic on Mikey, and we just, in a docustyle way, followed her around from person to person, client to client. She had given so much time, she had spent so much time in the club and with the consultants observing the way that this goes down, that I could rely on her improvising these moments. And her improvisation was wonderful. Now, we shot 30 full minutes of this, and we had to whittle it down to only about three and a half minutes, but I have 20 more minutes of gold of watching Mikey shine.

I hope this doesn't embarrass you, Mikey. I want to read a bit from EW's review of this film. "Madison is effervescent in the role, blending street smarts, romantic naivete, and an effortless charm. It's obvious why Ani's good at her job. Madison is heartbreaking, sexy, audacious, hilarious, and righteously enraged at different turns, making Ani a mesmerizingly real person." And that last part, the "real person," that's the goal. That's what you're saying, Sean. She's got to feel like someone you might know.

MADISON: Well, thank you. [Laughs]

Sean, that's all the stuff you were seeing come through on the camera as well?

BAKER: Yeah. It's important for my characters to always be fully fleshed out and humanized, and my actors are obviously are a big part of finding that. But there's sometimes this tradition of sanctifying certain characters in movies that we feel, oh, they deserve sympathy; we got to make them flawless. But what I like about all these characters is that they all have flaws in a way that we recognize ourselves in them. And I think that it keeps it real, and all of my actors understood that. So they were okay with the blemishes or whatever, and they were okay leaning into that.

The bite marks. Scratches and all.

MADISON: Or just to make yourself look ridiculous in certain scenarios I think is important, especially making a film like ours. I think you have to let go of vanity and certain moments, Sometimes you're just going to be ugly, and that's just part of it. Sometimes you'll look good, sometimes you'll be attractive. [Laughs]

Well, I mentioned who we think is going to be Prince Charming... he's such a fascinating character. I don't feel like I've ever seen a character like this. But Mark Eydelshteyn — let's go there,

MADISON: Because he's a one-of-a-kind actor really.

Yes. He embodies this spastic, magnetic energy in such a way that you watch every single thing he does. I understand his audition was pretty undeniable. But beyond what you saw on the tape, what sold you on him as Vanya?

BAKER: He understood that he was a character who hasn't grown up yet and really leaned into that immaturity and understood it. As an actor, like all of my actors, he really cared about understanding Ivan. But I think he got it pretty early on, and he was bringing a lot of ideas. He was always making us laugh — as far as a comedic performer, oh my God, he's on the top.

That first time at the house flipping around on the bed, was that all him?

That's actually... I'm glad you brought that up because I always encourage my actors to bring me ideas, and they bring me wonderful ideas. So he pitched me that. He was like, "I want to just flip back and land in position on the bed."

Did you know he was going to do it?

MADISON: Yeah, he pitched it to me when I walked onto set. He was like, "Okay, I have an idea." He was like, "I'm going to do a back flip onto the bed, pull off my pants and my penis is going to go blooop!"

BAKER: Exactly. But I couldn't fully visualize it. We rehearsed it with his boxers on, and it was funny, but it wasn't until we were rolling the camera and the boxers weren't on that we realized how crazy of a shot it was, and just being behind the monitor with my jaw drop going, oh my God. And that's why I knew that every night, every day we were getting gold like that. And it was really nice to go home knowing we got some amazing stuff in the can.

So that audition tape...

MADISON: I think we were doing some test shoot to test the film before going to shoot the movie in Los Angeles. And you and [producer Samantha Quan] came up to me and you're like, "You have to see this audition that we just got from this guy, Mark. He's going to play the character, and it's unbelievable." They showed it to me, and he's completely naked with this weird hat on. In his audition, he's facing a full — I'll set it up for you guys — facing a glass window, standing with his back to the camera, his butt to the camera. As the scene starts, whoever's recording it slowly zooms in as he turns to face the camera, and then they do the scene. And I'm watching it thinking, how ballsy do you have to be as an actor to send an audition like this? I don't think this is something that would fly in...I don't know...I certainly would never do it. But I was like, this guy has guts.... He said he only did one take as well because he didn't want to subject his roommate to looking at him for more than one take. [Laughs]

BAKER: And it was Yura Borisov, who plays Igor, who brought Mark to the table. He was like, "I just worked with this younger actor who I think you would really like." So I owe so much to Yura.

Yura is so good. I was so intrigued by him the whole time because you know this character doesn't want to be there and there's such a great sensitivity with him. Without saying too much, did you know what the final scene of the film was going to be or was that a discovery when you got the script?

MADISON: I think there was a small paragraph sort of describing it. And then Sean and I had a handful of conversations talking through some ideas for it, what we might want to have. And I think towards the end, we decided that it would be better if we had no dialogue. I always knew it was going to be one shot and that it would be about five minutes maybe. And so I think when we finally got to the day and we were ready to just shoot it, we did it a handful of times, and one of 'em just stood out more to everybody.

Meaning you played it different ways each time?

MADISON: I think that there's nuances to each scene, of course, but I think that we knew exactly where our characters were in that moment. So there were lots of aspects of just the scene needing to be a certain way.

BAKER: There was a whole technical side to it, because it's happening during a snowfall. There are camera moves in it, and then at the same time, there is an extremely emotional interaction going on between two actors.

And in a confined space.

BAKER: Yes. So it was just Mikey, Yura, and me in that car.

MADISON: Sean was laying in the back seat.

You hid very well.

BAKER: Yeah! But the endings, for me, are the most important part of a film. So it was extremely stressful to try to pull it off. I knew it had to work, and thanks to my incredible actors and incredible crew, we pulled it off.

Mikey, I think this is a performance that people will look at, other actress, and wish they had the chance to play something similar. What is that performance for you? Is there another actress whose work you look at as touchstone of great work or an inspiring role?

MADISON: All the time I'll watch a film and I'm like, "Oh God, if only I had that part," or, "If only I was born in the '60s." I'm going through Isabelle Huppert's filmography and all of her roles and characters, she's just an absolutely spectacular actress, but I will watch some of her characters from when she was my age and I'm like, if only I could do something like that. But I almost feel like I did get to have a bit of a throwback with our film because I feel like there's a lot of aspects of filmmaking from back in that day.

BAKER: We definitely keep the '70s sensibility alive. I always tell my cinematographer, Drew Daniels, I'm like, "I know this is a contemporary film, but I want it to seem like it was a 1974 film that was just rediscovered." I always say 1974 — that's the pinnacle. That year means a lot for American cinema, so we're always trying to emulate that in a sense.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Listen to our full interview with Baker and Madison in the podcast below.

Get the latest awards season analysis and hear from the actors, creators, and more who are contenders this season on EW's The Awardist podcast, hosted by Gerrad Hall. Be sure to listen/subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, or via your own voice-controlled smart speaker (Alexa, Google Home).

Oscar Nomination Predictions: Best Picture and Best Director

Best Picture

It's far too early to pinpoint exactly which films will rise to the top, but award-winning festival standouts such as Anora (the Cannes Palme d'Or winner) and Emilia Pérez (TIFF People's Choice runner-up) have already emerged as the cream of the crop so far. If there was any doubt about the increasing awards strength of these worldly cinema summits, let's look back one year to Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall, which also sustained from Cannes all the way through to the Oscars. Dune: Part Two also emerged from the first half of the year with a healthy box office fueling its run, which is only helped further by the awards success of the first Dune film in 2021. The other slots are far less certain at this stage, but Conclave, The Brutalist, and Sing Sing are all, on paper, surefire hits that will likely speak directly to Academy voters.

1. Anora
2. Conclave
3. The Brutalist
4. Emilia Pérez
5. Sing Sing
6. The Piano Lesson
7. Dune: Part Two
8. September 5
9. The Wild Robot
10. Wicked

Best Director

Making a safe bet is always, naturally, a gamble when it comes to predicting the Best Director race. Most voters in this branch stay the course, aligning with the rest of the industry on a handful of filmmakers behind the year's most-praised pictures. There are typically one or two surprises in the category every year, as the branch continues inviting a more global voting base into its ranks. This often results in an international director squeezing past more well-known directors, and outside of the usual suspects behind marquee entries in the race this year, the genre-defying, visionary spectacle of Coralie Fargeat's The Substance (a popular title among prestige crowds at Cannes, mind you) could land her a spot in the category this year. Other than that, it's wise to predict the men responsible for the, well, safest bets.

1. Sean Baker, Anora
2. Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez
3. Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
4. Edward Berger, Conclave
5. Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part Two

Check out Joey Nolfi's predictions for lead and supporting actor and actress here.

EW Movie Reviews

Maria is an exquisitely crafted tone poem with Angelina Jolie enacting Maria Callas' final days

Emilia Pérez is a joyfully erratic opera swirled with a soapy melodrama

Ralph Fiennes leads a riveting religious thriller in Conclave

August Wilson's The Piano Lesson receives a haunting film adaptation

Kieran Culkin is heartbreaking and hilarious in Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain

Inside Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin's odd-couple dynamic in 'A Real Pain'

Jesse Eisenberg didn't have to look too far for inspiration for his second feature film, A Real Pain, which opened to rave reviews this year at the Sundance Film Festival and was quickly snagged by Searchlight Pictures for release on Nov. 1. Inspired by his own travels to Europe to visit his family's home in Poland, the movie centers on Eisenberg's David and his cousin Benji — played by Emmy winner Kieran Culkin — as they embark on a journey to their grandmother's childhood home following her death. David's more reserved, pensive demeanor is no match for Benji's charm and charisma — much of which is masking his struggles with his mental health.

But through the pain, there are lots of laughs. Emma Stone, one of the movie's producers, describes the characters in the exclusive video above as "beautifully complex and moving while being extremely funny."

Adds Eisenberg, "I hope people can experience it as seeing these mismatched guys flail alongside each other in these various contexts."

Be sure to check out the video above. You can also read EW's review of A Real Pain here, and learn more about the movie in our Fall Movie Preview.

Other EW content

Why Saoirse Ronan wanted to play 'a version of someone that has hurt me' in The Outrun

Now entering the arena: Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal unsheathe Gladiator II

The Substance stars, director explain the film’s beautifully gruesome ending

Made in America: How polarizing biopic The Apprentice charts Donald Trump's origin story

Almost an EGOT: The biggest stars who are missing just 1 award

Oughta Get a Nod: Kirsten Dunst, 'Civil War'

Bullets and blazes aplenty in Alex Garland’s tension-filled apocalyptic drama Civil War, but Kirsten Dunst pulls focus through the calamity with a slow-burning performance that ends up as the best turn of her career. The 42-year-old is a somber, grounding presence throughout the under-appreciated drama that speculates what America might look like amid the bitter divide of a second inter-population war, playing a grizzled war photographer who takes a young, aspiring journalist (Cailee Spaeny) under her wing during a cross-country trek to meet the nation’s dictatorial president (Nick Offerman). While the film’s themes mirror real-world political anxieties driving a wedge among us, it’s hard not to marvel at Dunst through the wreckage, a war-torn whose ace handling of the material is something everyone — including, hopefully, Oscars voters — can agree on. —Joey Nolfi, Sr. Writer

The Snub That Still Hurts: James McAvoy for 'Atonement'

Considering that James McAvoy is one of the most interesting actors of our time, it's absurd that he's never received an Oscar nomination — particularly given his work in Atonement. As Robbie Turner, he's mercurial, sexy, noble. and heartbreaking in equal measure. Robbie is the housekeeper's son on a path to making good as a doctor when his life is shattered by his undeniable connection with daughter of the house, Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley), and her jealous younger sister, Briony (Saoirse Ronan), fundamentally misunderstanding their love scene in the library (which should have earned McAvoy a nomination for its potent eroticism). Though Cecilia and Robbie's romance is fleeting, McAvoy fills Robbie with so much yearning and sorrow that he transforms the film from mere weepie to the devastating gut punch it is. —Maureen Lee Lenker, Sr. Writer

Oscars Flashback

Check out more from EW's The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best in TV, movies, and more.