Rising Star’s Harrowing Portrayal

Mikey Madison: The Rising Star Behind the Palme d’Or-Winning Film Anora

You know what it’s like: you’ve ordered an important package, but you can’t be at home when it’s delivered, so you ask a friend to take it in for you. So it was for Mikey Madison, except the item was a professional-grade dancer’s pole and the person she co-opted to help out was her father. “I was filming a different project,” says the 25-year-old American actor, “and I said, ‘Dad, can you please install this thing in my house?’ He was like, ‘Of course, sweetie.’ And I think it was good I asked him. He had kind of an idea what the film might be, so he was able to watch it and not be completely surprised.”

That film is Anora, in which Madison stars as an exotic dancer called Ani, a performance that’s already generating lots of talk of a best actress Oscar nomination. Ani is working in a Manhattan strip club one night when she is assigned to entertain the playboy son of an oligarch, Ivan, played by Mark Eidelstein (an actor sometimes described, enticingly, as “Russia’s Timothée Chalamet”). They hit it off and Ivan hires Ani for a week, drastically upending her life: she goes from living in a shared apartment, bickering about why there’s no milk in the fridge, to padding around a mansion with a lift, daily maid service, and a cryotherapy chamber. In a fever dream of expensive booze and drugs, the new couple descend on Las Vegas, where, almost inevitably, they get married in a chintzy chapel: “Fuck yeah, I do,” Ani tells the registrar.

Then, perhaps even more inevitably, it all spectacularly unravels. Ivan’s parents find out about their son’s union and go nuclear. Ani is given a brief glimpse of a free-wheeling new life: she haughtily corrects someone who admires her mink coat – “It’s Russian sable!” – before it is violently wrenched from her grasp. Rarely has the American dream become a nightmare so rapidly and forcefully. “Writer-director Sean Baker provides an acid corrective to so many bogus Hollywood fairytales,” wrote Xan Brooks in his review for this paper after the film’s premiere at Cannes. “Anora sticks Pretty Woman under a UV lamp so that we can see the stains on the sheets and the dirty money that sloshes behind the hotel suites and private jets.”

Anora, which manages to combine a radical social conscience with being laugh-out-loud funny, blew up at last May’s Cannes, where it won the Palme d’Or; Baker became the first American to win the film festival’s top prize since Terrence Malick in 2011. Greta Gerwig, the Barbie director, who was president of the jury, said: “There was something that reminded us of a classic, there were structures of [Ernst] Lubitsch and Howard Hawks. It did something truthful and unexpected … Every single performance we loved.”

Onstage at Cannes, Baker dedicated the award to “sex workers past, present, and future – this is for you.”

Madison always had a close bond with her father, who installed a dancer’s pole in her house. She credits him with giving her the confidence to pursue her passion for acting. “I remember when I first started acting, I would watch movies with my dad, and he would be like, ‘You know, you could do that.’ And I was like, ‘Really? You think so?'” she recalls. “He would then go online and find monologues for me to practice, and he would give me feedback. He was always my biggest supporter.”

As for her own relationship with Ani, Madison says it’s been a transformative experience. “I never had a director see something in me before that made him want to write a script for me,” she says. “I felt like he was my ambassador, like he understood what I was capable of before I even realized it myself. And MIke [her father] was here, watching over me, making sure I knew that I was doing something special.”

Madison’s transition from a small-town girl to a rising talent in Hollywood wasn’t always smooth. Growing up in the agricultural fields of Los Angeles, she was raised in a family of psychologists, with no connection to the entertainment industry. “My dad is a psychiatrist, my mom is a child psychologist, and I have siblings and cousins who are all in the medical field,” she explains. “I was like, ‘What am I going to do with my life?’ But I found my passion in acting.”

After graduating from high school, Madison began to pursue an acting career, fueled by her admiration for actresses like Jennifer Lawrence and Julianne Moore. She was cast in the sitcom Better Things, a project curated by Pamela Adlon and Louis CK that explored the complexities of single motherhood. The show’s success allowed her to transition to film, and she landed a role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, directed by Quentin Tarantino.

The experience of working on Anora has given Madison a newfound sense of purpose, urging her to explore more complex, nuanced roles. “I always feel that we were making something special,” she says. “I always knew it would be at least one person’s favorite movie. As an actress, it’s given me a discipline. And I feel very confident now in my voice – that I have things to share and I have ideas that people should want to hear.”

FAQs:

• What is Anora about?
  Anora is a film about a young exotic dancer, Ani, who is hired by a wealthy playboy’s family to entertain his son.
• What is the reception of Anora to date?
  Anora has been met with widespread acclaim, winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes and generating buzz for a potential best actress Oscar nomination.
• How did Mikey Madison get her start in acting?
  Madison grew up with a passion for acting, pursuing it after high school with the help of her supportive father, who installed a dancer’s pole in her house and helped her practice monologues.
• What is her relationship with Ani like?
  Madison credits Ani as a transformative experience, saying she never expected a director to see something in her that made them want to write a script for her.

Conclusion:
Mikey Madison’s rise to fame is a testament to her dedication, talent, and the support of those around her. With her diverse range of roles, including her critically acclaimed performance in Anora, Madison is poised to become a leading force in the film industry.