Mikey Madison sits down with Awards Focus to discuss her critically acclaimed performance in Sean Baker’s new film, Anora.
The actress discusses her character and she never quite felt naked while filming scenes. She also talks about her preparation process and if it evolved in general through working on Anora. Madison also discusses music and how there are some songs that will make her emotional. To pump herself up or to get in character, she would listen to club music or a stripper playlist created by co-star Luna Sofía Miranda, who plays Luna in the film.
Anora “Ani” Mikheeva (Mikey Madison) is a young sex worker from the Brighton Beach–a Russian-speaking neighborhood in Brooklyn–and works at an upscale club in Manhattan. She later gets an opportunity to have a Cinderella story upon meeting, and then impulsively marrying Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of Russian oligarch Nikolai Zakharov (Aleksei Serebryakov). When news of their marriage gets back to Ivan’s parents in Russia, plans are put into motion to get the marriage annulled.
Anora is currently playing in theaters.
Awards Focus: It’s so nice to meet you. How are you doing?
Mikey Madison: I’m good. How are you?
AF: I’m doing well. Ninety-nine percent of people are at their most vulnerable and open when they’re in nude in front of someone, and opening up a part of themselves. This character has to have her walls up the most when she’s in this position. This juxtaposition is so interesting to play, I imagine, as an actor and just seeing the interactions between the patrons visiting, the colleagues, and then the managers backstage arguing on playlist choices.
Mikey Madison: I was interesting as an actress to navigate that because at work, obviously Ani is a sex worker and so nudity is just part of her uniform in a sense. I think that she’s often in control of a lot of those encounters that she has at work, at the club, and with private clients. It was fun to film those scenes and I never quite felt naked. I always felt like I was sort of putting on this character that Ani was also putting on. It was very interesting as an actor to sort of understand those dynamics and then obviously filming those scenes and looking to my right and to my left and my co-workers are surrounding me and we’re all topless together.
AF: How much backstory do you like to create between the characters you interact with at work that’s not explored on the page?
Mikey Madison: I do as much as possible. I mean, even if something isn’t shared on screen, I think it’s still important for me to flesh out and understand the people I’m talking to and specify it as much as possible. Because when I do that, I think it creates a richness within the scene and within their connection and relationships. I feel like every role I have, I learn a little bit more and I’ve realized how important that is, and that part of it is for me personally. I try to develop as much as possible.
AF: Did your process in general evolve on this production?
Mikey Madison: I think that my process evolves job to job. After I play a character, there’s always something I learn about how I’ve prepared that maybe I can do differently or how I can possibly go deeper in some way. I think that making this film has really inspired me to continue on the path of what I’m doing as an actress. My preparation process and sort of a more of a physical transformation, an emotional transformation to me was very rewarding and just sort of enriching as an actor. I’d like to to continue that.
AF: Sean Baker has said, “I’ve never worked with an actor so dedicated in the prep for a role.” How did you split your time between script work, dance lessons, and building rapport with Mark Eydelshteyn?
Mikey Madison: I just tried to do a little bit at a time. I had a lot of time—a handful of months before I went to New York to shoot, to develop the character, to work on the physicality of her as a dancer, learn Russian, the dialect, and all of the preparation. I think that when I got to New York and I met Mark, we were able to spend time together and sort of cultivate some kind of chemistry, which was very easy for us to have. But yeah, I think just taking it piece by piece, not just trying to do it all at once was helpful for me.
AF: The relationship of Ani and Ivan can be very dark at times. When you’re filming an emotional day like that, do you have preparation, things you do or avoid on those shoot days?
Mikey Madison: Yeah, I think that I have some sort of emotional things in my back pocket that I try to keep there and if I need to pull them out to get myself to a certain place, I will. But I don’t know. I mean, I think that the film, it was quite immersive. I did all the work and so I knew where my character was at emotionally, at each scene. I know exactly where I’m coming from, what the moment was before, and so I think that it was usually sort of just there within me. There were days where it felt difficult or particularly vulnerable, but I think that you just have to embrace that, embrace whatever emotions you’re feeling making a film and playing a character here, because it’s an emotional job.
AF: To bring up a playlist again, is there one that gets you in that state?
Mikey Madison: I mean, songs to get me emotional, I remember my little brother one time told me that this one song always makes him cry. It was a song that never made me cry before, but once he said that to me, I can’t listen to it because it makes me emotional. The thought of him becoming emotional by a song. I have a couple of songs, like there’s some film scores that will make me emotional. But then also, to pump myself up or to get myself in character, I would listen to a lot of club music like Doja Cat, Tommy Genesis—one of my friends and one of the actresses in the film, Luna, who plays Lulu, she made me a stripper playlist. I listened to that a lot before filming.
AF: Thank you so much. It was so nice to meet you.
Mikey Madison: Thank you. So nice to meet you.