Mikey Madison’s Life Hasn’t Changed Yet—but When the World Sees ‘Anora,’ It Will

In May, Anora won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival largely thanks to Mikey Madison’s breakout performance as the title character: a sex worker, named Ani, who falls for the son of a Russian oligarch. But Madison says her life hasn’t been turned upside down just yet. “The biggest change is just getting this puppy,” she says, nodding toward the five-month-old Chihuahua rescue curled up in her lap. She adopted Jam in June, and since then she’s largely spent her time taking him to puppy-training classes and helping him get along with her cat, Biscuit.

That’s bound to change when Anora hits theaters October 18. Madison, who’s 25, has been acting for years: She played Pamela Adlon’s brash daughter Max on FX’s cult-favorite comedy Better Things and met a brutal, fiery end in both Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood and 2022’s Scream. But Sean Baker’s dizzying slice-of-life film introduces Madison as a major film-anchoring talent. Ani’s tough exterior hides such guileless sweetness that it’s impossible not to root for her.

Madison met Baker after he saw her play a volatile Manson family follower in Once Upon a Time…. Over coffee, he pitched her a vague idea for his next movie and told her that if she liked it, he’d write it for her. Madison had never been given a role without an audition before. She dove into the transformation by learning Russian, perfecting a Brighton Beach accent, going to strip clubs, and devoting herself to never-ending dance-training sessions that often left her bruised. She twisted her ankle more than once running around in Ani’s sky-high heels and has a scar on her stomach from a fight scene in which she got knocked into a table.

“I feel very different personally and physically to her in every way, but I related to her hopefulness a little bit,” she says. “It felt like I was constantly exerting so much energy to get to the places that she was in.”

Dress by Tom Ford; tights by Falke; Jewelry by Van Cleef & Arpels.Photograph by Nick Riley Bentham; Styled by Ronnie Hart.

Baker likes featuring nonactors in his films and encourages improvisation, so Madison found herself performing side by side with real exotic dancers. She filmed more than a dozen lap dance scenes in which she’d chat up men she had only just met. “I’m not the only one who is naked,” she says. “I’d look to my right and my left, and other women are topless, and we’re all giving each other looks. I was so comfortable. I could have walked around set naked—and I am not like that in my real life.”

In real life, the Los Angeles native leads with softness, which is often at odds with the city’s vibe. “Someone will honk at me or give me the finger, and maybe this is bad, but it makes me cry sometimes,” she says.

Sweater by Bottega Veneta; shoes by Paris Texas, tights by Calzedonia; Jewelry by Van Cleef & Arpels. Throughout: hair products by Oribe; nail enamel by Chanel Le Vernis.Photograph by Nick Riley Bentham; Styled by Ronnie Hart.

Her own personality is nothing like the characters she’s played, least of all Ani. Still, she couldn’t let Ani go for a while. “I found myself wanting to get the acrylic nails again,” Madison says. “So, for a month or two after, I still had some pretty long nails.”

Now at the start of what’s likely to be a vertiginous rise, Madison is reading scripts and looking for her next role. She’d love another experience as collaborative as the one with Baker but knows films like Anora are rare. And maybe it’ll be a character that’s a little closer to home. “It is funny how I got into this weird pocket of playing these antagonistic characters,” she says. “I’d love to play a character that’s similar to me one day.”

HAIR, CANDICE BIRNS; MAKEUP, LISA STOREY; MANICURE, ALEX JACHNO. PRODUCED ON LOCATION BY PORTFOLIO ONE. FOR DETAILS, GO TO VF.COM/CREDITS.