Mikey Madison has already won Best Actress prizes for Anora from Los Angeles, Boston, D.C., Phoenix, Seattle, St. Louis Toronto and Virginia film critics among others. She has been nominated for Golden Globes, Critics Choice, BAFTA, SAG and now an Oscar for her role as a sex worker caught up in a quickie marriage with the out-of-control young son of Russian oligarchs in Sean Baker’s Cannes Palme d’Or-winning comedy that is also nominated for Best Picture among other categories.
For Madison this is turning out to be a Cinderella season, as one of the youngest to pull off this kind of showing leading to the Oscars. Believe it not, it all came about because of her Ghostface role in the reboot of Scream.
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Baker and his wife saw that horror movie on opening weekend and made a call to offer Madison the role of Ani in Anora, which hadn’t even been written at that point. Baker also knew Madison from her small but memorable role as Susan Atkins, one of the Manson girls who in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood meets a much more grisly end than what happened to the real Atkins. But it impressed Baker, and his instincts have proven to be right on target.
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Madison joins me today for the latest edition of my Deadline video series The Actor’s Side and shares how all this came about for the Los Angeles native, who first came to prominence as Pamela Adlon’s angry older daughter in the hit FX comedy series Better Things, which ran from 2016-2022
We talk about it all, from her early days to taking on the challenging role of Ani — even to the point of having a stripper’s pole installed in her home, nailing a Brighton Beach accent and Russian lingo, doing her own wild stunts, and even learning how to twerk.
To watch our conversation and to get the “actor’s side” of things from Mikey Madison, watch the video above.
Join me this Oscar season for more episodes of The Actor’s Side as we lead up to the Oscars.