Mikey Madison underwent extensive training to portray Anora, a dancer in the film "Anora," directed by Sean Baker. The role, which required mastering a Russian accent, pole dancing, and a Brooklyn dialect, marks a significant departure from Madison’s previous work. Beyond her physical transformation, Madison hopes to use her newfound platform to destigmatize sex work and advocate for women in Hollywood.

Before director Sean Baker created the role that would transform her into “a completely different artist,” Mikaela “Mikey” Madison had never attempted to twerk. She was embarrassed at the thought of even trying. “I was like, ‘Nothing’s going to move!’” she recalls over the din of a hotel bar at the Toronto International Film Festival. But the self-described “very shy, very awkward, not confident” teenage daughter of Los Angeles psychologists had grown into an actress who Baker knew could give Anora’s titular character the self-possession she needed.

After watching Madison in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood and 2022’s Scream, The Florida Project director Baker reached out to her with an offer: He had written a film specifically with her in mind. Should she accept, she’d play Anora, a.k.a. Ani—a dancer who meets Ivan, the über-rich son of a Russian oligarch, during an average night at the Manhattan gentleman’s club where she works. When Ivan hatches a plan to marry Ani in order to secure U.S. citizenship, she’s swept into a rags-to-riches romantic fantasy, which soon turns dark.

Madison was enamored with the character immediately. Ani needed to be “different than me, in every single way,” she says. Yes, she’d need to twerk. But more than that: To be as comfortable in her body and voice as Ani would be in hers, Madison underwent intensive training, including pole dancing, learning how to give a lap dance, and mastering a Russian accent and a Brooklyn dialect. To better understand Ani’s world, Madison read memoirs written by sex workers, watched documentaries and YouTube videos, talked to consultants, and visited strip clubs herself. The result was a powerful transformation; watching Madison as Ani, it appears as though she’s been dancing her whole life.

Now, Madison is undergoing a second metamorphosis—this one more personal than physical: She’s getting noticed. “It’s felt a bit surreal,” she admits. After Anora won the coveted Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival—Madison’s first time at any film festival—she’s being touted as a potential Academy Award nominee. In the near-decade since she began starring as one of Pamela Adlon’s daughters in the FX series Better Things, Madison’s been “falling in love with characters and fighting to get in the door and having it not happen,” she says. With the spotlight on Anora, “some of those doors are opening back up.”

Not one for social media or celebrity, she’s attempting to draw that new swarm of attention to a cause: destigmatizing sex work. Before Anora, Madison’s knowledge of that world was “minimal”; today, she counts a number of sex workers as friends. “Everything has changed,” she says. “I have a completely different perspective on it. In a club, women are almost in a position of power, but then outside of it, people view them in such a different way.” Ani is “a sex worker, but that’s just her job,” she continues. “She’s a person, and I hope she’s viewed as such.”

Madison pushed herself in new and often uncomfortable ways to bring Ani to life. “I found myself exerting a lot of energy every day to be at the place Ani was at, where she was always ready to get in a fight. She’s very quick, verbally and physically. I don’t feel I’m like that in any way. I wanted her to be very guarded on the outside, but completely torn up and emotional and ragged on the inside. I needed to be in both places, and for you to see, in her eyes, that she’s not just this totally tough girl. I wanted you to see all those layers of who she is, and so for me, getting to those places was important. But also exhausting.”

Despite the challenges, Madison found herself surprisingly comfortable in Ani’s world. “I was really in tune with the headspace Ani was in. Also, I wasn’t the only one naked or dancing. I looked to my right and my left, and there were other girls giving lap dances, and then for any sex scene, Mark Eydelshteyn [who plays Ivan] was also naked. Nudity is part of Anora’s job, so she needs to be very strong in that, and comfortable.”

Reflecting on her career, Madison wishes she had trusted her instincts earlier on. “Everything. No one in my family was in the industry. I just tried to thrust myself into it with absolutely no knowledge of how anything works, and magically—or with hard work—I’ve gotten to certain places, but it’s been so hard. It was an important lesson to learn, but I wish I trusted my instincts as an actor more earlier on. I think there were definitely times where I felt suffocated or taken over by other people’s perspectives, but now I know that my opinion and my voice are really important.”

On her experience in Hollywood, Madison feels that progress for women is still lagging. “There’s a lot of room for improvement, obviously. Just being asked this question means something is not quite right. I would like to see more men in power being outspoken about women’s issues in Hollywood. I remember during #MeToo, when that was blowing up, I was like, ‘Where are all the men that were around during this time? Why is nobody saying anything? They must have known what was happening.’ Obviously women are looking out for one another, but shouldn’t men be looking after women as well? I would like for that to change, because the kind of world we live in, men are in a position of power—actors, producers, directors. They should be uplifting women. I think that should be a man’s role.”

For Madison, mastering Ani’s dance was one of the most challenging aspects of the role. “Dancers—it’s one of the hardest jobs, I think, because it’s not only physically demanding, but emotionally demanding as well. I was working out a lot and doing intensive pole training, even just for the 20-second scene of me on the pole. I wanted Ani to look like a seasoned dancer, so that when you see that scene, you know a lot about her: how long she’s been working at a club, how long she’s been dancing. And dancing is different at different clubs. The clubs in Los Angeles are different from the ones in New York, and a gentleman’s club—more of a lap dance club—is different from a strip club. It’s really nuanced, and I wanted it to be very specific.”

As for what comes next, Madison isn’t in a rush. “I want to feel the way I felt making Sean’s movie on all of my next projects. I have lots of dreams that I still want to accomplish, and I would love to be making movies that I feel very passionate about until I’m 90 years old. I’m not in a rush to find the next thing. I’m waiting for something that I fall in love with to come to me, or for me to find.”

After Anora, Mikey Madison will never be the same—and neither will her career. This film has propelled her into the spotlight, and it’s clear that her commitment to authenticity and advocacy is here to stay.