Mikey Madison talked to a whole lot of people in order to craft her sex worker character in “Anora” — but that doesn’t mean she wanted to portray a “universal sex worker story.” In fact, the actress says it was important to her not to do that for Sean Baker’s acclaimed new film.
Following its premiere at Cannes earlier this year, where it won the Palme d’Or, “Anora” hit the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday. It tells the story of Anora, a sex worker from Brooklyn, who falls into her own Cinderella story when she marries the son of an oligarch. Said oligarch isn’t exactly pleased about it though.
Sitting down at TheWrap’s 2024 TIFF Studio sponsored by Moët & Chandon and Boss Design, Madison explained that her first step was talking to people who actually work in the industry.
“It was amazing, meeting our consultants, who were very generous, sharing stories with me and just giving me their time to let me pick their brain about what their job is like so that I could know all of the nuances of of what it’s like to work in a club, how it feels to dance, give a lap dance, all of those things. And then also just, you know, speaking about their personal life,” Madison said.
On top of that, Madison consumed media at length, reading various memoirs and watching documentaries. But at the end of the day, she used the information she got to craft a singular person with a singular experience.
“I really feel like I did my due diligence and learned as much as I could about sex work so that I could take the things that resonated with me within the character, and sort of like move off of that,” she explained.
“It was important that we were not telling a universal sex worker story. It’s just one person, and so I wanted it to be specific to her story, because I think everyone’s experience is different.”
You can watch TheWrap’s full interview with Madison in the video above.
“Anora” will be released by Neon on Oct. 18.
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