Mikey Madison explains her Intimacy Coordinator comments and how ‘Anora’ has changed her life

It’s no wonder Mikey Madison is busy cleaning his house. After spending most of 2024 on the road with her breakout movie “Anora” and staring down the mantle at the start of the 2025 awards season, Madison is finally spending some more time in her hometown of Los Angeles. Every little bit of zen is going to count in the coming weeks.

“I think there’s something to be said for returning to your space and a place that feels comfortable and safe to you,” says Madison. “And my home is definitely that for me, and that’s why I’ve been frantically reorganizing and cleaning and decluttering and all that, because it’s important.”

“Anora” first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival back in May 2024, where it would go on to win the Palme d’Or and catapult Madison into an awards conversation that has only gained momentum since then. Madison is up for a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy, and will receive the Breakthrough Performance Award at the Palm Springs International Film Awards on Friday and the Breakthrough Performance Award at the National Board of Review at the Tuesday gala.

“I can’t believe it’s been the same year,” says Madison, 25. “I feel like I’ve grown a lot in some ways, which is interesting. I’ve been able to experience going to many different countries and show our film to different audiences. I feel lucky to have this experience – it was definitely not one I expected and so it’s been a very pleasant surprise, all in all.”

“Anora” is the story of a sex worker in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, named Anora (Ani for short), who enters into a whirlwind marriage with the son of a Russian oligarch. Director Sean Baker, known for “The Florida Project,” “Tangerine” and “Red Rocket,” wrote the script with Madison in mind after seeing her as a member of the Manson family in the Quentin Tarantino film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood “. .”

At the time it was presented to her, the plot was a loose idea, more of a “Russian gangster story” about a woman who married the wrong man. Despite not knowing much about the character, Madison was immediately interested in the possibility of working with Baker.

“I felt that whatever character he was going to write was going to be someone I was going to love because I loved him as a filmmaker,” she says.

When Ani was washed out, Madison moved to Brighton Beach, studied both the Brooklyn accent and Russian, and learned to dance.

“I had never before had the opportunity to transform myself completely in this way. I had never had a director look at me like this, to give me this opportunity to play a character unlike any character I’ve ever played,” she says. “And so I definitely put a lot of pressure on myself to really buckle down and do the work. I dedicated all my time to it. But I was excited about everything Ani is. I was excited to investigate her work. I was excited to create her personal life and her backstory, her morals, who she is as a person and learning Russian and having this different dialect, all new to me. I saw it as a challenge and an opportunity there life.”

Before acting, Madison was a competitive equestrian. Her mother and grandmother were riders before her, and the sport was “all I knew,” Madison says. She reached a turning point about ten years ago when she felt she was “searching for something else”, which coincided with a growing interest in film, thanks to her film-loving father.

“I longed for connection on a deeper level, and I think that showed in me being an actor,” she says.

Competition riding requires a dedication and commitment that can easily be seen in Madison’s work.

“There’s a lot of dedication involved in riding, at least competitive riding. It’s not something you can do once a month. You have to develop your skills. You have to develop your muscles, you have to connect with the animal you’re working with ,” she says of the sport. “That dedication and work ethic that gave me, I translated that into my work as an actor. I’m constantly trying to grow and develop every day.”

In her more than 10 years of acting, Madison has gained recognition for characters such as brash teenager Max in “Better Things,” Susan Atkins in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and Amber Freeman in 2022’s “Scream.”

“I’ve been able to play some really bold, bold characters in my career so far,” she says of the roles. “There’s probably a reason why I’ve been cast in those roles, and I think it’s a part of me that feels free to experience all these emotions and these different versions of myself through the eyes of a character with a kind of security just beneath me.”

She was a self-described shy teenager who says she thinks she’ll always be shy in a way, despite building a resume of such riveting performances.

“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed more into myself. I know who I am. I’m sure who that person is,” says Madison. “And then I think from there the shyness kind of disappeared because I think growing up my shyness came from a lack of understanding of who I was, a discomfort with my own body. And I have different now than I did when I was younger, but I think there will always be a part of me that’s just more, what’s the word I’m looking for? I don’t know inside myself, I think.”

Her road to fame with “Anora” has not come without bumps. In December, she and Pamela Anderson partnered on Variety’s “Actors on Actors,” with Madison telling Anderson they had chosen not to use an intimacy coordinator on “Anora.” An immediate backlash came online, with many finding the comments to minimize the importance intimacy coordinators place on film sets.

“It’s not a conversation I take lightly,” Madison says of the reaction. “With any project that has intimacy involved, there are a lot of discussions beforehand. I had a lot of discussions beforehand, not just me and my director alone in a room making a decision, but with me, my team, other actors, their team – everyone involved was on the same page and we made this decision together.

“The way I see it, at the end of the day, I think as a woman it’s my right to decide what makes me most comfortable on a set, because it’s my body, and on this set was the actors involved most comfortable working without, and it might be different on the next set, but that’s my choice as a woman and an actress, and I had a very positive, safe experience on this film, and I know that not always is the case. So it’s important to have people who is there to protect and support. I look forward to working with an intimacy coordinator in the future if it feels like the right decision for everyone involved.”

Since “Anora” broke out at Cannes, Madison has yet to announce a next project — certainly not because the interest isn’t there. There are a few projects that “feel really special” to her that she hopes to be a part of, but she’s approaching her next act selectively.

“I feel very hopeful, which is funny. I was thinking earlier today about how I’ve had years where I haven’t worked – I’ve tried, but for whatever reason it’s been hard to get a job, and then is really exciting to be in this position now,” she says. “I’m able to read scripts that I never would have dreamed of reading so many years ago.

“Being intentional and specific and taking my time is just how I try to be in general in my life,” she adds. “I’ve been grateful for every (acting) job I’ve had, but I’ve also learned that it’s an emotional job and I really want to have that emotional, deep connection and love for the story and the script that I’m playing . I have to feel the pull is like, ‘I have to do this. I have to be the one to play this character.’ Or I think it’s a sign that maybe it’s not the right next job for me. But I also had such an amazing f-king life-changing experience making Sean’s film that it has made me more thoughtful as an actor. I also just think about long-term things, like what really makes me happy, what I feel I can best lend my artistic services to.”