Kevin Lally on Film

Sean Baker set an Academy Awards record on Sunday, March 2, 2025, winning four personal Oscars as the writer, director, editor, and part of the producing team of his $6 million comedy-drama Anora. (Only Walt Disney had previously won four Oscars in a night, but for different films.) Throughout awards season Baker had been a champion of both the theatrical movie experience and the cause of independent filmmakers—he calls himself “an indie for life.”

Relative newcomer Mikey Madison is sensational in the title role, a New York lap dancer who falls for and marries the spoiled son of a Russian oligarch. In a bit of an upset, 25-year-old Madison won the Oscar for Best Actress over veteran favorite Demi Moore, who earned her first nomination at the age of 62. It turns out Hollywood has a long tradition of rewarding actresses in their 20s: Marlee Matlin (then 21), Jennifer Lawrence (22) and Janet Gaynor (also 22) were the youngest to take the Best Actress trophy.

I had the privilege of speaking with Baker for the Winter 2024 issue of Cineaste shortly before the film’s release last October. The entire interview is available only to Cineaste subscribers—$24 a year for four quarterly issues (a bargain), with individual issues selling for $8.

Sean Baker (right) directing Mikey Madison and Mark Eydelshteyn on the set of Anora. Photo courtesy Augusta Quirk/Neon.

Here’s Baker’s answer when I asked him what his leading lady brought to the character of Anora beyond his original concept:

“Her full dedication and the incredible hard work she put into it. I’ve never worked with an actor who has put this much time and effort into a role. Actually, it was really surprising. I was taken aback by it because I had high expectations, but she far exceeded them. You might know this, but she did months of pole-dancing lessons, and she’s really only on the pole for 20 seconds in the film [laughs]. I think what that did was give her confidence as somebody playing a dancer, but it also gave her the physicality of a dancer and the swagger of a dancer, all that stuff. Then there was the research she did with the sex workers. I put her in touch with our consultants and she spent time with them really picking their brains, trying to understand more about that world. She spent time in that club that we shot in. She shadowed dancers. She worked with a dialect coach for her New York accent, because you know, she’s a Valley girl. And then on top of that, she was totally willing to tackle pages and pages of dialogue that were in Russian, a language she doesn’t know. So there was a lot of work that she had to put in. I was incredibly impressed.

“But to answer your question, though—how that actually manifested into her elevating Ani into more than what was on the page. I think that all the work she did made me actually flesh out scenes. For example, through her dancing lessons, she actually choreographed that dance that she does when she goes over to the mansion the second time—she does that erotic dance as she works her way across the floor and onto the couch. In the script, it was as simple as “She performs an erotic dance for Ivan and they have sex, period, end of scene.” So there’s no detail whatsoever. And she recorded herself doing this dance. And I said: Oh my God, this helps me in so many ways, because not only is this extremely impressive, it shows how good Ani is at her job. It was actually helping me flesh out this character. So we turned that moment into a set-piece—we turned it into a music video, actually. And shot it almost through the eyes of Ivan or maybe one of her clients. That’s just one example, but there’s lots that she brought to the table.”

Congratulations, Sean Baker and Mikey Madison!