Anora's Mikey Madison & Director Sean Baker Break Down a Scene | Vanity Fair

I don't want to actually touch it I feel inappropriate you can do it it's okay we can do it yep there we go and then like the alcohol comes out yeah yeah you pour the alcohol up here it comes down right into Mikey's mouth okay hello I'm Sean Baker writer and director of Anora and I'm Mikey Madison and I play Annie and this is notes on a scene no way yes way I so we're watching the New Year's Eve party scene an insane inside an elevator oh my God this is actually the first scene that

I shot with Luna but we already had created a friendship before then so we were able to improvise never seen any are my tits off no your tits look amazing they look perfect wait are my tits off no we shot this in the winter so these two were scantily clad and freezing absolutely freezing shooting this cles don't go with the outfit no no no now that we're inside here the audience is seeing the man through Luna's eyes at this moment this was a a real home a real mansion in mil Basin I wanted the the

biggest most luxurious mansion in the area and so I uh did a little bit of Google Earth searching I found it and I sent it to my incredible location manager Ross broer the family that was living there was so wonderful to allow us to shoot this film there we spent approximately 3 weeks at the Mansion but I really like this closeup of Luna because she's taking it all in and it's it's quite a spectacle and it's nice to see Annie's excitement as well because you can kind of see that Intrigue and and excitement building and

she gets to show her best friend exactly bro bro with movies sometimes you don't have any music playing and the actors have to scream as if there is music but we wanted this to seem like a real party so we had a DJ blasting music we had approximately 50 extras that were crowding in front of the camera to make it look even bigger here we're presenting Mark in a Great Gatsby sort of wayu this is playing it very big in a great way every time Mark was bringing the same amount of energy if not even

more he really had to be I don't know like the the Energizer Bunny in these scenes and sort of like he was the one that was guiding everyone's sort of frenetic yeah he was the center of the party is The Great Gatsby uh I'm so excited that you are here and let's go dream so we're about to go over to the ice sculpture get some drink oh yeah yep right here there you go I I'm not going to do I don't want to actually touch it I feel inappropriate you can do it it's okay we

can do it yep there we go and then like the the the alcohol comes out yeah yeah you pour the alcohol up here it comes down right into Mikey's mouth okay are you ready and any now our wonderful production designer Steven Phelps showed me this and was like would this be appropriate at Avon's party and I was like hell yeah yo at this uh now we're introducing some of Bon's friends played by these three wonderful actors lad Anton and Maria it's sort of setting up the relationship it's also showing I think the first instance of

sort of a perhaps disrespect towards a sex worker that you'll see a lot of coming up later in the film but just the fact that they're laughing about it and laughing about the situation I just wanted to drop that little seed in there early on in the film up until now she's not being paid to be there so I think already the lines are being blurred a little bit between you know client and also potential boyfriend yeah and they're also kind of the same age like Annie and Lulu are walking into a party with people

who are the same age as them yeah in their 20s and so I think it feels different than the previous clients that yeah she isn't there just for business there's a little more there's an Intrigue you can see it in your eyes actually oh yeah looking at Ivonne and and you can see there's a little more well Ivonne is very Charming to her as well and so uh I think it it disarms her in a different way amazing cinematographer Drew Daniels was right there in the middle of them dancing along with them holding a 35mm

camera on his shoulder bouncing it was fun it was really [Applause] fun oh and here's the moment where we subtly introduce Ivan's Armenian babysitters Karin caragulian who plays Tauros in the film we go way back he's been in every one of my films it was actually kin and I who wanted to make a film about the Russian American community in Brighton Beach the spark of this entire project so I always knew that he would be part of this he he uh he brought a lot to it he knows this community very well his beautiful wife

Lana is Russian and actually plays his wife in the church scene uh in the baptism scene of Vach tomasian is probably armenia's biggest comedian he's an incredible performer so funny um he came in a little late to this meaning into the casting process and I'm so so happy we found him playing sort of The Hired Hands of the family there to just you know to see every that everything is uh is under control on this night and we didn't want to in any way draw a lot of attention to them because well they're part of

the twist that comes later on in the film so this was just a a subtle reminder that it's not just ion here it's he's he's being he's being babysat and it's also great to see them so casual like he's just on his phone texting so clearly Ivon has parties like these all the time and this is nothing different to them exactly and the first moment that we see Tauros he's reprimanding he's scolding one of the kids cuz he's always looking down at younger Generations get this is not jungle je and and you know these guys

may come across as intimidating at first but we always wanted to break those stereotypes and we always wanted to humanize and show that everybody is just dealing with their own problems everybody is human Bach might come across as a a scary bear at first but we know he's just a truly a teddy bear ultimately yeah and at this point I don't think Annie even clocks either of them no or just sees them as one of the I don't know 20 hired help that the family has none of this is registering to her these two men

and hopefully it's not even registering that much to the audience I wanted to be very subtle yeah this is one of my favorite shots in the entire film because just watch just watch Mikey her performance is so so beautiful here it's so subtle she's obviously very intrigued by Ivon so much so that when he enters the scene she loses her place counting down and it's really cute it's really cute the way that she looks over to her friend uh Lulu for a second and then back and then regains her composure we did our countdown what

how many times like 10 times yeah probably yeah okay so this shot that you paused on this is very important he's drinking water on New Year's Eve and he can't toast because of it why well maybe perhaps garnick is at the at the current moment sober later on he gets kicked in the face by Mikey and given drugs and then drinks and so unfortunately he obviously relapses it's a very subtle thing there but we you know all of my actors brought so much into developing their characters Bach and I spoke about the fact that this

whole incident that this whole 48 hour period probably causes this character to unfortunately fall off the wagon any any let go go go go give fireworks upstair this was just one night I mean this is an independent film not much money and time so this an extremely efficient night thanks to my wonderful producers and wonderful crew who just worked so fast all these different setups we had to shoot all of this within probably what a 10hour period of time at the most I don't know how much the audience is picking that up but you know

obviously he's looking out that Tauros and garnick don't see what he's doing here your looks great kind of like pulls up adjusts the top of Annie's dress which is an interesting moment obviously he's comfortable enough to touch her like that he's Taking Liberties but he's also covering her a little bit which I think is something interesting y y you were right huh you were right this is banging ah yeah yeah having fun yes are you there's a nice balance there you're you're riding that line between like this is just a casual social interaction and a

little bit of business going on in there yeah but you can also kind of see in her eyes how drawn in she is by Ivonne curious and I think also there's that sort of Twinkle of something else happening yeah yeah me do exactly I think the way that Mark played Ivonne was so Earnest and Charming he's keeping us laughing in between takes as well I mean he's uh he's truly the class clown sometimes and and kept us very entertained he's also just such an incredibly uh sweet sweet human was always looking out for you looking

out for his fellow actors um and then and with me he really wanted to understand his character the maturity level the immaturity level and always brought ideas to the table always yeah um maybe you know what's interesting about this moment is that we've seen her interacting with clients at the club earlier that was the whole purpose of opening the film with just showing the mechanics of of the club and and a night in the life of Annie and how she has to interact with clients this is a little different it is a different energy here

she's not hustling right now exactly she's more relaxed yeah and I think she was also hoping that he would say that as well I think she assumed that they would spend the night together that's interesting Okay I uh it's cool to hear that because uh I love to hear your interpretation of it maybe well it's New Year the accent I wanted it to be very very specific to Brighton Beach because there's obviously as New Yorkers will tell you lots of different uh variations of a New York accent and so I also wanted her to have

a a Cadence that was similar to a lot of the girls I met at the club also Luna specifically had a voice that I really liked and I think that when we were working together it was almost like we brought it out of each other even just a little bit more which was cute I know some actors have key phrases that help them get into a certain dialect but for me I think because I had just like run this accent into the ground I it was already there like I I knew that accent like the

back of my hand so that we could be really comfortable with improvisation and and in any situation so there was no specific phrase um I think it was just kind of it was there after a while yeah I would go places and try it out at the coffee shop to see if it worked but um I think I I got the stamp of of approval yes um from me cuz I'm uh I'm from the tri-state area I can spot a a bad New York accent and I was so happy that that Mikey nailed it what's

really cool about it also is that you you allow it to come out when you're more vulnerable or when you're in you know in in more High pressured situations where you're not thinking about exactly so if you see in the beginning of the film when she's approaching clients at the club it's it's subtle it's subdued she's intentionally um uh suppressing it she's putting on more of a of her you know Annie Persona at the club she's playing a very specific character version of her there and I think that for each person she meets there's a

a slightly different side of her that we get to see ah I have holiday rapes oh cool okay see she is at this point hustling him a little bit but it's a gentle hustle I will say and she's playing with him as well they're they kind of start to tease each other they playing with each other which is um which is fun it's it's flirtatious definitely but she knows that she can like squeeze a little bit more out of him because he's clearly very into her and she's into him right now I think that because

um there these characters are similar ages that's why it blurs the line I think it's not often that there's like a very wealthy young client that exists in her kind of world so that's what I've been told yeah it's uncommon um so I think that in this scene there is lots of things that she falls for I think it's also like the beginning of a possible fantasy she sees his life as like the ultimate dream and goal of what she wants and so I think that all of it is intriguing to her this sort of

like you know his life is kind of like a fairy tale in a lot of ways there may be a few red flags in there but she doesn't want to see them because you know she's also this is a yeah as you just said very exciting for her I mean who would she's hanging out with somebody her own age he has a lot of money he's partying yeah and he has been kind to her as well exactly it's a it's a good gig yeah I don't think about takeaways because every audience member will have their

own interpretation of things and I've always wanted to keep things open-ended so that every interpretation can be unique and different it's more about themes that I'm that I'm tackling and one of the big ones is power dynamics and the respect that one gives to to somebody on a different rung on the on the status ladder and this scene kind of shows it he's asking those Armenians are they looking for me you know you you see sort of the way and and the scene that immediately follows this you see the way he he he treats quote

unquote the help and so I think that's one of the big takeaways here if there's a takeaway