Meet Mikey Madison: The ‘Anora’ Star Everyone’s Talking About (2025)

This year’s Oscar nominees for Best Actress have generated a lot of buzz, thanks to Demi Moore’s major comeback with her first-ever nomination for her bold role in The Substance. Moore, of course, has been a movie star for decades, but her closest competition is a newcomer who isn’t quite a household name: Mikey Madison.

At just 25, Madison is nominated for an Academy Award for her sweet yet sassy performance in Anora, playing the titular Brooklyn sex worker who impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch, leading to much chaos. The independent film, shot on location with a $6 million budget, became a box office hit, earning rave reviews for Madison’s spirited screen presence. Despite her success, the breakout talent’s journey remains largely underreported—so we’re diving into how she got this far. Here’s everything to know about this promising newcomer.

Mikey Madison has been acting since her teen years

Mikey Madison, born Mikaela Madison Rosberg, originally trained as a competitive horseback rider (she jokingly told an interviewer, “For a long time, I was the weird horse girl.”) She soon set her sights on acting at age 14, beginning her screen career with appearances in short films and making her feature debut in the 2017 film Liza, Liza, Skies Are Grey.

In 2016, she was cast as Pamela Adlon’s angsty teen daughter on the acclaimed series Better Things, a role she held until the show ended in 2022. Madison called Better Things, “my introduction to acting, my college, my film school, really everything,” and while on the show, she began taking on roles in films like Nostalgia and Monster (both 2018), and her role as a Manson girl in Quentin Tarantino’s ’60s-set 2019 hit Once Upon a Time . . . In Hollywood introduced her to a wider audience. Last year, she returned to TV with a supporting role in the miniseries Lady in the Lake.

In 2022, Madison played a teen girl who turned out to be a crazed murderer in the fifth installment of the Scream franchise. The one-two punch of Once Upon a Time . . . In Hollywood and Scream established Madison as Hollywood’s newest scream queen (in both films she dies horrible, fiery deaths) and proved that she was a fearless performer who could bring intrigue to even the most evil characters.

How Mikey Madison was cast in Anora

Once Upon a Time . . . In Hollywood and Scream caught the attention of writer and director Sean Baker, so he wrote the Anora screenplay with Madison in mind and cast her in the role without having her audition. The actress was already a fan of Baker’s work and recalled, “I said ‘yes’ even before I read the script. I knew whatever he created was something I would want to be a part of.”

Historically, films about sex workers have often relied on cliche, but Anora stands out for its slapstick moments and subversion of the typical Pretty Woman trope. Madison worked hard to make sure her performance felt authentic: she learned Russian, developed a spot-on Brooklyn accent (she actually grew up in L.A.) and immersed herself in the world of strip clubs to learn how to pole-dance like a pro. On top of all that, she even did all her own stunts and held her own during an intense fight scene.

When it came to preparing for her role, Madison said, “I’ve made friends who are dancers. I wanted every aspect of Ani’s career and what she does to be realistic—but also, that’s not her entire life; that’s just her job.”

Reflecting on her character, Madison told Vanity Fair, “I feel very different personally and physically to her in every way, but I related to her hopefulness a little bit. It felt like I was constantly exerting so much energy to get to the places that she was in.” And though Anora certainly has her over-the-top moments, Madison’s attentiveness as a performer comes through, as she carries the movie with humor and heart.

Mikey Madison’s next move

Madison has called playing Anora “genuinely life-changing,” but while she’s now one of the most in-demand young actresses in Hollywood, she’s not rushing into her next role. As she described it, “I think that I’m being very thoughtful about the next job I choose for many different reasons. I know who I am as an actor and an artist now. I know how I want to feel making a movie. I’ve been lucky to have every job that I’ve had, but I want to feel—even just a little bit—the way I felt making Sean’s movie on my next. So it’s important for me to be in love with the character. It’s an emotional job that I’m doing, and so I’m waiting for something that really speaks to me. That’s what I’ve been thinking about, and right now I’m still waiting for that.”

We can’t wait to see what Mikey Madison does next, and judging by her philosophy for choosing roles and the careful work she put into Anora, we’re sure she’ll be captivating in whatever project she takes on.