Get the latest gossip

A Night Out With the Strippers of Sean Baker’s Anora


The breakout stars on making it in Hollywood “not in spite of being a sex worker but because of it.”

Critics at Cannes are rightly gushing over Mikey Madison’s breakout performance as the titular role in Anora, Sean Baker’s film about a savvy, brash Brighton Beach stripper who meets, falls for, and spontaneously marries a Russian oligarch’s failson. What seems at first like it might be a Pretty Woman –adjacent romantic comedy soon turns into something mordantly funny and frenetic, an After Hours wild goose chase around Coney Island that never loses its believability thanks to Madison’s spirited but grounded performance (and a surprising gut-punch of a final scene from her that I’m still thinking about). I was a little drunk, and I was like, “If I don’t say something now I’ll regret it.” I tapped him on the shoulder and introduced myself and my friend, and I think I ran away screaming, but we ended up connecting over Instagram the next day and followed each other.

Get the Android app

Or read this on VULTURE

Read more on:

Photo of sean baker

sean baker

Related news:

News photo

‘Anora’ Breakout Mark Eidelstein On Impressing Sean Baker With a Nude Self Tape, Being Called the ‘Russian Timothée Chalamet’ (EXCLUSIVE)

News photo

Sean Baker Has Another Sex Worker Movie In The Works After ‘Anora’, Thinks Trade Should Be Decriminalized – Cannes

News photo

Sean Baker Makes Movies About Sex Workers in Hopes of ‘Helping Remove the Stigma’ — and He’s ‘Already Talking About the Next One’