Toronto/CMEDIA: Written, directed, and edited by Sean Baker, the film Anora is a 2024 American romantic comedy-drama following the marriage between Brooklyn stripper Anora (Mikey Madison) and son of a Russian oligarch Ivan Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn). Partly hilarious and sincerely beautiful, an underlying harsh sadness to the film Anora that at times rises right up to the surface. The film also features a supporting cast of Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, and Aleksei Serebryakov.
Asha Bajaj, IBNS-CMEDIA correspondent on the sidelines of TIFF 2024 in conversation with Sean Baker to know more about the film and its characterization.
The following is an excerpt of the conversation:
To Sean Baker: I want to ask right off the start did you always have Mikey in mind for the role?
Sean Baker: Pretty much because we had just started development on it. We had come up with the idea and Mikey really caught my attention. In the 2019 film, ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’. I went back to see it three times; the third time was specifically just to re-watch her scene at the end of the film and we just had her in mind in terms of an actor that we wanted to work with. Then we were getting closer and closer to the film to see her play a ghost face killer. We were in the theater and she showed me there in that performance combined with the one from ‘Once Upon a Time’ that she could do what I needed for her to do in Anora.
I turned to my wife and producer Samantha Quan and decided to call her reps the minute we left the theater and we did. We contacted Mikey and I pitched this to her at just the basic idea. We really connected and she showed enthusiasm. I offered her the role andI then I decided to write the screenplay with Mikey in mind. So it was written for her and I was able to have her face in mind as I was fleshing out Annie in the script .I had very high expectations but she far exceeded them.
To Mikey: Anora is a complex combination of both cynicism and vulnerability. Can you speak a little bit about how you approach the role?.
I think that all people have different sides to this sensitivity and hardness and all of those things. So I wanted her to be very layered like all real people are. You know I did lots of research into sex work I read Memoirs, watched documentaries. I also learned some Russian for the film and did really intensive Dance Training as well. All the things that actors do to prepare.
It’s remarkable so you’re not a native Russian speaker
No I’m not because it comes off very easily when you do thank you.
To Sean: Could you talk to me about how you found Karren and Yura Borisov
Well sure let’s start with Karren I go way back. Karren has been in every one of my films and years ago we talked about making a film about the Russian American community in Brighton Beach and Coney Island and it just took us this long to get there. But so Karren’s been with me for years. Yura Borisov came to the table after I saw an amazing film ‘Compartment Number Six‘, a 2021 drama road movie co-written and directed by Juho Kuosmanen, starring Seidi Haarla and Yuri Borisov, based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Rosa Liksom. I contacted Yura Borisov and he won my heart
To Sean: How did you bring Vache Tovmasyan on board?
Sean to Karren: Karren, why don’t you talk about that?
Karren: I’ve been following Vache Tovmasyan on Instagram for many years. Five years ago I texted him on Via Instagram that I was his fan and asked him how I could watch his work online. He never answered me. So five years fast forward when Sean called me and asked me to take over. I hesitated as I’ve seen his comedy. I suggested we browse. After we found Vache he replied that he had seen my text message. Then Sean Baker called him to come on board. And we reached out and he did the most amazing self tape ever after we gave him a scene to record. He already sent it back to us as he was doing it nude back to the camera looking out a window somewhere in Moscow and we felt that this guy knows my sensibility. And I couldn’t see anybody else in the role.
To Mikey: There is a tremendous chemistry and also comfort between you and Mark and I just wondered did you rehearse?
I think it depended on the scene we would rehearse if we felt like it was necessary but we just spent lots of time together and sort of created some friendship that we had and I think we had just great chemistry in general so it really shows with the characters absolutely.
