When writer/director Sean Baker saw Mikey Madison play one of Charles Manson’s followers in Quentin Tarantino’s , he knew she was one to watch. After seeing her in 2022’s , Baker – best known for , and – decided he wanted her for the lead of his next film, . No audition required.
“I’ve never had a director reach out like that and want to pitch me an idea,” the softly spoken Madison tells . “I remember talking to my agent and she said, ‘You have the role.’ I was like, ‘Even before meeting him? I don’t even know what this movie is about.
I don’t know what it is he sees in me or how he’s able to trust me like that.’” Madison met Baker and his producer and wife Samantha Quan for coffee, and he told her “a loose idea for what the film would be. The storyline was a little different and I didn’t know much about my character.
I don’t think I even knew what her name would be. He would go into detail about certain scenes, and I could see how excited he was. He said, ‘If you want to work together, I’ll write this movie for you.
’ I said yes, because he’s a talented filmmaker and I love his films.” This was January 2022 and, with Madison on board, Baker set about writing what would become . The story follows Ani (Madison), a steely exotic dancer from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn who turns tricks on the side and marries pampered Russian oligarch’s son Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) in a Las Vegas wedding, then must contend with his family’s desper.