MIKEY MADISON: The Road to an Oscar?

What, where, how? If you’ve been dozing off for a moment, you may have missed the time when Mikey Madison could already be called an “Oscar-nominated” actress. For the 26-year-old, there is no gradual rise to fame like other actresses of her generation, such as Sydney Sweeney or Dakota Fanning. Instead, her success came suddenly, shooting her straight into the stratosphere—an interesting parallel to the fate of Ani from Anora. Hopefully, this Cinderella story doesn’t suffer the brutal reality check that Sean Baker gave us in the movie.

Mikaela Madison Rosberg was born on March 25, 1999, in Los Angeles, into a Jewish family of two psychologists. She has two sisters and two brothers, one of whom is her twin. During her childhood, she absorbed the films of Woody Allen, Quentin Tarantino, Sofia Coppola, and Martin Scorsese. She admired Holly Hunter and Laura Dern, but didn’t always want to follow in their footsteps.

All thanks to Jennifer Lawrence

As she has said, she was “painfully shy” and avoided contact with peers. In class, she had to mentally prepare to raise her hand. She rode horses, aiming for a professional career, until one day at 14 she decided she wanted to be an actress. Madison said that she knew it sounded cliché, but she had seen The Hunger Games and thought that it was really cool and that she wanted to do what the actress was doing.

After a few roles in short films and her debut in Liza, Liza, Skies Are Grey (which was released years after production ended), she appeared at an audition for the series Better Things, where she was offered the role of the eldest daughter of the main character, played by Pamela Adlon, known from Californication. Young Mikey spent several good years on the set, starring in all four seasons and learning the craft from her mentor, Adlon, who gave her the best advice at the time: “Don’t take yourself too seriously.”

Tarantino, “Scream,” and the awards season

Hard work on the set of Better Things paid off with another successful casting, this time in a Quentin Tarantino production. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood turned out to be a true talent factory, where we could see young Austin Butler, Margaret Qualley, Maya Hawke, Sydney Sweeney, and of course, Madison, who gave a stellar performance as one of Charles Manson’s fanatical followers.

Three years later, she had the chance to play another unhinged killer, this time wearing the iconic Ghostface costume in Scream, a highly successful continuation of Wes Craven’s franchise.

It was these two roles that caught the attention of Sean Baker, an independent filmmaker known for Tangerine and Red Rocket, who wrote the role of Ani specifically for her. Anora, an erotic dancer and sex worker involved in a toxic relationship with the son of Russian oligarchs, is a pivotal role in Red Rocket, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Madison’s brave, mature, and significant performance earned her nominations for the BAFTA, Golden Globe, and recently, the Oscar, despite the unnecessary controversy surrounding the fact that she had backed out of working with an intimacy coordinator during the filming.

The Oscar goes to… Mikey Madison?

Will Mikey Madison accept her first Oscar at the Dolby Theatre in California this March? I sincerely hope so, because among all the nominees, she seems like the best choice.

However, she doesn’t seem like the type to only focus on the upcoming awards show. Madison said that she always looked to the future and that work brought her joy. She mentioned that she wanted to keep working, and when she wasn’t working, life went by pretty slowly, making her wonder when she would be working again. She emphasized that the most important thing for her was choosing roles she liked and participating in authentic projects.

In addition, last year she adopted a rescued dog named Jam, who now lives in California with her and her cat, Biscuit, so she probably never lacks things to do.

And when she can, she bakes cakes.