Star Baker
ANORA DIRECTOR SEAN BAKER ON THE ULTIMATE HOLLYWOOD HANDSHAKE — SWEEPING THE OSCARS
WORDS ALEX GODFREY
APPROPRIATELY, BEING THAT Sean Baker’s Anora is a fairy tale of sorts, it has been for the filmmaker — and its tinsel-haired star, Mikey Madison — too. With a mere $6 million budget, the bitingly comedic drama, about a young sex-worker caught up in a frantic battle of wills (and henchmen) after marrying the son of a Russian oligarch, stormed the awards circuit. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Madison bagged a BAFTA, and then it took home five Oscars — one for Madison, and four with Baker’s name on them, including Best Director and Best Picture, a record number of wins for one person for an individual film. Now that’s a happy ending.
Anora is Baker’s eighth film, and all are uniquely his, each boasting vibrancy, authenticity and fly-on-the-wall energy. When we talk in mid-March, to discuss Anora’s Criterion Collection release, he’s still reeling from the Oscars, and life is no less hectic: he’s in Orlando, working on a 4K release of his 2017 drama, The Florida Project. “It hasn’t stopped,” he says. “We went right from the Oscars to freaking... we went to Japan to promote Anora, and then back to LA do our last Q&A at the New Beverly, Tarantino’s theatre. And now we’re here; it’s stupid. We should probably go to sleep.” But not before speaking to Empire. Sorry, Sean.
Anora
’s journey has been incredible, culminating in five Oscars. Is there a part of you that finds it difficult to process?
Definitely. The reason I mentioned what I was doing after the Oscars is because, to tell you the truth, I didn’t have time to process. It wasn’t until I finished that last Q&A, three nights ago at the New Beverly, that it felt like the end of the tour. So I’ve been processing it and thinking about it. I actually texted Mikey last night and said, “It’s finally sinking in. We did it. I can’t believe we just swept the Oscars!” And she said, “Yeah, we did!” So it’s something that’s just happening now for me. Yeah, it’s very, very surreal, because we had no expectations of any wins at all. We were so happy just to play in competition at Cannes. We thought, “There’s no way it could ever win, because it’s a comedy, and it’s rare that comedies win at Cannes.” When we won, that was something I had to process, for quite a while. So I can’t even believe what has happened after that. Yeah, it really is mind-blowing.