Transcript of Oscar Winner Mikey Madison Breaks Down Her 'Anora' Beauty Transformation | Allure

I had straightened my hair and then once moisture hit my hair it just went like Sean was like oh no what's happening to your hair I was like I'm Jewish like I don't know what do you mean I'm Mikey Madison and this is the [Music] closeup Sean Baker wrote the character for me I had about a year to really think about this character put together Pinterest mood boards which is something I love to do and just kind of brainstorm ideas for how she would look how she would dress what her hair and makeup might look like I think the dance training took five or 6 months I am not a dancer not even a little bit it was definitely the most physical training I've ever done but all of that training gave me a dancer's body I think it really helped me be more in tune with my sexuality as well I think one of the things I realized was how effortless these women move and they walk on stage and there's an easy quality and like an easy sexuality that kind of just comes out there's so much effort involved in dancing like that it's so physically strenuous but I also wanted it to look completely effortless and I knew I was like I have to be upside down even if it's for a little bit but I have really bad vertigo the first couple times I did it I had to like lay on the ground for like 45 minutes after because I was like I can't if I stand up I'm going to like smash into a wall and so that was the most difficult part was just getting over the nausea of it I went to strip club I got dances I observed to kind of understand the etiquette of the club and what that's like there are lots of like funny little anecdotes or things that I would hear women say or I'm like Ah that's so interesting I'm going to keep that in my back pocket and maybe pull it out one time I was talking to this woman and she said something so funny like I asked her how she was and she was like I don't know I'm just trying to decide if this is a dumb day or a smart day and I was like oh my God that's so [Music] Annie filming in New York where there was going to be lots of rain and a little bit of snow we were like how are we going to keep my hair straight because that's how sean wanted it we had done a screen test in Los Angeles and it was raining and I had straightened my hair and then once moisture hit my hair it just went like got really curly frizzy and Sean was like oh no what's happening to your hair I was like I'm Jewish like I don't know what what do you mean and so I got my hair chemically straightened it was a like a Brazilian blowout type solution it's pretty gnarly it's okay anything for the character our amazing hair stylist suggested putting hair tinsil in the hair which was such an amazing detail because I have all this dark black hair but when it moves it kind of catches the light and reflects light in an interesting way it kind of gives some Dimension to my hair which was essentially all one link also just tells you a lot about who this character is that she spends so much time tying in all of these individual pieces of hair tinsil because it would take like 3 hours to put all of that in it was very time consuming but I think that it was such a great cherry on top to the character's look that it was worth [Music] it the makeup was a simple liner and then kind of like a 90s lip that I would overline a little bit a little glitter on the eye like a sheer glitter but overall we wanted to keep the skin like quite clean and natural and we wanted it to look like she did her makeup herself we used Fenty Beauties I think it's a highlighter it's very sparkly and kind of um has a like a reflective quality to it and so instead of using it as a highlighter we just like washed it over my eyes and it would catch the light in a nice way I actually loved it so much I bought it for myself this is her new year's look we decided to add some bigger little sparkles I think they're tiny little stars just on the top of my cheeks sort of going up next to my eye the stars are individually placed dab on eyelash glue and then with the makeup artist finger she would just dip it into the Sparkles and then place them and adjust them a little bit I think also for this particular scene the lines are becoming a little bit blurred between customer and then him being someone who she might actually really be interested in I don't think she would ever wear Sparkles like that to the club um because they could get on a customer a client and then they would go home and have glitter on them and so she's just doing it to I don't know decorate herself a little bit more for for [Applause] Avon so this scene was just kind of a a one take scene we shot for a little bit it's her just kind of mentally preparing herself I mean obviously there's all this intense that has happened to her so I think she's looking into the mirror and she's kind of gathering up that Warrior energy that she has and so I kind of like ripped my eyelashes off and then she's completely barefaced but still has a little bit of smudge underneath because she doesn't have time to get bioderma and like wipe everything else off she's just going to do what she can because now it's time to fight for her marriage she's not thinking about how she looks she doesn't care the makeup was essentially nothing I think we would maybe brush brush the eyebrows up a little bit there was nothing to hide behind you're able to see all of that which I really wanted you to see because it's this different side of her it's quite vulnerable and I think you also see a more youthful version of her too you really see how young she is um which I think is I don't know a little unnerving for an audience I do lots of fighting every scene where I have bare legs there was like maybe 30 minutes 40 minutes minutes before hair and makeup of covering the bruises with I think it was like a tattoo covering kit because my legs were literally black and blue and I do bruise easily but it was pretty brutal looking the long acrylic nails were very very important because in strip club culture all of these women have decorated their hands in like a really glamorous way with these very specific long nails I knew I wanted them to be squared off I wanted there to be some kind of like bling or Sparkle on them and I wanted them to be long and so on my Pinterest board I had lots of photos of nails I showed a photo to Sean I was going to go get my nails done like a couple days before we started and I was like hey I kind of like this I really want to do a butterfly what do you think and he was like oh that's so perfect because I actually just added a line in the film where ivonne's father calls her a night butterfly which is another term for a sex worker and I was like wow that's so that's so kismi and so the woman who was doing my nails brought out these butterfly decals and they were huge and I was like these are the only ones that we have I guess we'll just do it and see how it looks and I sent a photo to Sean he was like um okay they're a little bigger than I thought I don't know about it and I was like no I think that this is perfect for the character because all of a sudden you're talking and you have all this attitude in the tips of your fingernails and you start moving your hands in a different way and like pointing in a different way and it was so informative to her physicality what is that is that a butterfly yeah it's a butterfly you're so classy I know I got dollar signs like a real ho the first set I got were acrylics because I didn't I was going to do lots of fighting and I didn't want them to snap off like maybe a gel X might and then as we continued filming I had to continue getting that set of nails done and the acrylic was just so hard on my nails we switched to gel X um but I kept coming in like every two weeks to get them done and they're like are you sure you want the same thing I was like yeah please just keep doing the same I shot a a scene where Annie is fighting her sort of Nemesis in the film diamond and I tripped I like twisted my ankle and my whole pinky nail like cracked in half like the the gel with the nail underneath it cracked and so that was obviously like excruciatingly painful but we had to keep filming and so y BR of my co-star would carry a little bottle of medical skin glue in his pocket every day and Like Glue my nail on before in the morning and at night and so he was like my my doctor on set no my nail's fine I have some personal tattoos which you see a little bit in the film but the ones on the back of the legs I noticed that a lot of dancers had tattoos on their legs because when you twerk it kind of shows like the skin moving and it was just like a really cute detail that a lot of women had and so Sean presented this idea for them to be little bows and I immediately loved the idea so we would apply them every single morning they were kind of annoying but you know worth it they're just a classic stick on tattoo every way that she presents herself it is feminine but there's also kind of a I think a little bit of like a tongue and cheek thing as well like there's an edge to everything and the tattoos are so feminine because they're a bow but they're in black and white yeah and you want to go to VIP Maybe yeah excellent you're walking around all night talking to people super close all the time and so you want to present yourself as the best version of you and so she has scum in her mouth just to keep things fresh all the time but then I think it also has a little bit of attitude to it and I was like oh I really want to blow a big blue bubble and so there was like this mad race around town to find blue like Hubba Bubba or whatever so I could blow that blue bubble and we got it and you can't really tell that it's blue but it's still good anyways hair and makeup and costume it's so informative for an actor how I feel inside of those clothes and how her nails make me feel the hair and makeup it changes the way you move and how you speak and so it's all such an important part of bringing a character together I've never had this experience before where I've been able to have such a say in and how she's presented costume wise hair and makeup I everything and it's really changed the way how I'd like to work in the future but it's it's really because of sea he just he listened