Writer-director Sean Baker’s latest drama made its Canadian premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival
Mikey Madison took preparing to play a stripper in Anora quite seriously — despite only a brief pole dancing sequence in the movie.
“I think I prepared even more than I needed to, honestly,” the Scream (2022) actress, 25, tells PEOPLE following her new movie’s Canadian premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, Sept. 8. Preparation meant “multiple months training as a dancer” so that her character, the titular Anora, “looks very seasoned.”
That included needing “to learn how to twerk,” adds Madison, “which was really important because that’s a big part of dancing at clubs.”
Written and directed by Tangerine filmmaker Sean Baker, Anora follows the title character’s journey from Brighton Beach, N.Y., strip clubs to a whirlwind romantic elopement with the son of a Russian oligarch (played by Mark Eydelshteyn).
However, “once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled,” reads the festival’s official synopsis for the movie.
“There’s a little 20-second scene of me on a [stripper] pole,” explains Madison. But because her character has “been dancing for a few years at least,” she went above and beyond when it came to training and research. “I wanted my body to look a certain way and I also wanted to feel differently about myself when I walked around too.”