Sean Baker has been making movies that touch on the world of sex work for years, from “Tangerine” to “Red Rocket.” But while he’s had success before, this year’s “Anora” is the first of his films that has broken through in such a massive way.
“Anora” – which follows the whirlwind romance (and fallout thereof) between a stripper (Mikey Madison) and the son of a Russian oligarch (Mark Eydelshteyn) – has received rave reviews from critics (including from this one), won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is considered one of the major front runners in the Oscar race for Best Picture.
Baker has long been interested in making complex, wholly character-driven stories about the types of people we don’t often see on our screens. I was lucky enough to speak with Baker recently about the making of this film and how it all came together.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
A lot of your movies touch on class and class conflict, but I think for the most part, they tend to stay away from extravagant wealth – the other side of the coin from characters like Moonee and her mom in “The Florida Project,” or Mikey in “Red Rocket.” What I found interesting about “Anora” is that Ani is really thrust into this other world, and there’s a clash. While it’s still a character-driven story, it’s a little less insular, and more expansive in a way. How was that for you, kind of upping the ante in terms of the expansiveness of the world itself?
Sean Baker: Being a producer of my films, I have to keep that cap on. When I have a limited budget, and I’m writing, I think about what I’m actually able to do and what I’m not able to do with my budgets. So the fact that I had a little more money with this one – it cost just a little bit more than “The Florida Project” – therefore I knew I was able to be a little bit bigger in scope. We always put all the money on the screen, because we know our films are competing with studio films, and even mini-studio films. It’s harder, because of the subject matter that I’m covering and my lack of a cast of A-list talent, you know? So we always put the production value on the screen. So I did think about, okay, if I have this extra little bit of money, I want to use that extra little bit of money, and make it go a far way.
It didn’t change my writing at all. I think my previous writing has just been – I limited myself, perhaps, in terms of scope, because of the money I was dealing with.
It’s interesting, talking about writing knowing what the budget is going to be. And I know you edited this film as well. You’re wearing all of these different hats – when you’re directing, when you’re in production, are you thinking about the edit at the same time?
Baker: Definitely. You have to. You know, I think it’s such a part of my process. In the past, I’ve always said it’s half of my directing. Now, I actually think – now that I’m solo writing – it’s a third of the entire process. I have to write, direct and edit for it to be my vision, for it to be what I want to say. Because if I handed this off to an editor, I guarantee you, it would be a very different film. I’m pretty much the only one who can figure out how to put all these images together. I always say that if I was a director for hire, I would be fired the second day because the studio would look at my rushes and be like – this doesn’t make any sense. So I definitely keep my editing cap on while I’m directing, knowing also, ultimately, that’s where I will figure out the proper balance in terms of tone as well.
I want to talk about the cast of this movie. I think you have a really interesting eye for casting. I was reading an article about how some of the girls who work in the strip club were cast, and there have been stories about you casting people based off of their Instagram, things like that. What is the immediate factor, or your immediate reaction that draws you into a performer?
Baker: It’s that “It” factor! Nobody’s been able to define it, ever, so I certainly can’t define it. But it’s that thing where you see somebody’s combination of their physicality and their persona, and you’re like, that person deserves to be on the big screen. Not deserves – we all deserve! – but you know what I’m saying, that we want to see that person. [They] will shine on the big screen. That person has that “It” factor that draws people in. There’s something dynamic, extremely dynamic about that person. I personally, as a filmgoer, want to see more of that person. I would like to see that person on the big screen.
And it happens in any way. Being that I cast on my own, along with my wife and producer Samantha Quan, we are always keeping our eyes open. And it doesn’t have to be just on the street. You mentioned it, it’s also social media … also just watching a lot of movies – watching new films in order to discover fresh talent and upcoming talent. That’s how Mikey [Madison] came to the table. It was really just “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” and “Scream,” and those two things made me say, “She’s the one.” Suzanna Son from “Red Rocket,” we saw her in the lobby of the ArcLight. There were probably that day – it was a busy day at the ArcLight – I would say there were probably almost 60 to 80 people in the lobby, and she stood out. Amongst all those people, she shined across the room. We could just see her. And we both said, “Who’s that?” So, it really is an “It” factor. We just look for that.
Mikey Madison is wonderful in this film, and I had the same experience you did with her in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” and “Scream.” Someone who I had a vague notion of, but I think a lot of American audiences won’t, is Yura Borisov, who I thought was wonderful as Igor. How did you come across him and his work?
Baker: I had been a fan of Juho Kuosmanen, the Finnish director, from his previous film, “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki.” Then we were at Cannes with “Red Rocket” the same year he had “Compartment Number 6.” I went to his screening, and I saw Yura, and I didn’t need any more convincing. That was it. In the back of my head, I had been planning “Anora,” so “Anora” was starting to flesh out, and I knew there was this character Igor, this heavy. I didn’t even have the name yet, of Igor, but you know, I had this idea of this heavy that would be a part of this plot. So he was precast, like, right there.
I think he was the thing that surprised me the most. I particularly loved how he was framed throughout the movie in relation to Ani. He was constantly over her shoulder, like this looming kind of presence behind her. Sometimes it’s intimidating, but it can be oddly comforting too. What were you trying to evoke with that framing?
Baker: Well, we knew we were going, obviously, in a certain direction. So it was just about how much I’d show my hand to the audience, and hoping that it plays one way upon first watch, and then, if anyone wants to watch my film again, I think it would play very differently. Because then you would actually be watching even moreso, for any hints. And there are plenty of them, trust me. Yura gave me such a consistently subtle performance all the way through. It was really up to me in post to say, how much will I cut away to him? Or how much will I hold on him? Because he’s actually more in the dark than the audience, and his character is trying to figure out what is going on here, who Ani is, this situation. Yura is such a wonderful actor, he didn’t even have to say anything for you to see it on his face. There’s a lot going on there. He’s trying to figure things out. He is intrigued by Ani, you can see that. He’s sometimes looking at her, and she’ll look at him and he’ll quickly look away. And that stuff you won’t really pick up until second viewing. It was really just about knowing where we would eventually lead up and how I was going to be subtle about that.
Yeah, the first interaction they have, the big fight set piece, it’s very slapsticky. But there’s also an interesting undercurrent of fear, because it is a little scary for Ani. But there is still so much slapstick humor, and his character is so interesting caught up in the middle of all that.
Baker: I did want the audience to, as you said earlier, see him as threatening in the beginning, because he is threatening! To Ani, he’s just this hoodie-wearing heavy, and she has no idea his potential in terms of violence or anything like that. So I wanted the audience to feel that for as long as they could.
A lot of your films are extremely colorful, and particularly in the first hour of “Anora,” it’s very bright, there’s a lot of neon. I feel like your eye is always drawn to Mikey – because of the tinsel in her hair, she’s almost flashing at you. But the latter half is much darker, a little grimier, which I feel is kind of a new mode for you. Could you talk about how you worked with your production designer and costume designer to create that transition and meld those two vibes?
Baker: Okay, so first off, Justine Sierakowski, who came up with the idea of the tinsel in the hair – I owe her everything. It’s amazing! When she pitched that to me, I was like, “Why haven’t I seen that in film and TV before?” And I found out that it’s kind of a new thing, and especially within the stripper world it’s becoming a thing. So it’s brand new. She pitched it to me, and I said, “Absolutely.” It gives you a hit of color and light every time she moves, every frame – and there’s 24 frames a second. Every frame, it moves, it’s helping me, in terms of visual eye-candy, right?
But overall, I knew this film wasn’t going to be like my previous films that really leaned into a rainbow palette. I felt it just wasn’t appropriate for this film, being the fact that it was winter and In New York. We knew it was going to be kind of overcast, gray skies. So where was the color going to come from? The color was going to come from objects. We started to lean into the reds and blues. And why? Well, that’s up for interpretation. But it’s pretty easy to figure out why. I mean, red can signify certain things work, but also within politics.
So anyway, we knew we were going to lean into the reds and the blues. My production designer, Stephen Phelps, I gave him references like [Jean-Luc] Godard’s “Contempt” … and Spanish films, like [Pedro] Almodóvar – stuff that leans into primary colors here and there, and he just went to town. I mean, every frame of the movie has at least one hit of red, whether it’s a pillow in the back, or her scarf or, you know, even her hair. It’s always there. The entire crew, we were just on the same page. We were in sync, you know? So Stephen Phelps [was] working directly with Drew Daniels, my cinematographer, just to make sure that that color palette was always being nailed.
The latter half, the boardwalk search, reminded me a lot of the “Pine Barrens” episode of “The Sopranos,” and not just because that involves Paulie and Christopher searching for a lost Russian. Just that influx of comedy and danger really evoked that for me.
Baker: I love that series, and I’m from “Soprano”-ville. I grew up in central Jersey, so I knew a couple of families that “The Sopranos” could have been modeled after them. But I have to tell you, I didn’t even really think about that reference until somebody brought it up just recently in a review. And then I [thought], okay, I see that. I think I have a lot of subconscious rip-offs in this movie.
I’ve been listening to “Greatest Day” by Take That since I watched this movie. So thank you for introducing that into my life.
Baker: You’re welcome! It’s such an ear worm. You’re not going to be able to get it out of your head. I’ll give you a really quick anecdote about that. We choreographed that opening title sequence – knowing that it would be part of that montage halfway through, book-ending the beginning – to two other tracks of music. I can’t tell you who they were, but they were very big, like top – you can imagine. Top, top, top pop music. When we got to post, I put the music on the beginning, and something didn’t feel right. It didn’t represent the movie how we thought it was going to. So we were actually really frustrated in the beginning of the edit, and I remember driving around with Samantha (Quan) in the car, and just saying, “There has to be a song out there about a greatest day.” Because it’s [Ani’s] greatest day, so there has to be at least one song. [Samantha] went on on Spotify, and she was like, “Actually, there is. It’s by Take That.” I said, “Take That? The boy band?”
She played it, and we were immediately hooked. We got home, we threw it on the opening title sequence, and it was like serendipity. As if we choreographed it to that – I think it had the same tempo, that’s why. All the credits were coming up perfectly, it landed on [Ani’s] face as the chorus hit. And we were just like, this is too good to be true. Then we realized it was a hit everywhere in the world except the U.S. It was like number one everywhere. It played really well in London recently, really well. I’m proud that the rest of the world will feel it in one way, but in the U.S. it’ll hopefully be a discovery for people. And maybe even, hopefully, become big here at some point.