Actor Mikey Madison has delivered the performance of the season with her star-making turn in Anora. She joins us this week on the heels of her recent Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

We begin by discussing the organic partnership she formed with writer/director Sean Baker (3:30), the ‘emotional preparation’ required to tell this vulnerable story (7:00), her San Fernando Valley upbringing (11:45), and her formative years working with Pamela Adlon on Better Things (22:38).

On the back-half, Mikey reflects on her breakout part in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (30:30), the sex professionals who helped inform her work in Anora (32:50), how she excavated her past to create in the present (43:10), and where she hopes to go on the other side of this towering achievement (49:50).

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