Mikey Madison: “I’m a valley girl”
« I’m a valley girl, » Mikey replies when asked about her upbringing. Having never set foot in L.A., we ask her to describe the social type that is suppose to represent: « It’s a pejorative expression, you know, a cliché, partly false, partly true, like all clichés. People make fun of our accent, our excessive consumerism, accuse us of being too superficial and egocentric ». Growing up in the green valleys of California’s upper middle class, Mikey spent her childhood riding horses, like her psychoanalyst mother and grandmother. Her father, also a shrink, was into movies. He showed her films by Tarantino, Sofia Coppola’s – a goddess for me, the actress says – and Scorsese from an early age. But it was when she saw Jennifer Lawrence in Hunger Games (2012) and River Phoenix in Stand by Me (1986) that things clicked for the shy teenager.
In real life, Mikey Madison is the exact opposite of the working-class stripper she portrays with astonishing talent in Sean Baker’s Anora, unveiled on Tuesday in the Official Competition. She’s even closer to the man her character falls in love with, the spoiled child and son of a Russian oligarch, played by the young Mark Eidelstein. The born and raised Angelino was actually very surprised when the author of Tangerine contacted her: « He’d seen me in Scream and wanted us to write a film together, I didn’t think I’d be on his indie cinema radar. » Aside from the remake of the horrific saga, she made her mark with a recurring role in the series Better Things, as well as a place in the Manson Family of Once Upon a time... in Hollywood, an impressive next-gen breeding ground, since it also Austin Butler, Margaret Qualley, Maya Hawke, Dakota Fanning, Victoria Pedretti and Sydney Sweeney.
Having been unable to accompany Tarantino on the red carpet five years ago, this is her first time in Cannes. In the small salon of the Palais des Festivals where the interview takes place, the actress radiates the aura of a star who hatched the day before, but also exudes a form of placidity. She is well aware of the rarity of the creative process proposed to her by Sean Baker, who asked her to participate in the script, to invest herself in the creation of the character and to define its contours through the rehearsals and improvisation sessions that preceded filming. She also had to undergo intensive training to get the figure and dancing skills for the job: « The hardest part was pole dancing. »
When asked about her film dreams, she expresses a desire to one day work with Lucas Guadagnino, whose latest film Challengers she loved, calling it « edgy and sexy ». But her biggest dream lies elsewhere: « It’s to be able to play in a Western where I’ll be riding a horse and doing my own stunts, because those are the only two things I know how to do well. » Come Cannes 2026, we’re sure we’ll be meeting in the same place, for a film by Chloé Zhao or Greta Gerwig – who may be presenting her with an award on Saturday evening – in which we’ll see Mikey Madison riding at full pelt through the valley’s opulent gardens, one by one, like Burt Lancaster through the pools in The Swimmer.