Honestly, walking into a Sean Baker movie, you kind of know what you're getting into. There’s going to be color, there’s going to be noise, and there’s almost certainly going to be some very frank, very unfiltered looks at human intimacy. But when Anora hit theaters, the conversation around mikey madison nude sex scenes shifted from the usual "is it necessary?" to a much deeper debate about how modern Hollywood actually handles skin.
Madison didn't just show up and take her clothes off. She basically treated her nudity as a uniform.
It’s a weird way to think about it, right? Most actors talk about how vulnerable they feel when they're naked on set. Madison said the opposite. She told Isabelle Huppert in Interview Magazine that she never actually felt naked during those club scenes. To her, being topless or doing a lap dance was just part of the costume.
She only felt truly "exposed" in the film’s final, heartbreaking scene—and in that one, she was wearing a coat.
The Controversy Over Intimacy Coordinators
If you’ve been following film Twitter or industry news lately, you know that intimacy coordinators are the big thing now. They’re basically the stunt coordinators of sex scenes. Most people think they’re mandatory. But for Anora, Mikey Madison and her co-star Mark Eydelshteyn decided to skip the professional and keep things "small."
This ruffled some feathers.
A lot of industry professionals argued that skipping a coordinator sets a dangerous precedent. They say it's not just about the lead actors; it’s about the extras and the crew. But Madison was firm. She’d seen Sean Baker’s previous work—movies like Red Rocket and Tangerine—and she trusted his "dedication to authenticity." She wanted to immerse herself in the world of her character, Ani.
Basically, she felt that having a third party choreographing her every move would kill the "scrappiness" of the performance.
Sean Baker himself calls these moments "sex shots" rather than sex scenes. It sounds a bit clinical, but that’s the point. He blocks them out like action sequences. In fact, Baker and his wife, producer Samantha Quan, actually blocked out the positions themselves (fully clothed, obviously) to show the actors exactly what the camera would see.
Why the Nudity in Anora Actually Matters
Most movies use sex to sell tickets or to show how much two characters love each other. In Anora, it’s mostly transactional. Ani is a sex worker. For her, mikey madison nude sex scenes aren't about romance; they’re about a paycheck.
Madison spent months preparing for this.
- She had her dad install a stripper pole in her house so she could practice daily.
- She shadowed real dancers at the Headquarters club in Manhattan.
- She learned Russian to make the dialogue feel lived-in.
- She did "stripper boot camp" to learn how to twerk and give lap dances convincingly.
The goal wasn't to be "sexy" in the traditional Hollywood way. It was to be accurate. When you see her in the club, she’s "on." She’s working the room, gauging which guys have the most money, and using her body as a tool.
It’s actually kind of funny when you look at the "honeymoon" phase with Ivan. Those scenes are loud, chaotic, and often ridiculous. There’s a lot of humor there. It’s not the stylized, backlit stuff you see in a typical rom-com. It’s messy.
The Double Standard Debate
After Madison won the Oscar for Best Actress in 2025, a weird side-conversation started. Actor Jason Isaacs actually got into some hot water for pointing out a double standard in how we talk about nudity. He mentioned that while people were obsessing over male full-frontal scenes in other films, nobody was "discussing Mikey Madison's vulva" in the same way.
Now, he was actually wrong on a technical level—Madison didn't go full-frontal in Anora—but his point about the "normalisation" of female nudity in film is something people are still chewing on.
Have we become so used to seeing women naked on screen that we don't even see the effort behind it anymore?
Madison’s performance is a masterclass in physicality. She’s tiny, but she takes up so much space. Whether she’s screaming at a Russian goon or doing a high-intensity routine on a pole, she’s always in control of her body.
What This Means for Future Roles
Madison has come a long way from being the girl who got set on fire in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. By taking on such an explicit role and handling the press around it with so much poise, she’s basically written the blueprint for how to handle "adult" themes in the 2020s.
She treats it like a job.
A very difficult, very physical job.
📖 Related: True Love Dove Cameron: The Real Story Behind the Song and Her New Life
If you're looking to understand the craft behind the performance, it's worth watching her Variety "Actors on Actors" segment with Pamela Anderson. It’s a great look at two women from different generations talking about what it means to be "seen" by the public.
Actionable Insights for Film Buffs
If you want to dive deeper into why Anora works the way it does, keep these things in mind:
- Watch the framing: Notice how Baker uses wide shots for the "transactional" sex and closer, more chaotic shots for the "emotional" moments.
- Compare the movement: Watch how Madison walks in those massive heels compared to how she moves at the end of the film. It's a total character shift.
- Listen to the sound: There’s often no score during the intimate scenes. It makes them feel "clinical" and real rather than cinematic.
The biggest takeaway is that Madison’s approach was about agency. She chose how she wanted to be portrayed, she chose the level of oversight she wanted on set, and she chose to make the nudity a functional part of the story rather than a distraction.
To understand the full scope of her transition from indie darling to A-lister, you can track her career path through her work with directors like Tarantino and Radio Silence, but Anora is the one that will define her legacy.