Who Is Mikey Madison? Inside the Oscar Winner's Career So Far

Mikey Madison is the American actress who won the 2025 Academy Award for Best Actress for her lead role in Sean Baker’s “Anora,” capping a decade-long climb from short films and TV guest spots to one of the most talked-about performances in recent Oscar history. Here’s a look at how she got there, what made “Anora” such a turning point, and what she’s doing next.

Who is Mikey Madison?

Mikey Madison is an American actress, born March 25, 1999, in Los Angeles, who won the Academy Award for Best Actress at the 2025 ceremony for her performance as an exotic dancer in Sean Baker’s “Anora” (2024). The win was widely described as an upset, since Demi Moore had entered the ceremony as the presumed front-runner after winning the Golden Globe, the Critics Choice Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for a different film. Madison’s Oscar arrived after a run of smaller stage-setting roles across film and television that stretched back to her early teens.

How did Mikey Madison get her start in acting?

Madison didn’t start out aiming for Hollywood at all — she was a competitive horseback rider before switching her focus to acting at around age 14. Her earliest on-screen credits were short films, including “Pani’s Box” and “Retirement,” both from 2013, followed by her feature debut in “Liza, Liza, Skies Are Grey” (2015). She then spent several years as a series regular on the FX comedy “Better Things,” appearing from 2016 through the show’s end in 2022. In between, Quentin Tarantino cast her in a supporting role in “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” (2019), and she took a horror-genre turn in “Scream” (2022), building a résumé that mixed prestige television, an auteur-directed studio film, and mainstream franchise work before “Anora” arrived.

What was Mikey Madison’s breakout role?

Madison’s career-defining role to date is Ani, a Brooklyn exotic dancer, in writer-director Sean Baker’s “Anora” (2024). The independent drama became one of the year’s most decorated films, and Madison’s performance carried it through an awards season that culminated in her Best Actress win at the 2025 Academy Awards. Beyond the Oscar, she also won the BAFTA and the Film Independent Spirit Award for lead actress, and picked up nominations at the Golden Globes, the SAG Awards, and the Critics Choice Awards — an unusually complete sweep of recognition for an actress who, before “Anora,” was best known for supporting and ensemble work.

Why did Mikey Madison win the Oscar for Anora?

Madison’s Oscar win is generally attributed to the physical and technical demands she took on for the role, on top of the performance itself. According to interviews she’s given about the shoot, she trained for roughly five to six months with a choreographer on pole-dance work, studied Russian for scenes opposite the film’s Russian-speaking characters, and developed a Brooklyn accent for Ani. She has also said she performed her own stunts, including two fight scenes. Combined with a Best Actress race that many had already considered settled in Demi Moore’s favor, the win made Madison’s name known well beyond the festival and awards-season audiences who had followed “Anora” from its early screenings.

What is Mikey Madison working on next?

As of Monday 29 September 2026, Madison has two more films in the pipeline: Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning” and A24’s “The Masque of the Red Death.” In “The Social Reckoning,” she plays Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, in a cast that also includes Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong; the film is scheduled for US release on Friday 9 October 2026. In “The Masque of the Red Death,” a reimagining of the Edgar Allan Poe story directed by Charlie Polinger, Madison stepped into a role originally attached to Sydney Sweeney and plays twin sisters opposite Léa Seydoux. That production has finished filming, but A24 has not yet announced a release date.

Has Mikey Madison talked about her personal life?

Madison has spoken publicly about wanting marriage and a family someday, but she has framed it as a personal hope rather than an announcement about any specific relationship. The comments came in an interview tied to her October 2026 Vogue cover story, published ahead of Vogue World: Milan, in which she also reflected on finding her voice as an actor and on winning the Oscar. Nothing in her public statements points to an engagement or a confirmed relationship — just her own stated wish for what she’d like her life to include down the line.

The bottom line

From junior riding competitions to an Academy Award, Mikey Madison’s path has been built on steadily larger roles rather than a single overnight break. With “The Social Reckoning” arriving in theaters and “The Masque of the Red Death” still awaiting a release date, her next act is already taking shape.