The Oscars 2025: how Anora winner Mikey Madison was transformed with hair and make-up design

Mikey Madison, the breakout star of Sean Baker’s Anora, has won the 2025 Oscar for best actress for her titular role in the film. At the ceremony in Los Angeles (2 March 2025), Baker became the first person in Academy Award history to take home all four golden statuettes for best director, cinematography, original screenplay and picture.

Baker’s fellow nominees included Brady Corbet and Coralie Fargeat, the respective directors of The Brutalist and The Substance. (The hair and make-up team who worked on Fargeat’s film to create the grisly prosthetic design worn by Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, won the Oscar in this category).

Albeit in wildly different ways, both The Substance and Anora ask audiences to cross-examine feminist themes in the context of late capitalism. And, although the hair and make-up in each film are also diametric opposites, they are equally important parts of the storytelling.

For Madison to become Anora ‘Ani’ Mikheeva – a 23-year-old sex worker from Brighton Beach who marries the son of Russian Oligarchs – collaboration with New York-based hair and make-up leads Justine Sierakowski and Annie Johnson was an integral part of the actor’s methodology. Here, both Sierakowski and Johnson take Wallpaper* behind the scenes of this process.

Anora: the hair and make-up behind Mikey Madison’s transformation

Wallpaper*: How were you brought on board as Anora’s hair and make-up leads?

Annie Johnson: I had previously worked with one of my best friends, Jocelyn Pierce, who was the costume designer on Anora. She gave me a call and she was like: ‘Hey, listen, Sean Baker is looking for a make-up artist for his new film. Are you interested?’ My ears immediately perked up. She put me in contact with the producers and I went through maybe eight interview rounds in total. I think they had spoken to several different make-up artists and were struggling to find the right person because Sean likes less make-up in his films than you might expect – and that’s a surprisingly difficult thing to achieve on screen. But it’s something that I often do in my work on films, so I got the job.

Justine Sierakowski: When I got hit up to do this job I remember thinking: ‘Oh shit, I love Sean Baker’s work!’ Annie had brought on Callie Filion, another great make-up artist as our HMU swing, who would be assisting on the film. She recommended me for hair. I had worked with one of the film’s producers before I got hired and the rest went from there. The opportunity to work on Anora was like a dream coming true. I had to slap myself and get my shit together! I’d never worked with Annie before, but we immediately hit it off and started a creative dialogue right off the bat. We did a couple of jobs together to see how we flowed – even a Jimmy John’s sandwich commercial. It’s was wild going from a sandwich commercial to an Oscar-nominated feature film.

W*: How did you work with Sean Baker and Mikey Madison to map out what the hair and make-up might look like once filming began?

AJ: Sean put a lot of it in our hands. We knew the gist of what he was looking for, but he didn’t know the specific terminology. He kept calling eyeliner mascara, for example! But he knew what elements of Anora’s character he wanted to communicate through the hair and make-up. Sean is very invested in trusting the expertise of the team he’s working with. So he was really open to ideas.

JS: Annie and I spent a lot of time getting familiar with the script before we sat down to have a conversation with Sean. He already knew that we would be working with Mikey, as he only ever wanted to cast her in the role. And then once we had more of a concrete idea of what we were doing, and what we wanted to do, we moved into collaborating with Mikey.

W*: What references did you have pinned to your moodboards for hair and make-up?

AJ: Mikey has such a unique eye shape. Sean had come to me with some 1970s film references, which was very natural skin but really thick, winged eyeliner. So we ended up doing a toned down and modernised version of this.

JS: In the initial conversations with Sean, he was keen to have something glittery or sparkly in the hair, because Anora’s name means ‘light’. I immediately thought about Adrian Maloof’s hair tinsel extensions in the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I did a lot of research on Pinterest. During pre-production, we did some tests with different colours of tinsel. Mikey then picked out the colours she wanted; a combination of purple, magenta and light pink.

W*: What were the technical aspects when it came to transforming Mikey Madison into Anora aka ‘Ani’?

JS: I used microbeads to attach the tinsel to Mikey’s hair, so they are clamped in. Then everything else is tied on with slip knots. The bottom layer was more permanent than the top, so there was a lot of work resetting her hair between takes. Particularly between her pre-home invasion look and her post-home invasion look. It was more of a beast than I was expecting.

AJ: Mikey’s acting was so physical that she had so many bruises from the fight scenes and the dancing. So equally, Justine and had about three hours of work to do before she would be ready. We would start work every morning at 3am. I also added the bow tattoos on the back of her legs and I went through months of trying to get the process right for this in order for them to look right. I eventually got them made through Tinsley Transfers in LA. They did an amazing job. They sent me hundreds of transfers, as we had to apply them four or five times a day, as they would sometimes rub off on the costumes and when she was lap dancing.

W*: What other products did you use for the make-up and hair?

AJ: To cover bruises, I was using the Sian Richards Hydroproof Palette. Its completely waterproof and transfer-proof. It was in my kit at all times and I went through a whole palette on Mikey during filming. I used Ardell false lashes from the drugstore and Makeup by Mario Ultra Suede lip pencil in the shade Toasty. A lot of setting spray was used. It was really cold whilst we were shooting, too, so I was trying to keep Mikey’s skin hydrated with products from Tatcha.

JS: We kept things simple. I used a lot of the IGK Hair Direct Flightand Jet Lag dry shampoo, which gave Mikey’s hair a lot of texture. We would have to map out when she was able to wash her hair [for continuity]. So the dry shampoo would suck up some of the oil whilst giving her hair more life. The Colour Wow Dreamcoat Supernatural Spray would really help with frizz in the damp conditions when we were filming outside, as she has pretty thick and wavy hair.

W*: There’s a scene in Anora when Ani is outside the club comparing nail designs with another dancer called Lulu. Who created them?

AJ: The nails were done by Joy Accardi of Claws by Joy, an artist based in Brooklyn. She created a custom diamanté butterfly design for Ani, which works with the theme of transformation that runs throughout Anora. The other design in this scene, the dollar symbol nails worn by Lulu, was something that I picked out from one of the images on Joy’s Instagram. There is a lot of symbolism here, too. But this scene wasn’t scripted. It was Mikey using the nails in improvised dialogue.

W*: What was it like when you both watched Anora in full at its premiere in Cannes?

AJ: At Cannes, Justine and I were sitting right next to each other and we were just like holding each other’s hands the entire time. It was truly amazing. There was such a vibe in that room. Clapping, shouting...

JS: Oh it was such an overwhelming moment. Me and Annie were probably the closest to Mikey on set, as we worked so intensely together from really early in the morning to last thing at night. We formed a real friendship and bond. I think the hair and make-up room became a serene, safe place for her, you know. She had a lot on her plate during that movie – she truly gave it everything she had.

anora.film