Ever since his indie directorial debut "Reservoir Dogs" took the Sundance Film Festival by storm (en route to becoming obligatory dorm room postering throughout the 1990s), Quentin Tarantino has had a reputation for being a casting virtuoso. Every single part in "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction" feels divinely preordained, but credit must be shared with his casting collaborators over the years, starting with the late Ronnie Yeskel on those first two movies and continuing on to Victoria Thomas,
who's been working with Tarantino since "Django Unchained."
One of the more interesting elements of Tarantino's movies is his penchant for reviving the careers of one-time stars (e.g. John Travolta, Pam Grier, Robert Forster, and David Carradine); he's a cinephile, so he's not often in the discovery business. When you get cast in a Tarantino film, you've either happened or are on the verge of happening. Outside of boosting the careers of character actors, can you think of a time that Tarantino plucked someone out of relative obscurity and made them a star?
Oddly, Tarantino's only real bolt-of-lightning discovery is Christoph Waltz, an accomplished Austrian actor who, in his 50s, was primed to become the filmmaker's teutonic secret weapon (and win two Best Supporting Actor Oscars for his performances in "Inglourious Basterds" and "Django Unchained"). Other than that, he's found future stars on the margins. And one of those actors happened to become a Best Actress Oscar winner.
Read more: 15 Best Movies Without An Oscar
Mikey Madison Found Her Way To Anora Via Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood
Television fans will tell you that Mikey Madison was a born star based on her portrayal of Max Fox in Pamela Adlon and Louis C.K.'s FX sitcom "Better Things," but the latter comedian's scandal in 2017, due to his sexual misconduct allegations, kept the series from finding the audience it deserved. As a fan of C.K.'s since the mid-'90s, I wanted nothing to do with his new work until he publicly grappled with his deplorable abuse of power. When he returned to stand-up comedy without reckoning his misdeeds, I felt betrayed and angry.
So, I missed out on Mikey Madison's first major role, in which she was so spectacular that Tarantino and Thomas cast her in "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" as Susan Atkins, the Manson Family member who is believed to have stabbed the eight-and-a-half-month pregnant Sharon Tate to death. Obviously, no one wants to launch their career playing such a hideous monster, but when Madison launches into her kill-happy monologue regarding her desire to murder the occupants of that house on Cieleo Drive, we're frightened by the ferocity of her conviction.
It was right around this time that Sean Baker, having finished the very good "Red Rocket," was prepping production on "Anora." Baker is a rarity in this filmmaking profession in that, for the most part, he directs, writes, shoots, and edits his movies, in addition to casting them. And he couldn't move forward on "Anora" until he found an actor capable of conveying Anora's many qualities. Get the wrong performer, and the audience might turn on Anora and ditch the movie altogether.
Fortunately, Baker had seen "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" and been knocked out by Madison's twisted portrayal of Atkins. As he told Filmmaker in 2024, "I had already been very interested in her as an actor from 'Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.' She really stuck out in that movie to me — I went back for a third time in the theater just to watch that scene at the end with Brad Pitt."
Baker liked Madison but needed further convincing, which he found in Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett's 2022 "Scream" sequel. "I didn't want to move forward with any writing until we figured out who Anora was going to be. I had to have a face to write to," he explained. When Baker went to see the Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett's "Scream" with his wife Samantha Quan, it all came together for the filmmaker. As he put it:
"[W]hen we saw 'Scream' in the auditorium, I turned to Sam and said, 'She's Ani.' As soon as we stepped out of the theater, we IMDb-Pro'd her and realized she had the same agent as Brooklynn Prince from 'The Florida Project.' It was serendipity. We had a meeting with Mikey, and then it was really wonderful to be able to spend the next year fleshing the story out, always knowing that Mikey was Ani."
Serendipity with roots in Madison's portrayal of a cold-blooded killer in Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood."
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