NEW YORK – Mikey Madison's Oscar win was a dream come true – in her brother's case, quite literally.
"The Social Reckoning
," Aaron Sorkin's companion piece to the 2010 Facebook founding drama "The Social Network" (in theaters Oct. 9), marks the 27-year-old's first movie role since winning the Academy Award for best actress in 2025 for "Anora." Looking back on the whirlwind awards season, it "feels quite dreamlike," she says, "almost like I was watching it from a different perspective."In fact, the star's brother Miles, who sat next to her at the Oscars, had an actual dream that forecasted the evening's events.
"He had a dream the night before – it was almost like a premonition of sorts – we were listening to music and then we were dancing in the audience,"
she says. "It was so strange because then there was a commercial break, and they put music on, and Colman Domingo was getting everyone out of their seats and dancing. He was like, 'This is just like the dream I had!' "
"The Social Reckoning" sees Madison step into the role of Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower who in 2021 leaked internal documents suggesting the company was aware its platform can be harmful. A series of Wall Street Journal articles known as The Facebook Files alleged Facebook changed its algorithm in a way that boosted content that makes users angry and was aware that Instagram is harmful for many teen girls, among other revelations.
Playing Haugen, a Facebook product manager depicted as a reserved person most comfortable behind a keyboard, was a shift for Madison, who has been associated with playing unhinged characters prone to screaming, from a Charles Manson follower in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" to a Ghostface killer in "Scream."
"I was kind of surprised that it was offered to me. Because I'd never played a character like that and had really gotten into a pocket of playing – I don't know how, because I'm not like this in real life – very outwardly emotional characters, and wild and bombastic," she says. The role felt "so different and refined," so much so Madison wondered if people will "understand what I'm going for."
Unlike its predecessor, "The Social Reckoning" is fundamentally a journalism thriller, which pairs Madison's Haugen with Jeremy Allen White as Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz. The role was similarly a change of pace for White after playing emotionally tortured men like Carmy on "The Bear" and a struggling Bruce Springsteen in "Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere."
"I've gotten in the habit of playing characters [whose] conflicts are massive and internal," White, 35, says. "What was a relief about playing Jeff is his conflict was an external one."
The movie was also quite literally a change of pace for both stars, given that Sorkin is famous for his rapid-fire dialogue. On his first day, White felt like he "got hit by a truck" keeping up with the speed of the scene, and at the end of the day, he had to "lock myself in the hotel room and bury my head in the script" to be sufficiently prepared.
Coming off his Springsteen biopic, White wasn't jonesing to play another real person. "When I met with Aaron, the film 'Deliver Me From Nowhere' was about to come out. I was a nervous wreck," he says. "I felt such a huge responsibility to Bruce and his work, and I wasn't ready to sign up for that again."
He was put at ease, though, after Sorkin explained he wasn't asking for a strict imitation. Madison took the same approach, though she still "put the pressure on myself" to do right by Haugen. "The real Frances is an incredible, very brave woman, and I'm hopeful that I did her story justice," she says.
While "The Social Reckoning" is a companion piece to "The Social Network," Jesse Eisenberg declined to return as Mark Zuckerberg, because he doesn't want to be associated with the Facebook founder. Jeremy Strong takes over, and Sorkin says the "Succession" star immersed himself so deeply in the role, he "only spoke as Mark" during filming and even sent him emails arguing Zuckerberg's point of view.
"I never saw him or heard him speak in his own voice on the set," says Sorkin, who warned the other actors that Strong would "treat you the way he imagines Mark treats the people around him" and would "put headphones on and ignore everybody" between takes.
But while Strong's immersive acting style has sometimes drawn mockery online, Madison admired it.
"He really puts his process first and isn't shy about that," she says. "There's a big part of me that's very worried about being too polite. I appreciated that he was like, 'This is how I can give you the best performance.' "
For White, who shares two kids with his ex-wife, actress Addison Timlin, the film's exploration of how social media can be harmful for young people hit close to home. "It's important to me that my children, and all young kids, have as much time to live in as small a world as possible," he says.
Madison, meanwhile, connected to Haugen's journey of fighting to have her voice heard, with few around her willing to listen.
"I feel like all women have had that experience," she says. "There have definitely been times when I was a younger actress and just less established, I felt like my voice wasn't being as listened to as I hoped it would be, or at times where I felt more like a puppet and not really like an actress with a voice."
In a post-"Anora," world, though, it's a different story.
"Now, I do feel like I'm in a place, at least in my career, where I'm listened to," she says.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mikey Madison shares bizarre dream that foreshadowed her Oscar win
