Meet the sex workers of Anora now eyeing Academy Awards success | Global News Avenue

In 2022, Luna Sofia Miranda did her best to attract him when she approached Sean Baker at a New York strip club.

But he “apparently doesn’t want to buy lap dances,” she said.

Miranda, 23, then started asking why he and his wife were there.

“I’m nosy,” she said. “So I kept asking them questions and I finally got it out of them. They’re making movies about strippers.”

She told them she had learned to perform and – after a successful audition – received a call on her 24th birthday, providing her with part of the film.

That movie Anora is now considered one of the leaders who headed to the Oscars on Sunday.

It is directed by Baker and star Mikey Madison, who is her best actress as a New York stripper.

Madison, 25, relies on real-life strippers to help her perfect this part.

When she won the BAFTA Movie Award Last month, she dedicated it to the sex worker community.

“I was able to meet some of the communities through my research on film, which is one of the most incredible parts of making a film,” she told us.

They “deserve to be respected and don’t get it often. So I have to say something,” she added.

We have been talking to the actresses, strippers and dancers in the movie about their work experiences and their thoughts on the finished product.

Some people praise the film as realistic, especially when portraying the rejection and exhaustion that sex workers often feel. But others say the movie is “limited”.

Edie Turquet was initially unsure whether to participate in the movie.

The 21-year-old, who was a British man, appeared as a child in Harry Potter’s fantasy beast and now lives in New York, is a student and stripper.

An actor agent works as a background dancer in Anora after she finds her in a club where she works. But Turquet said the night before the filming that she had no debate.

“I don’t want to be part of a stripper movie or anything that’s going to be a harm to our industry, so I’m worried.”

“Most movies about strippers are super overexcessive, or bad and exploitative.”

Edie points to the 2020 film Zola, which tells the story of a waitress who goes to Florida for a weekend divesting for quick cash. “I find it exaggerated, totally making the work too layered and it feels like talking to women,” she said.

“And don’t let me start with beautiful women, it’s annoying, especially the idea of ​​the street worker played by Julia Roberts. Come on.”

But when Turquet realized that Anora was a Sean Baker movie, she changed her mind.

“His films are based on realism, and he has a style of filmmaking that I like,” she said. “So I was frustrated.”

Baker’s filmmaking skills also attracted Lindsey Normington to the film. Actress and stripper star plays Anora’s workplace enemy Diamond.

She said she saw his movie premiere on Afterparty and went to tell him she was a fan.

They made a connection on Instagram, and a few months later he contacted her to tell her that he might play her role in a new movie. “I succumbed to my knees,” said Normington.

In the film, Anora meets and falls into the son of a wealthy Russian, there is a chance to escape a fairytale escape.

Miranda, an actress and stripper who plays Anora’s best friend, Lulu, says her mission is to help Madison sound like a real sex worker from New York.

“I share language and terminology that only strippers from New York can understand,” she said.

Miranda explained that one of them was the “whale”, a customer, like a bottomless money. He will make your night. He won’t let you work hard for it at all. ”

The film also involved is Kennady Schneider, a stripper and choreographer in Los Angeles who trains Madison to dance.

She said Madison installed a pole in her Los Angeles house and the two began working on her “sexy routine.”

“She did a lot of work,” said Schneider, 28. “She was so determined.”

This section contains Anora’s destroyers

Miranda said many of the film’s themes, heartbreaking and rejection, were related to her.

“Sometimes I feel like people want to play with that shiny toy. They go, ‘Wow, like you’re a stripper. You’re so cool.’ And then they just put you aside and give you up,” she said.

“I thought about the ending a lot because I felt like Anora.”

Turquet agreed, calling the final “very relevant and poignant”, adding that it accurately portrays “tired and tired” strippers often feel.

“The sex industry has trauma built into it. It feels real. It’s an incredibly vulnerable industry,” she said.

“Every time you go to work, you put yourself in danger. It’s a complicated and exhausting job.”

But overall, she said she felt differently about the movie.

“A lot of stripper movies missed – the beginning of Anora, but not progressing – was about the moral issues of men who bought sex,” she said.

“It’s a question of agreement. Most of these movies avoid answering or studying it.”

She said the characters “never existed outside of their profession”, which also frustrated her.

“(Anora) is a very limited character,” she said. “We never learned anything about her. The film is the point of view of Igor and Vanya, which determines her identity.”

“It’s better than any movie I’ve ever seen, but ultimately it’s limited because it’s not told by the sex workers,” she added. “I can’t wait until we tell our own story and hope that opens the door for that.”

For Normington, the film reflects the “insecurity, competition and jealousy” she experienced in the club personally.

“I appreciate it’s not trying to be the typical stripper movie.”

At the same time, for Schneider, this is the film’s portrayal of the mundane nature of work.

In the early scenes of the film, we see Anora working, talking to the club’s clients.

We also saw her and other strippers eating from a Tupperware box in the back room at lunch time.

“It feels really accurate,” Schneider said.

“A lot of times in (stripper) movies, you have a charm and money falls off the ceiling. These moments do happen, but they’re rarely and far apart,” she said. “It’s more like a quiet hustle and bustle.”

When Anora came out, a special screening was held for sex workers in New York and Los Angeles.

Videos circulating on social media Strippers were shown pounding their heeled platform pleasant shoes on their heads to show appreciation at the end of the screening.

Madison told us: “That was the most beautiful applause I’ve ever received and I don’t know if this will happen again.”

Now, all eyes are on the Oscars.

Both Miranda and Normington will participate. “It’s stupid to think I’m going to the Oscars, but (at the same time) I’m arguing with a stupid man at the club for $20,” Miranda said.

“I feel like I’ve lived twice.”

Madison, she said, was “spotted”, saying the sex worker community was not receiving the respect it deserved, and saying she hoped Anora’s success could change that.

“My hope is that if the film wins an Oscar, it marks the beginning of a transition in Hollywood, where sex workers are respected, as workers in their field, as workers as artists,” she said.

“If this movie wins an Oscar, I want to see it.”