Mikey Madison | |
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![]() Madison in 2024 | |
Born | Mikaela Madison Rosberg March 25, 1999 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Occupation | Actress |
Years active | 2014–present |
Mikaela "Mikey" Madison Rosberg (born March 25, 1999) is an American actress. She began her career acting in short films and received recognition for her role as a sullen teenager in the FX comedy series Better Things (2016–2022). Madison then played Manson family member Susan Atkins in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) and Amber Freeman in Scream (2022).
For her breakthrough role as a sex worker in Sean Baker's film Anora (2024), Madison earned several accolades, including the BAFTA and Academy Award for Best Actress. She is the first member of Generation Z to win an acting Oscar.
Mikaela Madison Rosberg was born in Los Angeles on March 25, 1999. [1] [2] Both of her parents are psychologists. She has two brothers, one of whom is her twin, and two sisters. [3] [4] She lived in Santa Clarita, a Los Angeles suburb, for the first few years of her life, before her family moved to the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. [5] She initially trained as a competitive horseback rider before switching to acting at age 14. She was homeschooled after the seventh grade. [2] [6] Her grandmother's cousin was a Texas cowboy named Clarence Hailey Long Jr., who appeared on the cover of the August 1949 issue of Life magazine, which served as the main inspiration for the Marlboro Man. [7] [8] She is Jewish. [2]
Madison made her acting debut in 2013, appearing in the short films Retirement and Pani's Box. [9] In 2014, after appearing in the short film Bound for Greatness, she filmed her first feature film, Liza, Liza, Skies Are Grey , which was not released until 2017. [10] [11]
In 2016, Madison began a starring role as Max Fox, a sullen teenager, in the FX comedy-drama series Better Things created by Louis C.K. and Pamela Adlon, which ran until 2022. [12] [13] From 2017 to 2018, she guest starred in the Bravo dark comedy series Imposters . [14] In 2018, she appeared in the drama films Monster and Nostalgia . [15] [16]
Madison earned recognition for her role as the Manson Family member Susan "Sadie" Atkins in Quentin Tarantino's period drama film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood , [17] [18] which premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and was a commercial success. [19] Also in 2019, she had a voice role as Candi, the Barista, in the animated black comedy film The Addams Family . [20]
The following year, Madison was cast as Amber Freeman in Scream, the fifth film of the Scream franchise, which was directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. [21] The film was released in 2022 to critical and commercial success, [22] [23] [24] becoming the 28th-highest-grossing film of its year. [25] Writing for The A.V. Club , Katie Rife called Madison a standout performer in the film. [26] [27] In 2024, Madison had a supporting role in the miniseries Lady in the Lake. [28]
Filmmaker Sean Baker cast Madison in the comedy-drama film Anora as the titular stripper and sex worker. [29] He cast her without an audition after watching her performances in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Scream, and wrote the character specifically for her. [30] [31] For the role, she studied Russian and performed her own stunts, including two fight scenes. [32] [2] She also studied pole dancing and temporarily relocated to Brighton Beach, the neighborhood setting of the film, in preparation for the film. [33] The film premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim, [34] winning the Palme d'Or. [35] [36] It became a critical and commercial success, and Madison was praised for her performance. [37] [38] [39] Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair praised Madison's Brooklyn accent and found her performance "big and vivid, brash but charming". [40] Her performance won her the Academy Award for Best Actress (making her the first person from Generation Z to win an Academy Award in an acting category) and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, in addition to nominations for a Golden Globe and a SAG Award in the same category. [41] [42] [43]
In 2025, Madison guest hosted an episode of the live sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live . [44]
Madison lives in her native Los Angeles. [29] She is a vegan. [45] She does not use social media, saying in a November 2024 interview that it does not feel "authentic or natural" to her and that she would not "have anything very impactful to add" to social media. [46] She added that she is a "very sensitive person" who believes people should not read what others are saying about them and thus keeps herself "ignorant to that part of the Internet" for her mental health. [46]
She is Jewish, [2] though she was raised in a non-practicing household. However, she describes herself as a "very spiritual person." [47]
Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2017 | Liza, Liza, Skies Are Grey | Liza | [11] | |
2018 | Nostalgia | Kathleen | [16] | |
Monster | Alexandra Floyd | [15] | ||
2019 | Once Upon a Time in Hollywood | Susan "Sadie" Atkins | [48] | |
The Addams Family | Candi the Barista | Voice | [20] | |
2021 | It Takes Three | Kat Walker | [49] | |
2022 | Scream | Amber Freeman | [48] | |
2023 | All Souls | River | [50] | |
2024 | Anora | Anora "Ani" Mikheeva | [48] |
Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2016–2022 | Better Things | Maxine "Max" Fox | Main role | [48] |
2017–2018 | Imposters | Young Maddie | 2 episodes | [51] |
2024 | Lady in the Lake | Judith Weinstein | Miniseries | [28] |
2025 | Saturday Night Live | Herself (host) | Episode: "Mikey Madison/Morgan Wallen" | [44] |
Year | Award | Category | Work | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2025 | Academy Awards | Best Actress | Anora | Won | [52] |
British Academy Film Awards | Best Actress in a Leading Role | Won | [53] | ||
Rising Star Award | — | Nominated | |||
Critics' Choice Awards | Best Actress | Anora | Nominated | [54] | |
Best Acting Ensemble | Nominated | ||||
Golden Globe Awards | Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Nominated | [55] | ||
Screen Actors Guild Awards | Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role | Nominated | [42] | ||
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture | Nominated |