Casting is Sean Baker’s great skill. He casts all his own films, walking through the world looking for talent to populate his stories. On his Palme d’Or winner “Anora,” Baker had characters in mind before he finished writing the script. He offered the roles of Anora to Mikey Madison and Russian muscleman Igor to Yura Borisov, who waited some six months before they got to read the final screenplay.
Baker saw the Russian actor for the first time in “Compartment Number 6” and “Petrov’s Flu.” “Those films were playing at Cannes the year that I had ‘Red Rocket’ there,” said Baker at Telluride. He called Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen and asked him how it was to work with Borisov. “He said, ‘He’s the best guy in the world.’”
A year after Cannes, Baker called Borisov. The actor in turn recommended Mark Eydelshteyn to Baker, telling him that he knew a young Russian actor who would be incredible for Ivan, the spoiled scion of a Russian oligarch having some fun in New York. “I understand that Sean needs some super-talented Russian guy,” said Borisov in Toronto. “That guy has to translate lines by himself, and [I knew] that guy could improvise, because it’s lots of improvising in Sean’s movies, and I know that guy has to be open for everything.”
Sure enough, Baker reached out to Eydelshteyn, who sent in a nude audition tape. The rest is history.
While Ivan is the flashier part, Igor sneaks up on you in “Anora.” He’s a quiet Russian working for a posse of Armenian tough guys who work for Ivan’s father. When Ivan impulsively marries sex worker Anora in Las Vegas, Ivan’s parents dispatch their strong men to get the marriage annulled. When they turn up at Ivan’s house, mayhem ensues. He takes off like the wind, leaving his new bride behind, kicking and screaming as she tries to escape.
The masterful “home invasion” scene has become the main topic of discussion around “Anora.” “It was long, around seven or eight days,” said Borisov. “It looks like improvisation in real life, but when we’re shooting, we did it carefully, because it’s lots of safety and camera points; if we broke something, we can do it one or two times, not more. And everybody has to understand what he will do, and we do it very slowly and little bit faster, little bit faster, without punching.”
Madison did not pull back on her ferocity. At one point, she scratched Borisov’s face with her porcelain nails. “Yes, I like it,” he said, “because, first of all, that’s funny. Second, it’s more easy to play for me if they really punch me and I really feel it and play it, and third, it’s absolutely love.”
Borisov was impressed by Madison’s ability to deliver her performance on a dime. “She didn’t need time for a turn on,” he said. “She’s very calm, and she said, ‘Yeah, I’m ready.’ And ‘Camera, action!,’ she’s gone quiet and needs one second to turn it on. And I need some time for preparing and will think about the next scene and think about what do I have to do? Maybe I have no sleep today to better do this. Mikey don’t need it. She just turned on in one second, and she could do everything.”
Eventually, Igor manages to pin Anora against his body on the sofa. As the movie progresses, the audience starts to realize, through the precise mise-en-scène, that Igor is trying to protect and support Anora, that he feels for her, sympathizes with her. At one point, he puts himself in danger to tell Ivan’s parents that they owe her an apology for how she has been treated. Is Anora aware of his feelings? And how does she feel?
“When Anora first meets him, he’s essentially holding her hostage,” said Madison in Telluride. “And so throughout that 48-hour period of time, it’s completely overwhelming and heartbreaking. I remember during filming, I would glance over and Yura as Igor is staring at me, and I would feel a certain way, but you push it aside and continue on with what Anora has to do and all of these moments. And so I definitely would feel that. But she has more important things to deal with.”
Borisov translated the script himself with a translator. Luckily, most of his performance is without words. He understood that the audience is trying to figure out what’s going on inside his head. “My goal was to give you space for thinking about this,” he said in Toronto. “That’s the most important. No answers. Just give you some questions.”
We know that Igor is a violent guy who knows how to beat people up. Is he a killer also? “Nobody knows,” said Borisov. “You can decide about it.” Borisov did no research into tough guys like him. “I can’t say that it’s fiction because it’s real to me,” he said, “because Mikey is real, her character is real, and she’s like a star at the center of the movie. And Igor is like a planet around her. He wanted to save her, and he absolutely believed this, because he understands if he lost her, the two guys Toros and Garnick could do anything to her. He knows them, and he knows their goals. Igor decided to help her. He didn’t know how, but he wants to help to her.”
Borisov has been on the “Anora” promo tour, from Cannes to Telluride to Toronto. It’s a whirlwind. He’s hoping something good will come out of this beloved movie, as it did with Finnish Oscar entry “Compartment Number 6.” It’s happened before.
A Neon release, “Anora” is in theaters now.
