'Anora' is a fairy tale. It's also a Cinderella story for director Sean Baker.

Sean Baker is scrappy. For years, the writer-director has been making independent films about marginalized groups, from undocumented immigrants to sex workers. He casts his own movies, working with friends and talent he finds on social media. His 2015 movie Tangerine was filmed entirely using iPhones.

“Sometimes [inspiration] comes from a selfish place where I do what I want to explore and learn,” he told Yahoo Entertainment. “I want to know more about certain subcultures or microcosms because they’re not being shown in media, so my films are a response to what I’m not seeing enough of.”

Thanks to the success of his 2024 film Anora, which won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, he doesn’t have to pivot to more mainstream or family-friendly topics. The twisted fairy tale about a stripper’s whirlwind romance with a Russian billionaire is Baker’s own Cinderella story, in a way.

Baker told Yahoo Entertainment that “winning the Palme d’Or has very much allowed me to stay in my lane.” He doesn’t know what’s next, but it’ll be whatever he wants to do.

“There’s not any resistance. All resistance [has been] removed,” he said. “I can actually continue to make the types of movies I want to make the way I want to make them.”

Many of Baker’s projects have earned critical acclaim, like Red Rocket and The Florida Project, but Anora’s accolades are on a different level. Baker is the film’s writer and director, but several members of its cast have been involved in shaping it.

Baker chose Mikey Madison as his star before he even wrote the script.

“My wife and producer Samantha Quan … we always have our casting caps on, looking for people anywhere,” he said. “That can be on the street or in movies. In this case, I saw her in both One Upon a Time … in Hollywood and Scream, and … I made the decision there. She’s our Anora.”

In both films, Madison plays a gleefully violent killer, but Baker says she’s actually “quite shy and quiet” in real life. They shared a sense of humor and a love of movies, and he was eager to be one of the first people to show off her “incredible range.”

“I’ve never had a director want to collaborate with me the way that he did,” Madison told Yahoo Entertainment. “At first, I was a little shy in terms of being comfortable enough to share my ideas … but eventually I got to a place where I thought, ‘I love this character. I love this story. I love Sean. I’m just going to immerse myself fully into this process with him.’”

“We were able to collaborate and create this character together,” she added.

Baker set Madison up with consultants and experts to help her get ready to portray a sex worker, but Madison took things to the next level. She wanted Anora to look like a confident and “seasoned dancer,” so she spent months learning how to twerk, pole dance and give lap dances. She read memoirs, watched documentaries and even learned Russian, a skill that sets her character apart from the other dancers at the strip club where she works.

“I knew I had to dedicate myself as much as I possibly could and put all my energy into these things so that it comes off in a real and honest way,” Madison said. “The pressure I felt was pressure put on myself because I admire this community so much. I hold such respect for sex workers and what they do.”

Two other members of the film’s main cast signed on before getting a script as well — both play men who are tapped by Anora’s new in-laws to investigate her marriage. One was Yura Borisov, a Russian actor whose performance Baker enjoyed in Compartment Number 6.

The other was Karren Karagulian, who has appeared in all of Baker’s films. He lives in Brighton Beach, the Brooklyn neighborhood where Anora is set and is home to many Russian immigrants.

“Brighton Beach is gentrifying … but I feel like we were able to catch the last glimpses of its fading charm,” Karagulian told Yahoo Entertainment.

“That’s where I went when I came to this country 150 years ago,” he added jokingly.

Mark Eydelshteyn was cast as Anora’s love interest, Ivan, after an unusual audition, which he told Yahoo Entertainment that he thought he butchered. He recorded a tape of himself acting out a scene, but since he was nervous and didn’t know much English, he kept taking drags from his vape pen and switching languages.

“I had no clothes to look like Ivan, so I had to be topless,” Eydelshteyn told Yahoo Entertainment. “I do vape because it’s stressful and it makes me feel [like] myself easier.”

He said he sent in his self-tape and then tried to forget about it “like a horrible dream.” But Baker loved the chaos and vulnerability, and he got the part, rounding out a ragtag cast of slightly out-of-place actors who were passionate about the project.

“I didn’t have much direction to do because they all understood their characters so much,” Baker said. “There was not one toxic individual on set. Everyone was there to give it their all, and we were all on the same page.”

Anora is in theaters now.