Breaking Baz: Down-To-Earth Oscar Winner Mikey Madison Lights Up Vanity Fair Party; Unforgivable Hate Jibe Made To Karla Sofía Gascón At Governors Ball
EXCLUSIVE: Miles Madison is Mikey Madison’s twin brother, and the way he describes it they were “born at the same time.”
Family lore, says Miles, is that they had a cesarean birth “and we were plucked out” simultaneously to prevent arguments about who’s older.
More from Deadline
And does that work? Miles winks and says that on his birth certificate he’s listed one minute ahead of his Oscar-winning sibling.
The Madison clan is undoubtedly proud of Mikey. And I loved seeing how intuitively protective they are of her. They wanted to give her space to just simply breathe and take in the enormity of what happened Sunday night to the 25-year-old, who will be 26 on March 25.
They all sat in a sort of luxurious sunken sofa pit created for the Vanity Fair Oscars 2025 party. Intermingled with Mikey’s family were members of the Anora entourage; the film’s multiple Oscar-winning writer-director-editor-producer Sean Baker with some of his creatives; and, as one of his party put it, friends “of the Anora court.”
I thought that was such an interesting use of the noun because none of these people were in attendance to anybody. The blood family and the “court” strike me as the least pretentious people I’ve seen all awards season.
They’re independent film folk who shot Anora for $6 million; they’re not into bowing and scraping.
Colman Domingo made a beeline for Mikey the moment he spotted her at Vanity Fair. He’d changed out of the post-box red Valentino jacket he’d sported at the Oscar ceremony and was now draped in black Lurex Dolce & Gabbana with matching gloves. They embraced. I’ve witnessed the warmth that has grown between them during awards season.
RELATED: The Oscars: Best Looks From The Red Carpet
“Everyone loves an ingenue,” Domingo shares. “Helps if they’re as gifted and as grounded as Mikey is. She’s blessed,” he adds as he leads husband Raúl Domingo off to Madonna and Guy Oseary’s post-midnight Oscar party. Domingo knows how to get a party going. He was the energetic heart and soul of the Oscar ceremony.
Some plonker at the Vanity Fair party referred to Mikey as a “bit of a Hollywood starlet,” and I took issue with that kind of misogynistic bullshit.
For starters, it’s a connotation that suggests dumbness and Mikey sure ain’t that.
She’s shy and savvy. Smart and sassy. There are a handful of movie projects she’s having discussions about. All are director-led. Working with a great filmmaker is vital to her. She can take a little time to process the burden of attention, and then she’ll be ready for the next very important step.
She has good people at UTA to guide her — Rachel Arlook, Dean Fluker and Rich Klubeck — and Nicki Fioravante at Viewpoint has been indispensable.And then there’s Anne Woodward at Authentic Talent and Literary Management.
Earlier, after Mikey had her statuette engraved at the Governors Ball, she had a warm and lively conversation with Fernanda Torres that lasted a good seven or eight minutes; a lifetime when all eyes are on you.
Speaking of Torres. A little bird at the Vanity Fair party tells me that Sony Picture Classics will ensure that in the future it will not partner with the UK’s Altitude Film Distribution. Let’s just say that there was “strain” over things concerning Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here which, as SPC’s Michael Barker predicted in this space on Sunday morning, would take the Academy Award for Best International Feature.
While the film did receive a nomination for Best Film Not in the English Language at the BAFTAs, there was frustration that more of a push wasn’t made on behalf of Torres, although she was cited on the Best Actress list for the Oscars.
Vanity Fair was jam-packed when I arrived just before 11.
First face I spotted was Andrew Garfield’s.
I fueled up on cranberry and grapefruit juice plus a slice of Amalfitana pizza. I was happy to share with Willem Dafoe ‘cause I know he gets as high as I do on the Meyer lemons and pecorino.
I noticed that Timothée Chalamet, who was with Kylie Jenner and his mother, had swapped the pale yellow suit he wore at the Dolby Theater — probably because he’d been forewarned it would clash with the splendid soft gold colored carpet the Vanity Fair designers had laid. A most sensible move.
Cord Jefferson, who won the Oscar last year for his sublime adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel Erasure for his super film American Fiction, is in the early stages of penning an original screenplay. He tells me it’s a contemporary Western set in Arizona about two brothers searching for a third sibling.
It’s early days but already Sterling K. Brown, who received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role in American Fiction, as Jeffrey Wright’s brother, was standing there reminding Jefferson of his telephone number.
I’m very much a fan of Brown’s Hulu TV thriller Paradise and I’m thrilled there’s going to be a second season.
Also intrigued by the HBO Max-DC Studios series Lanterns which stars Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre.
London-born Pierre tells me he and Chandler are both playing Green Lanterns. “I learned my lines then came down for the party,” Pierre says. He’s back on set today.
Before, when I was at the Governors Ball, I had a little heart to heart with Karla Sofía Gascón, who, earlier, had been a Best Actress nominee for Emilia Pèrez. I’m not going to relitigate the social media comments that upended Netflix’s campaign for Jacques Audiard’s film opera. Enough of that’s been done.
As we spoke a most hateful thing occurred.
A guest at the Governors Ball, a Black man as it happens, was seated with a woman, and he was spitting out the word “disgusting.”
I didn’t want to create a scene, not in such a place. Karla went off to speak to other people and I confronted the man, I’m presuming that’s his gender. Again, he spat out, ”Disgusting, him,” pointing to Karla.
I suggested that it was the other way around.
This is the world we live in.
Going to other parties, including Vanity Fair, allowed me to forget for a few hours.
Then I looked at my phone and realized I’d taken a two-second video burst of the “disgusting” person and the stench returned.
Best of Deadline
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
