MIKEY MADISON

If you want to see someone who can play absolutely unhinged better than anyone else right now, Mikey Madison is the one to watch. The Los Angeles lass hasn’t been around that long, but she’s already made a massive name for herself by playing characters that are completely wild, intense, and brilliant to watch.

Most people first spotted her in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where she played one of the crazy Manson family girls and ended up getting absolutely battered by Brad Pitt and his dog. She followed that up by jumping into Scream, playing a psycho killer who ends up getting set on fire in a kitchen. She’s just got this knack for playing people who look normal one minute and completely snap the next.

But she showed everyone she’s got serious acting chops when she bagged the lead role in Anora. She played a stripper from Brooklyn who gets married to a Russian oligarch’s son, and she was so good it earned her the Best Actress trophy at the Oscars. She didn’t just coast through it either; she spent months learning the accent and doing intense physical training to make it look completely real.

Right now, she’s one of the most wanted names in the business. She’s already wrapped up filming on Aaron Sorkin’s new movie The Social Reckoning, which is a massive follow-up to The Social Network, where she’s playing a whistleblower. She’s a proper talent who picks fascinating stories, and whenever she shows up on screen, you know you’re getting something interesting.

Insomniacs Trivia

• The Shrinking Brother Secret: Mikey has a twin brother named Miles, but when they were growing up, he used to play a massive prank on her by pretending they weren’t even related. On the very last day of school, his classmates were completely baffled when they saw him getting into Mikey’s car to go home. He had to finally admit to everyone that they were siblings after keeping the joke going for ages.

• The Marlboro Man Connection: Hard work and gritty style run deep in her family tree. Her grandmother’s cousin was a proper Texas cowboy named Clarence Hailey Long Jr. He was a rugged bloke who ended up on the front cover of Life magazine back in 1949, and his picture was the exact inspiration behind the famous “Marlboro Man” cowboy used in those massive cigarette adverts for decades.

• The Shrink Household: Acting wasn’t the family business at all for Mikey. Both of her parents are actually professional psychologists—her dad focuses on schizophrenia and her mum works with kids. Growing up in a house where everyone was constantly analyzing why people do weird things gave her a massive advantage when it came to digging into the heads of crazy movie characters.

Insomniacs Take

Mikey Madison is a class act who brings a proper, raw energy to every film she touches. In a Hollywood full of boring, safe actors who all say the same things, she stands out because she isn’t afraid to get down in the mud and play messy, complicated people. Whether she’s screaming her head off in a horror flick or leading a massive Oscar drama, she does it with zero fake celebrity attitude. She’s a top watch, and she’s only getting started.