'I didn't want to be in a bad stripper film': Sex workers eye Oscars success

When Luna Sofia Miranda approached Sean Baker in a strip club in New York in 2022, she tried her best to charm him.

But he "very clearly did not want to buy a lap dance," she says.

Miranda, who was 23 at the time, started asking why he and his wife were there.

"I'm very nosy," she says. "So I kept asking them questions and I finally got it out of them. They were making a film about strippers."

She told them she had studied acting, and - after a successful audition - got a call on her 24th birthday, to offer her a part in the film.

That film, Anora, is now seen as one of the frontrunners heading into the Oscars on Sunday.

• Anora star: Oscar talk is 'overwhelming and amazing'

It's directed by Baker, and stars Mikey Madison, who is up for best actress for her role as a New York stripper.

Madison, 25, relied on real-life strippers to help her perfect the part.

When she won a Bafta film award last month, she dedicated it to the sex worker community.

"I have been able to meet some of that community through my research of the film, and that's been one of the most incredible parts of making the film," she told us backstage.

They "deserve respect and don't often get it. And so I had to say something," she added.

We've been speaking to the actresses, strippers and dancers in the film about their experiences of working on it - and their thoughts on the finished product.

Some praised the film as realistic, particularly in its portrayal of the rejection and exhaustion that sex workers often feel. But others said the film was "limited".

Edie Turquet was initially unsure whether to take part in the film.

The 21-year-old, who is British and appeared in Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts as a child, now lives in New York where she's a student and a stripper.

She got cast as a background dancer in Anora after a casting agent spotted her in the club where she was working. But Turquet says the night before filming, she debated not showing up.

"I didn't want to be part of a bad stripper film, or anything doing a disservice to our industry, so I was apprehensive," she told me.

"Most films about strippers are super over-aestheticised, or bad and exploitative."

Edie points to 2020 film Zola, about a waitress who goes to Florida for a weekend of stripping for quick cash. "I found it hyperbolic, totally overglamourising the work, and it felt like it was talking down to women," she said.

"And don't get me started on Pretty Woman, which is infuriating, especially the idea of a street worker played by Julia Roberts. Come on."

But when Turquet realised Anora was a Sean Baker film, she changed her mind.

"His films are based on realism, he has a fly-on-the-wall style of filmmaking, which I love," she said. "So I was down."

Baker's filmmaking skills were also what attracted Lindsey Normington to the film. The actress and stripper stars as Diamond, Anora's workplace enemy.

She says she saw him at afterparty for a film premiere, and went up to him to tell him she was a fan.

They connected on Instagram, and months later, he contacted her to tell her he might have a role for her in a new film. "I fell to my knees in my house," Normington said.

In the film, Anora is offered a chance at a fairytale escape when she meets and falls for the son of a wealthy Russian.

Miranda, an actress and stripper who plays Lulu, Anora's best friend, says she was tasked with helping Madison sound like a real sex worker from New York.

"I shared a PDF of language and slang terms that only strippers from New York will understand," she said.

One of those words was "whale", which, Miranda explains, "is a customer who is like a bottomless pit of money. He will make your night. And he won't make you work very hard for it at all."

Also involved in the film was Kennady Schneider, a Los Angeles-based stripper and choreographer who trained Madison to dance.

She says Madison installed a pole at her house in LA, and the pair began working on her "sexy routine".

"She put in so much work," Schneider, 28, said. "She was so determined."

This section contains spoilers for Anora

Miranda said a lot of the film's themes, on heartbreak and rejection, were relatable for her.

"Sometimes I feel like this shiny toy, that people want to play with. They go, 'wow like you're a stripper. You're so cool.' And then they just cast you aside and abandon you," she said.

"I think about the ending a lot because I feel like Anora a lot."

Turquet agrees, calling the ending "very relatable and poignant", adding that it accurately depicts the "exhaustion and fatigue" strippers often feel.

"The sex industry has trauma built into it. It felt so real. It's an incredible vulnerable industry," she said.

"You're putting yourself in danger every time you go to work. It's a complex and exhausting job."

But overall, she said has mixed feelings about the film.

"What a lot of stripper films miss - and what Anora starts but doesn't go far enough on - is the moral question around men who buy sex," she said.

"It's the question of consent. Most of these films shy away from answering it, or looking into it."

She said it also frustrates her that these characters "never exist outside their profession".

"[Anora] is a pretty limited character," she said. "We never learn anything about her. The film takes the perspective of [male leads] Igor and Vanya, in defining who she is."

"It's better than any film I've seen about it, but ultimately it's limited as it's not told by a sex worker," she added. "I can't wait till we're telling our own stories and hopefully this opens the door to that."

For Normington, the film reflected "the insecurity and competition and jealousy" that she has personally experienced in clubs.

"I appreciate that it's not attempting to be a quintessential stripper movie."

For Schneider, meanwhile, it was the film's portrayal of the mundane nature of the job that struck a chord.

In the film's early scenes, we see Anora at work, talking to clients in the club.

We also see her and the other strippers on a lunch break, eating from Tupperware boxes in a back room.

"It felt really accurate," Schneider said.

"A lot of the time in [stripper] films, you have glamorisation, with money falling from the ceiling. Those moments do happen but they're few and far between," she said. "It's much more of a quiet hustle."

When Anora came out, special screenings were held for sex workers in New York and LA.

Footage circulated on social media shows the strippers banging their high-heeled platform pleaser shoes together over their heads, to show their appreciation at the end of the screenings.

"That is the most beautiful applause I've ever received, I don't know if that will ever happen again," Madison told us.

Now, all eyes are on the Oscars.

Miranda and Normington will both be attending. "It's kind of silly to think that I'm going to the Oscars, but [at the same time] I'm at the club arguing with a stupid man over $20," said Miranda.

"I feel like I'm living two lives."

She said that Madison is "spot on" to say the sex worker community doesn't get the respect it deserves, and said she hopes that Anora's success will change that.

"My hope is that if this film wins an Oscar, it marks the beginning of a shift in Hollywood, where sex workers are respected, as workers in their own fields, but also as entertainers," she said.

"If this film wins an Oscar, I want to see that."