Sean Baker’s new film Anora follows a chaotic romance between Ani, (played by Mikey Madison) a Brighton Beach exotic dancer and Vanya Zakharov, (played by Mark Eydelshteyn) the son of a Russian oligarch.
The movie opens with Anora, or Ani as she likes to be called, working her regular shift at the strip club, in the midst of all the dimmed red and blue lights and loud music. In the middle of the overwhelming scene, the one eye-catching detail setting her apart from the crowd are the tinsels in her long brunette hair.
The shimmering strands sparkle throughout the night, while Ani is lap dancing, smoking outside with her coworker, and when she finally meets Vanya—they’re always present.
Hair department head Justine Sierakowski, says the inspiration for Ani’s tinseled hair look came from former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast member Adrienne Maloof and the singer, Beyoncé.
Baker didn’t want Madison to be overtaken with too many styling details but wanted her to stand out. The plan was to make her presence distinct from the other girls, and adding glitter or shimmer was the perfect solution.
“I was kind of nervous to bring the tinsel to him but he liked it,” Sierakowski said. “We did a test shoot and he wasn’t sure at first, but after we let Mikey pick out the tinsel colors she wanted to use, we ended up going with it.”
Sierakowski, who’s originally from Minnesota but now based in New York City, has been a hair stylist for 17 years. She explains she fell in love with styling for movies because it makes you think on your feet and Anora was definitely not the exception.
Tinsel Sourcing
The team sourced specific tinsel colors for Madison’s long brown hair, a blend of purple, magenta, and dusty pink, from Amazon and applied them from her nape to her parietal bone with microbeads, strand by strand.
“I would take one piece of tinsel to one bead and then clamp it. She has microbeads in her hair throughout the whole movie,” she explained. “The rest of the hair, I hand tied using slip knots, so these were fairly permanent. We changed those maybe a couple of times throughout the film.”
The process was gruesome but rewarding. “I want to say our initial application was probably closer to six hours.” The tinsel had to be retied and reapplied daily, and sometimes would need to be reapplied all over again. Hair pre-calls lasted a minimum of three hours, and with all the fight scenes and pole dancing, both she and the makeup artist, Annie Johnson, had a ton of work to do together to hide her bruising and make sure all the tinsels were there after high-impact scenes.
Anora’s Hair Throughout the Film
The tinsel was meant to be part of Ani’s personality. Sierakowski loved the idea because it added personality to the character, but is also a consistent detail that is present both in her work and personal life.
“I was really adamant that I only wanted her hair straight in those club scenes,” she explained. “I wanted something that felt sleek and a little bit standoffish, kind of like a shield between her and her clients, but also is a way for her to guard herself. I liked that the tinsel ran in her real life as well.”
For her, it was essential for Anora’s hair and styling to showcase her respect for the creativity and labor behind sex work. “Dancers and sex workers are so creative and fun. I was inspired by their looks and everyone we worked with. They were all so unique and very much themselves, you want something that’s going to make you stand out from the other girl,” she added.
The movie quickly descends into a chaotic spiral after Anora (*spoiler alert*) marries Vanya, translating through Anora’s hair changes throughout the different stages of their relationship. Sierakowski said that at the beginning of the relationship, Anora’s hair was a little bit more curly “because I still felt like she wanted to portray an image to him of who she is, and curls felt a bit more fun and flirty,” Later on, her hair was styled in waves to give her a polished, presentable look as if she’s playing the role of a wife.
In the final moments of the film, Ani’s hair looked disheveled as both Sierakowski and Johnson wanted to make sure the styling portrayed Anora’s struggles to the viewer. Sierakowski said that to achieve the final hair look for Anora she used IGK’s Jet Lag Weightless Dry Shampoo and the Direct Flight Style Preserving Dry Shampoo since they could only wash her hair once a week because of the tinsels, as well as the Dreamcoat Supernatural by Color Wow.
