Alex Ritman “Unexpected, very loud, a little bit scary… but good!” is how “Anora” star Mark Eydelshteyn rather delightfully describes the last few months since Sean Baker’s wildly entertaining strip-club rom-com won the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival.
Thankfully for the 22-year-old Russian — playing Ivan, a loveably hyperactive goofball and filthy-rich oligarch’s son who marries Mikey Madison’s Brighton Beach sex worker — he’s been “going through this journey” alongside his co-star, friend and fellow countryman Yura Borisov.
The two have been serving as each other’s personal “Inception”-style “spinning tops,” he says in his accented and slightly broken English, to “understand that it’s actually happening and not just a dream.” “We’re in America, right?” says Borisov, 31, with a smile as the two speak to Variety on a cloudy L.A.
morning. With Neon now widening “Anora’s” release across the U.S. as it rides a wave of goodwill that many expect could carry over into a fruitful awards campaign, the duo’s double act is only getting stronger. “Doing all this together has been so much better than alone,” Borisov says.
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