ALEX COCO on Producing ANORA

By Rebecca Green

A nominee for the 2025 Producers Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, Alex Coco’s latest film, ANORA has garnered endless critical acclaim and awards recognition, including winning Best Picture at the Critics Choice Awards, Best Theatrical Film at the PGA and DGA Awards, and five 2025 Academy Award wins, taking home the top prize for Best Picture. Alex sat down with Dear Producer to discuss his journey from film school graduate to Sean Baker's go-to producer. Collaborating with Sean on ANORA, THE FLORIDA PROJECT, and RED ROCKET, Alex showcases a commitment to authentic storytelling and maximizing resources that has become his producing signature.

Samantha Quan, Sean Baker, and Alex Coco celebrating their Oscar wins.

ANORA is being hailed as the most decorated film this awards season, but this isn’t your first film with Sean Baker. How did you come to work together?

I met Sean when I was in film school and I went to a screening of TANGERINE where he did a Q&A. His filmmaking style and approach really resonated with me, the run-and-gun nature of it, the independent spirit, breaking the rules, and getting it done by any means necessary. Working with non-actors was particularly interesting to me, as some of the greatest films have been made that way.

I went up to him after the screening to tell him how much I admired his work and we exchanged information. A few months later, I ran into him again after a midnight screening of Gaspar Noé's LOVE in 3D at the Aero. It was around 3AM and I asked if he remembered me, which he did, and he said he was looking for an assistant. It was perfect timing since I was about halfway through my last year at film school. I started working with him three days a week, doing everything from cutting trailers for fashion films to putting together clips of Bria Vinaite, who was eventually cast in THE FLORIDA PROJECT, to show financiers she could handle the role despite being a first-timer.

After I graduated, Sean asked me to come to Florida to work on THE FLORIDA PROJECT. I got my diploma and a week later drove cross-country in the producer's car with production equipment. I worked my ass off and filled as many gaps as I could, wearing as many hats as possible, to make myself essential. Even as an assistant, I was pushing for what we needed to make the film work.

Where did you go to film school?

I went to USC for grad school and Colgate University in upstate New York for undergrad. Growing up in Connecticut, I wasn't around filmmakers much, I was more admiring them from afar by watching as many movies as possible. When I got to Los Angeles, I was floored by how many films were premiering in my city with filmmakers doing Q&As after screenings. I made it a point to attend these screenings and talk to the filmmakers. If I wasn't getting much traction with them directly, I'd find their assistant, exchange emails, and stay in touch respectfully. My thinking was maybe they'll move on to another job, get promoted, and when they need someone new, they might remember that USC kid they already know instead of going through a stack of resumes. Sean was probably the fifth or sixth filmmaker I'd spoken to and he was the one who gave me my shot. While there was luck involved, my actions were intentional. I tell up-and-coming filmmakers this story and emphasize that point. I was strategically putting myself in positions to get opportunities. And it turned out to be the best fit. As soon as we started working together, it just made sense.

How did ANORA come about?

Coming off RED ROCKET, we were doing a commercial in South Africa and Sean and I had a lot of time between prep and the shoot to talk about what we wanted to do next. Sean had heard this story about a kidnapping situation, which was the genesis of ANORA. The sex worker angle came in very early since it's a topic Sean has routinely explored.

Sean's process involves having multiple projects on the back burner, but you never really know what we're going to do next. We bat around ideas for a while. We're doing that right now. He focuses intensely on one project at a time so he's concentrating on ANORA through the awards season and once it’s done, he'll land on which of the various projects we've been developing will be next.

I've been talking a lot recently about volume, that we don't need to make a movie every year. To have these highly creative pieces exist in the world, they have to be nurtured and that takes time. I think about my favorite bands, they don't put out a new album every year, it's every four or five years. That feels like a better time frame for filmmakers to be thinking about their work.

Absolutely. Sean really cares about his filmography and making something great. He writes all his material and edits the films too, so he's actively working on the present film that whole time, from early ideas through press and promotion. By the time he starts thinking about the next one, he's at the end of press on the previous one. It's wall-to-wall. He's not letting an editor put together an assembly while he writes the next film.

As a producer, around the time of RED ROCKET, I set a goal based on advice from a producer friend who said you should always have a film in development, prep, production, and post. I literally made three movies during that time, plus shorts and commercials. I was trying to always be at different stages on different projects. With ANORA, I really committed to seeing it through completely. I was even working as the post-production supervisor, which I'd also done on RED ROCKET. It's just our process with Sean to have a small post team.

I saw your post supervisor credit and really appreciated it. I've post-supervised every one of my features, but only gave myself the on-screen credit on my last two films. I started thinking, why am I not taking this credit? It's a whole job that I usually don’t get paid to do, but it’s a way I could earn a living in-between projects supervising other films. I know how to do it.

I'm proud of it. Sean is such a multi-hyphenate and from the beginning on THE FLORIDA PROJECT, I was doing so many things, some uncredited. On RED ROCKET, it was the same situation. I was an assistant director, post supervisor, and locations manager. That's just how we like to operate. All the producers take on multiple roles beyond producing. It's our ethos.

I noticed Sean and producer Samantha Quan had casting director credits too, which I also appreciated. I feel the casting director's credit isn’t always fair to producers. In most cases, I've cast the lead roles before there is ever a casting director involved because it’s necessary to raise financing to then be able to hire a casting director. A chicken and egg situation. What was the process for a film like this where there's so much room for unknown actors? How did you find Mikey Madison?

The casting on these films is always all hands on deck. Sean had seen the 2022 SCREAM and saw Mikey's performance in it. He immediately knew she was our Ani. We had been working on the project already at that point. We actually saw it the same night randomly - I was in New York, Sean was in Los Angeles. When he called me the next day about finding our Ani, I knew exactly who he was talking about.

For other roles, we had seen Yura Borisov in COMPARTMENT NUMBER 6 when we were at Cannes with RED ROCKET in 2021. Mark Eydelshteyn came in because Yura had worked with him on another project. Sean always wants to work with Karren Karagulian. He's been in every one of Sean's films, so we knew he would play Toros. Then Karren suggested Vache Tovmasyan to play Garnik.

For Ani's sister, who originally had more scenes, but we had to cut for time, I suggested Ella Rubin, who I'd worked with on THE SWEET EAST, because she looked so similar to Mikey. Samantha did a lot of connecting the dots with people in the community where we were filming. We knew some locations we were looking at, met families, and found that some of their kids were aspiring actors.

With the dancers, we met a couple who were very organized and paid them to reach out to their friends who were dancers. Samantha went through that list and picked people we thought would work well in the movie. Some of those people ended up with bigger roles. The redhead is played by Lindsey Normington, the bully character; she's an LA person that Sean had met at screenings. She was a dancer herself as well as an actress.

It's non-traditional, which is exciting. Because these films take time and are constantly evolving, we can meet someone new and adapt the role to fit that person. On RED ROCKET, Sean and I met many of the non-professional actors while scouting locations. We found Brittney Rodriguez, who plays June, walking her dog while we were driving around looking for houses. We met Marlon Lambert, who plays the muscle character, because he was doing construction work at a house we were interested in.

My favorite casting story from IT FOLLOWS ended up being one of the scariest moments in the film. The scene when the tall "It" creeps through the door behind one of the girls was originally written to just be a tall person, but at some point in prep, director David Robert Mitchell decided he wanted someone over 7 feet tall. Randomly, while our location manager was scouting a house, she told the homeowner about how we were on this silly chase for someone over 7 feet and the homeowner said there were actually twins down the road both over 7 feet tall and one wanted to be an actor. We ended up casting him.

That's amazing. The location manager cast that role! Sean is just so good at seeing talent immediately. I might suggest someone and he'll pass, but when I suggest the right person, he just knows instantly how we can use them.

Let's talk about how ANORA got made. Mikey Madison had been in movies before, but she wasn't the kind of known name that typically triggers financing. How were you pitching this project? Did Neon come in to make it with you or was it financed through private equity? How much of it rode on Sean's established track record?

We packaged the film with Sean. It was a "Sean Baker movie." We went to Glen Basner at FilmNation, who also financed RED ROCKET. We sat down for lunch with him and Sean pitched the story and knowing us and knowing Sean, Glen understood we wouldn't cast a huge movie star. It would probably be a discovery in the lead with most roles filled similarly. He did his calculation and gave us a number we could spend, which was six million, then we went off to write it and put it together. It was very simple, but we have an amazing relationship with Glen. This being the second film together allowed us to have that casual, easy lunch and get a film greenlit.

If we can make these films in responsible ways, with responsible budgets, it's easier for companies to get behind them because they can actually see the math of how they get their money back. Some indies are getting really blown out of proportion budget-wise. How do we keep making these movies and getting people to back them if we come out of the gate saying we need $20 million for what should probably be $8 million?

Glen is in sales so he knows what he can sell a film for. I don't know exactly how he knows or what conversations he's having, but he knows the market backward and forward at all times. That's why it's nice working with him. He’s very straightforward about what he can sell it for and what the range of money is that we can spend on it. Sean is such a theatrically-focused filmmaker that we know we won't make a deal with a streamer.

When did Neon come on board?

Neon had heard about the film early on and was keeping tabs on it. They officially took the US rights when we were shooting in Vegas, which was the last portion of the shoot.

Was there a theatrical commitment?

Yes, 60 days, which is a long time these days, but Sean won't go for less. He wants 90 on the next one, if anyone reading this is willing to give him that!

I was just reading on Reddit earlier today that people were complaining because THE BRUTALIST is just opening up in flyover cities. If we open too wide and don't do the numbers, we don't have time to build and for people to hear about us. The theaters won't carry us. We don't have the marketing dollars that bigger studios have to get the word out that we're coming to theaters near them. Streaming allows everybody to see it, but we make these movies for the theater. That's the way we know how to monetize them, or at least prefer to.

You're fully in the awards circuit including an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. How do you as a producer think about translating this recognition into the next stage of your career, your next project? How can you take advantage of this moment you're having?

For me, I'm hoping that the awards recognition makes it so that more people see the film. We need even more people seeing this movie and having a positive reaction to it to make it as much of a financial success as possible. Movies need to make money for people to want to keep making them.

I've gotten some knocks at the door because people have seen it. A director saw the premiere in Los Angeles with some financing people and they were all taking bets on how much we made it for. They were way off, thinking it was more than double our actual budget. When they found out what it really cost, they were blown away, which led them to reach out about working together.

I want to bring that value to as many productions as I can. I'm hoping that if enough people see the movie, opportunities will come from people being inspired or impressed by what we accomplished with our resources and budget. With ANORA especially, I'm so proud of the film because I have so many fingerprints on it. Sean is very inclusive with his small team, so there's so much decision-making about how and what we're doing that I'm involved in.

Hopefully you don't get pigeonholed into just small movies. When we get really good at making low-budget movies, sometimes we get stuck in the low-budget space.

That's definitely something that could happen, but I've been able to level up in budget size, starting at the lowest of low and getting to where I am now. Being able to put money on the screen is really a skill set of mine. We did it with RED ROCKET at a million dollars, we did it with our budget on ANORA, and if we did a $15 million movie, I will make sure that money gets on the screen.

That's the value I want to bring. It's the same with short films, just at different scales. It's always about maximizing what you have and making the best possible film. Every movie needs whatever budget responsibly makes the most sense. I'm not trying only to make films at a certain number. It's fun to play in different budget sizes and adapt. Working with Sean, we've done that - we were around $3.5 million on THE FLORIDA PROJECT, then dropped to a million on RED ROCKET, then jumped up again on ANORA. He's not just trying to go up, up, up. Every project is different.

What are you looking forward to in 2025? The saying was "survive to 2025," so now that we've survived, what's next?

I'm trying to set up a bunch of films. I have a few projects that are in a good place to happen, so I'm hoping to make as many movies as I possibly can and get ready for Sean's next film. That's my 2025 goal, to make as many features as I can.