How Jewish is Mikey Madison?

Breakout actress Mikey Madison took home the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in Anora at last night’s Academy Awards ceremony, becoming the 11th Jewish woman to win the prestigious gold statuette. But just how Jewish is this newly crowned queen of Hollywood?

The 25-year-old Oscar winner, born Mikaela Madison Rosberg, grew up in California’s San Fernando Valley with two older sisters, a twin brother and a younger brother, and was raised by Jewish parents Tracy and Michael, who are both psychologists.

“I would always say growing up I was a proud non-practicing Jew,” Madison told journalist Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast in December 2024, adding that she did not attend Hebrew school and never became bat mitzvah – “but I wish I was”.

She said her dad had a “big bar mitzvah” in Israel “but for some reason we didn’t do it”. Despite not being raised as an observant Jew, Madison described herself as a very “spiritual person”.

But Madison seems to identify as Jewish in other ways. During an interview with Allure Magazine, she spoke talked about having to tame her naturally curly hair for the part of Ani: “We had done a screen test in Los Angeles, and it was raining and I had straightened my hair,” she explained. “And then once moisture hit my hair it just went like, sshooo! Got really curly, frizzy. And [Anora director] Sean was like ‘Oh no, what’s happening to your hair?' ‘I was like, ‘I’m Jewish.’ Like, I don’t know what you mean?”

The young Oscar winner has also frequently referenced her love of animals and her background in competitive horseback riding from a very young age, a hobby for which she was eventually homeschooled to allow her to devote more time to the sport.

But at the age of 14, she decided to pursue a career in acting when she noticed herself “craving some kind of deeper connection with people”, as she explained to the Washington Post.

“I remember [my mom] was just like, ‘How is my shy daughter, who can’t even look people in the eye, going to be able to do this?’” Madison said of her transition into acting.

She told Vogue last year: “I was intrigued by the intimacy and the connection that comes with acting. To me, it seemed very brave, deep, and emotional, and I don’t know if that’s something I was feeling as a horseback rider.”

She made her debut in 2013, acting in several short films before being cast in a starring role alongside Pamela Adlon in the FX series Better Things in 2016.

Madison’s big break came at 19, when she appeared as a member of the Manson Family in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The following year, she starred in the fifth installment of the Scream movie franchise, which is how she was discovered by Anora writer Sean Baker – who then crafted the titular character with Madison in mind.