Mikey Madison was willing to undergo a full physical transformation for The Social Reckoning, but director Aaron Sorkin told her it wouldn't be necessary.
When the Oscar-winning actress was offered the role of Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen in Sorkin's The Social Network follow-up, she felt compelled to play Haugen but was concerned they looked nothing alike.
"I met Aaron, and I was like, 'I love this script. This is an amazing character. But I don't look like this person at all,'" Madison recalled in an interview with U.S. Vogue.
Madison told Sorkin she was willing to undergo a total physical transformation, but he insisted that wasn't what he had in mind.
"Listen, if you're playing Elvis or Lucille Ball, there's an obligation to approximate some kind of physical or vocal impersonation," Sorkin explained to the publication. "But that wasn't here. I wanted her to just play the character in the script."
The Anora star noted that while she "trusted" Sorkin's instincts, the instruction threw her, adding, "For a while I was like, How do I play someone and use her name but not feel like I'm authentically representing her in that way?"
To help her find the character physically without a major transformation, Madison cut her hair shorter and dyed it a "mousier" shade.
The 27-year-old also exchanged emails with the real Haugen and got the impression that she didn't mind their lack of resemblance because she "really just wants the story to be told".
Elsewhere in the interview, Madison admitted it was "challenging" going from Anora, where improvisation was encouraged, to The Social Reckoning, where she had to stick faithfully to Sorkin's script.
"It was challenging, in some ways, especially because Anora was the movie that I did before Reckoning. That was an entirely different energy and vibe and had so much improvisation. With Aaron's dialogue, it's scientifically perfected, in a way," she said. "Because every line and every word is very intentional, and so it's important to do that in a certain way."
The Social Reckoning, also starring Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong, is in cinemas now.
