Luna Sofía Miranda wasn't supposed to be working the day she met Sean Baker at a strip club and her life changed forever. She was called in to work last minute as a dancer at a Brooklyn strip club. She struck up a conversation with what looked like "just another couple" at the bar -- and they turned out to be filmmaker Baker and his producer wife, Samantha Quan. The pair quickly discovered that Miranda was an aspiring actress and invited her to audition for the role of Lulu, the best friend and coworker of Anora.
The word Vanya uses to insult Igor and Garnick and Anora later picks up on, gopnik, is a word in former Soviet republics for a member of urban criminal subculture, or a young hoodlum.
Sean Baker said he was already a fan of Mikey Madison's work after seeing her in Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019), to the point where he rewatched it just to watch her scenes. While this film was in early development, he saw Madison in Scream (2022) with his wife/longtime producer Samantha Quan. As they were walking out of the theater, he immediately wanted to contact her agent for this part.
The F-word is said 479 times in the film, the most in any Best Picture Academy Award winner.
According to Sean Baker at a Q and A to Australian audiences, Lindsey Normington who plays Anora's rival 'Diamond', has a background as an exotic dancer, and provided a great deal of consultation during the filming of the movie.