An Oscar night shaped by family

When Mikey Madison won the Academy Award for Best Actress on March 2, 2025, she was surrounded by more than the usual awards-season glitter. Her twin brother, Miles, was seated at her side inside the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, watching as the star of Anora heard her name called. During her acceptance speech, Madison made her family part of the moment, thanking her parents, her sister, her younger brother and then her twin with a laugh.

"Thank you to my incredible family," Madison said from the stage. "My mom and my dad and my sister and my little brother. And my twin brother, Miles: thank you for being my best friend, not that you have a choice." The line captured the warm, playful relationship she has with the sibling who was born one minute before her.

Mikey Madison has four siblings: two older sisters, a younger brother and her twin brother, Miles. She grew up in Southern California with psychologist parents, and she has often said that she never expected to be the only performer in her family. Now that she has an Oscar, her siblings have become a fascinating part of her story.

Key facts about Mikey Madison’s siblings

• Mikey has two older sisters, one younger brother, and her twin brother, Miles.
• None of her siblings work as actors.
• Her younger brother practices parkour.
• One of her sisters married a writer, which Mikey has credited with sparking her own interest in acting.
• Miles is her closest friend and was with her on Oscar night.
• Miles was born one minute before Mikey, so he officially counts as the older twin.

A childhood in Santa Clarita and Woodland Hills

Mikey Madison and her siblings were raised by their parents, both psychologists, in Santa Clarita, a suburban city north of Los Angeles. The family later moved to Woodland Hills, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. It was a grounded, academically inclined household, but Mikey’s path took a different route from the rest of her family.

As a child, Madison was a devoted horseback rider. She told an interviewer in 2024 that she began homeschooling herself in seventh grade so she could "be at the barn all day with my pony." Eventually, however, she found the isolation of competitive riding difficult. She felt called in another direction and started taking acting classes. That decision eventually led her to roles in Better Things, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Scream, Ladybug and finally Anora.

Despite her rise in Hollywood, her siblings have remained outside the industry. In 2017, Madison told an interviewer that she was the only actor in her family. "My little brother does Parkour," she said. "My sister married a writer, so I think that’s what sparked my interest in acting."

Her twin brother: born at the same time, listed one minute older

Mikey and Miles were born on March 25, 1999. Their entrance into the world was almost unusually cooperative. Miles later explained that the twins were born by cesarean section and were "plucked out" at the same time, a decision their parents made to avoid any future arguments about which twin was older. Still, the birth certificate has Miles as one minute older, a detail that will likely never stop being a joke between them.

Over the years, Miles has become far more than a sibling to Mikey. She has repeatedly described him as her closest friend. That closeness made Anora a particularly emotional project for her. She was not only debuting a challenging, fearless performance in front of the world; she was also waiting for the verdict of the person whose opinion mattered most.

His reaction to watching ‘Anora’

Madison was open about her nerves before her family saw Anora. The film follows Ani, a New York exotic dancer and sex worker, who marries the son of a Russian oligarch in a whirlwind Las Vegas-style romance. The performance was physically daring, emotionally raw and filled with adult content, so she knew the family screening would be a significant moment.

"I was nervous about my family seeing it because you want them to like your work," Madison said in a November 2024 interview. "My twin is my closest friend, so I was able to ask him, ‘Did you like it? Do you think I’m a good actor?’ "

Miles’s reaction was exactly what she needed to hear. Mikey shared that her twin was "speechless" when he first saw Anora. When he finally spoke, he told her, "Mikey, I didn’t see you at all; I just saw the character." For Madison, that specific compliment meant more than any critics’ praise. "Coming from him, that was really special to hear," she recalled.

The entire family embraced the film. Madison said on The Tonight Show in January 2025 that her family had seen Anora more times than she had. "My family is very supportive of me," she said simply.

Standing beside her at the Oscars

By the time the Academy Awards arrived, Miles was already part of the awards-season story. He sat beside Mikey at the Dolby Theatre and was shown in an iconic photo congratulating her as she won Best Actress for Anora. The film had already earned the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, but the Oscar win cemented Madison as a leading talent of her generation.

During her acceptance speech, Madison did not forget the family who had seen her in a different light long before Hollywood did. She thanked her parents, who had given her the space to leave school and pursue horseback riding, and she thanked her siblings for their love. Then she turned her attention to Miles. He was the one sitting next to her when she said, "Thank you for being my best friend, not that you have a choice." Her twin’s smiling face in the audience quickly became part of the night’s emotional coverage.

An ‘SNL’ shout-out for Miles

Less than a month after the Oscars, Mikey Madison hosted Saturday Night Live in March 2025. Naturally, Miles was in the audience. During her opening monologue, Madison introduced him to the world in her own playful way.

"I’ve always been really close with all my siblings, and, actually, my twin brother is here to support me," she said. "Let’s see if you can guess which one of these guys is my twin brother? If you guessed the one who looks like Ron Weasley on testosterone, you win!" The joke charmed viewers and gave the late-night audience a quick lesson in Madison family dynamics.

Not always the affectionate twins

Despite their close bond today, Miles was not always eager to claim his famous twin. In a January 2025 interview, Mikey explained that Miles used to pretend they were not siblings when they were younger. She was deep into horseback riding, and her gym routine, wardrobe and weekend schedule revolved around the barn. She jokingly called herself "the weird horse girl."

"On the last day of school, people would ask him, ‘Miles, why are you getting into Mikaela’s car?’ He’d say, ‘Oh, that’s my sister,’" she recalled. "He’s since apologized. At some point, I grew into myself a bit more. But for a long time, I was the weird horse girl."

That confession made their current relationship feel even more special. The twin who once downplayed their connection had become her most trusted movie companion, her red-carpet guest and the person she turned to for honest feedback.

A brother who bet on her Oscar nomination

Before Madison’s Oscar win, another one of her brothers showed his confidence in a very practical way. During the run-up to the 2025 Academy Award nominations, she revealed that one of her brothers had placed a significant bet on her getting nominated. It was a gamble that paid off when her name was announced in the Best Actress category.

"My brother, he bet a lot of money on the nomination, so I think he was happy that I got nominated," Madison said. The rest of her family may not have placed financial wagers, but they were just as supportive. She described them as "really excited" and "very proud."

At the time the nominations were announced, Madison was in New York, away from her family. She shared that she was on FaceTime with her mom, dad and brother as the news was revealed, proving that even when she could not be home, her family was part of every milestone.

From the school years when Miles kept his distance from his sister’s horseback-riding hobby to the night she won an Oscar while he sat at her side, the Madison siblings have come a long way together. For Mikey Madison, the statuette is a career achievement, but the real prize may be having a family that watched her turn from a self-described weird horse girl into one of the most celebrated actresses in the world.

Source: Yahoo Entertainment News