Mikey Madison stunned film audiences around the world this March with her 2025 Oscars victory in the Best Actress category. Madison’s triumph for her portrayal of the тιтle character in Anora made her the ninth-youngest Best Actress winner in Oscars history, and meant she upset the overwhelming favorite to win, Demi Moore. Now, with speculation already mounting about her next project, there’s a hope that Madison could be an Oscar contender once again in the next year or two.
In light of the new statuette on her mantlepiece, Madison’s decision over her next movie could have important ramifications both for her own career and the Best Actress category at future Academy Awards. While she’s touted to be in contention for major franchise roles, including a part in Greta Gerwig’s prospective Narnia adaptations, it was a standalone romance movie that seemed more likely to garner Madison awards season attention in 2026 or 2027. That is, until Maika Monroe was confirmed as the lead actor in Vanessa Caswill’s romantic drama Reminders of Him.
Mikey Madison Was In Consideration For A Colleen Hoover Movie After Her Oscar Win – But Maika Monroe Got The Role
Maika Monroe Has Been Given The Lead Role In Hoover’s Reminders Of Him
The morning after this year’s Oscars, The Hollywood Reporter suggested that Mikey Madison had been offered a part in an upcoming movie version of one of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novels. The story quickly went viral, suggesting there was something in it, and it’s quite easy to deduce which role was on the table for Madison. There are three Colleen Hoover books currently being turned into movies, but only one of them hadn’t been cast before the 2025 Academy Awards. That was Vanessa Caswill’s adaptation of Hoover’s 2022 novel Reminders of Him.
This story appears to have a female lead role that’s ready-made for an actor like Madison to play. The novel’s protagonist Kenna Rowan is a 26-year-old single mother who spent five years in prison for causing the death of her former husband in a drunk-driving accident. The part is emotionally weighty and will need an actor with Madison’s ability to characterize mood shifts and trademark sense of humor to make it resonate. If the Oscar-winner actor had been cast in the part, it could have proven to be an even more challenging role than Anora Mikheeva, with similar rewards waiting for her upon its release.
But, as ᴅᴇᴀᴅline reported, Madison has now missed out on the lead role in Reminders of Him. The part of Kenna Rowan has instead gone to Longlegs and Watcher star Maika Monroe. We may never know how serious talks were between Madison and the team adapting Hoover’s 2022 novel, about the actor taking on the role of Rowan. Either way, this outcome might actually work out better for Madison’s career.
Mikey Madison Probably Wouldn’t Have Gotten An Oscar Nomination For A Colleen Hoover Movie
However Good Reminders Of Him Could Be, Oscars History Isn’t On Maika Monroe’s Side
Mikey Madison probably wouldn’t have been an Oscar contender for playing the lead in a Colleen Hoover movie. Hoover might be a best-selling author who’s received acclaim for her literary work, but the only film adaptation of her books released so far, It Ends with Us, was a critical failure. It’s likely due to the poor reviews and cast drama which engulfed It Ends with Us that Hoover has taken creative control over big-screen adaptations of her subsequent novels, including Reminders of Him.
We’d have to go back to the early to mid-2010s, when Jennifer Lawrence, Julianne Moore and Brie Larson all won the Best Actress Oscar, for the last times the winners in this category adapted characters from a drama or romance novel.
In some ways, this latest work could be even darker than Justin Baldoni’s movie starring Blake Lively. In the right hands, Reminders of Him could also be a much better film, with a stronger, more positive role model as its female protagonist. Kenna Rowan is one heck of a part for Maika Monroe to sink her teeth into, but it’s a role that is unlikely to bring awards consideration at the Academy Awards.
History isn’t on Monroe’s side in terms of a potential Oscar win for this role. We’d have to go back to the early to mid-2010s, when Jennifer Lawrence, Julianne Moore and Brie Larson all won the Best Actress Oscar, for the last times the winners in this category adapted characters from a drama or romance novel. In the end, it could well be for the best that Madison steered clear of this Colleen Hoover adaptation, following her Oscar-winning performance in Anora. She’s now free to pursue other projects that could get her back in the Oscars conversations much faster.
Sources: The Hollywood Reporter; ᴅᴇᴀᴅline
