Exclusive | Inside the Brooklyn mega-mansion that stole the show in Anora: Its the jewel of New York City

The Oscar-winning film “Anora” may be fictitious — but the over-the-top mansion prominently featured in it certainly exists in real life.Priced at a staggering $30 million when it first hit the market more than a decade ago, this 14,000-square-foot Brooklyn behemoth — once home to a Russian heiress dubbed “Russia’s Paris Hilton” — is now basking in its own limelight. In the wake of the movie’s many victories on Sunday night, and as film buffs and real estate aficionados alike scramble to decode its allure, this mansion’s journey from oligarch hideaway to Hollywood darling offers a window into a corner of New York City few outsiders ever get a glimpse of.Directed by Sean Baker, who snagged Best Director for his efforts, “Anora” tells the story of Ani (Mikey Madison, newly crowned Best Actress), a street-smart stripper from Brooklyn, and Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the reckless 21-year-old scion of a Russian billionaire, who’s spending time away from Russia and living in this very property.Their rhapsodic, and star-crossed, romance unfurls against the backdrop of this jaw-dropping estate, a labyrinth of marble, mirrors, and excess that Baker stumbled upon with a Google search for “the biggest and best mansion in Brighton Beach.” He missed that mark by a few miles, landing instead in Mill Basin — a waterfront enclave where Russian wealth has quietly taken root for decades.Baker told Variety he found the house fairly easily, marveling at its authenticity: built by a real Russian oligarch, it was a casting coup too perfect to script.The mansion at 2458 National Drive is, to say the least, a statement. The residence presently belongs to a man named Michael Davidoff, a New York-raised financier born to Russian immigrants, who nearly turned Baker away. Living there with his wife and seven children — ages spanning 20-month-old twins to a 25-year-old — Davidoff hesitated to lease it out. With a 6,000-square-foot home around the corner s...