Anora, his tragi-comedy about a lapdancer who marries a Russian oligarch’s son, is the latest in a line of acclaimed movies about sex work. The Hollywood outsider talks about ‘nightmare’ A-listers and the dangers of partying in his 50s

Sean Baker is fastidious about research, plunging himself into the milieu of whatever he happens to be making a movie about. And yes, he knows how that looks. “People online are like, ‘Oh, Sean is such a horndog! That’s the only reason he makes those films.’” He gives one of his joyful, crinkle-faced grins, his eyes vanishing into creases, his entire face seeming to smile. At 53, he looks as if he fell in the fountain of youth. His boyish ebullience and tousled hair lend him a Richie Cunningham wholesomeness which contrasts amusingly with the subjects of his films, if not with their bubbly, irrepressible tone.

His charming fourth feature, Starlet, was a buddy movie about a young female porn actor and a cranky elderly widow. His fifth – the riotous breakthrough hit Tangerine, shot with three iPhones on a $100,000 budget – was set among transgender sex workers on LA’s Santa Monica Boulevard. Red Rocket concerned another porn star, older and disreputable this time, who tries to coax his teenage girlfriend into the same career.